Hair Salon Setup - Noob - Page 2

Just my humble 2 cents as a business owner about what you selected , it should work fine and it will sound better than you thought it would. I'm no audio expert by any means but I setup the sound system in my last store and it sounded great, in fact, it sounded better than or at least as good as any other restaurants/stores in town including national chains. For background music on a budget all you need is a decently powered receiver that can receive the sources you need, lower to mid-level speakers and a speaker selector that can supply them.

That said, I think the reason my store sounded so good was because I went overkill on the number of cheap speakers. The part of the store that had sound was basically a box. It had 12 ft suspended ceilings that was approx. 1100 to 1220 sq ft. and partially seperated by one wall. I put 6 pairs of 80w (maybe 60w, can't remember) speakers in the ceiling because I lucked out and found them as a close-out, discontinued deal for cheap. It really depends on the layout of your salon and how many walls you have but you cannot go wrong with more speakers for background music in my opinion. I suggest 8" because they sound a bit fuller than 6"even for lower volume background music.

For soft, background music for your salon, I say spend more money on extra speakers rather than worrying about things the guage of speaker wire. 16 Awg should be fine. If you were using the speakers in a HT environment I would suggest differently. In my new house I used 16Awg for my whole house system with a cheap Sima speaker selector and it rocks better than the NUVO system that I had in my last house which cost about 3 times as much. You can also probably go with less than 60-80w speakers, someone else from this forum would need to verify that since I'm no expert. Hope this helps and good luck with your business!

Rob

it is obvious..
if the person wants soft background music, the way to hear it is more speakers.

because if you are far from a speaker, you might want to turn it up some to hear it softly.
but under the speaker is much louder, and it might make the person want to turn it back down again.

that brings into question.. do you want to hear it softly VS. do you want to hear it at all?
the timing alignment can help some.. and sometimes it can do 'miracles' .. but mileage varies and that is reason for more speakers.

It is quite obvious that most of you are 100% stranfgers to commericial equipment or how to install a store based back ground music system.

To the OP, I have explained the PROPER and professional way to do this numerous times. At this point, it is futile to continue. You had the answer you wanted to hear when you first posted so why keep going?

A friend of ours just took his old Bose system and threw it up on top of the cabinets that hold the towels for the wash sinks, and called it done. Nothing extravagant needed. Most pop barbershops used to have a old single speaker AM/FM radio that usually played a game, or a old tv tuned to a game. Now it is FoxNews or ESPN on the tube, and some talk show or country station on the radio.

Majority of the time these days, customers are using their smartphones to browse the web, listen to music, or flipping through a magazine oblivious as to what is playing in the background, due to you cannot hear it because of the blow dryers and clients talking with the stylists.

..i think in all utter fairness it will come down to whether or not you want audio in all spots of the salon or if it is okay to be in some spots of the salon with little or no audio.

i think 2,000 sq ft is big enough for spots without audio .. but factor in the counter area for the cash register and waiting seats .. plus shampoo area .. plus any room in the back .. plus the chairs themselves

i would really need a floor layout plan to give any answer with some form of confidence.
i keep thinking the typical setup like any of the 'great clips' or whatever with the register up front and then the chairs behind it and then the shampoo behind that and then the 'back room' across from the shampoo area (the other side of the room).

but i've seen other salons with different layouts, and i think the emotional value.
for instance..
there was a place inside kmart to get a haircut and the layout was awesome.
probably one of the best, and it was small but could of been spread out.
you walked in and there was a counter.
behind the counter to the side a bit was a chair.
next to the chair on each side was another chair.
and basically it was like an H .. but i dont remember if the middle of the H had one or two chairs.
sometimes the long bars on the H are bent.
and a 4 feels more safe than all of the side sticks of the H .

no dobut..
i've seen televisions and radios in businesses, and sometimes the content on those things is more torture than leaving them off.