Karaoke Forums

Sorry gang, I have a request for equipment recommendations...

Two years ago I bought the Mrs. a VocoPro Twister unit for Christmas. You guys warned me and sure enough I had to return it as the player didn't work. After we got the new unit, It turned out to be the best present I ever bought her! She loves karaoke! I've spent a small fortune on karaoke CD's!!!

This Christmas I want to upgrade. Looking to spend about a $1000 on a pair of powered speakers for a large family room. I wanted to go with the JBL Eon's but it looks like those are being phased out and haven't seen many deals at all. Also looking to buy a mixer in the $200-300. I want to run everything through my computer, a mac mini, so I won't need a disc player. Would you recommend an external sound card? Anything else you would recommend?

Thanks!

You know what might work well for you and would give you some expandability in the future if you move it outside of your family room would be this all-in-one rig from Carvin:

http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/s ... 10&cid=101

It's got a pretty decent powered mixer, a pair of smaller two-way speakers that should deliver what you need without taking up a bunch of room. It comes with two microphones that while certainly not top of the line, I have seen used on stage and they're pretty decent. You're looking at about 200 Watts per side which should fill a family room easily and could probably even do a small party if you wanted to at some point. The mixer also has built in effects which are nice. This would be home karaoke on steroids as far as I'm concerned.

I would recommend using an external USB sound card, however it isn't really a requirement. Unfortunately I can't say that I'm familiar with which ones would work on a Mac so I can't really give you a good recommendation unless you want to go higher and and look at one of the recording style interfaces from M-Audio or the like.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

For the sound card...

I would recommend this cross platform USB card from EMU You can get them cheaper than the SRP on their site

http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp ... duct=15185

Have fun

I think letitrip should get an endorsement deal with Carvin.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

I'm a pretty big Carvin fan myself. I think they offer an excellent value for their price - whether it's their guitars, amps or pro audio equipment. I get people checking out, and complimenting the sound of, my 10 year old PA1200 all the time.

The funny thing is as much as I like their gear and recommend it to folks, I don't own anything with the Carvin name on it. However, I do have experience with a lot of their stuff and what I've found is that they put together a quality product at a good price. Their customer service is outstanding. The only issue I have with them is that I can't buy anything locally, it all has to be ordered mail-order.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

Please quote your source that the JBL EON's are going to be discontinued, are you talking about the G1's (Gray), the G2's (Black), or their new line of the 500 series EON's?

A good home system I have seen a few people have is the B-52 Matrix.
http://www.guitarcenter.com/B-52-Matrix-1000V2-103233151-i1153270.gc

For a mixer at home, you don't need anything really huge:
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Mackie-ProFX8-Professional-Compact-Mixer-105014823-i1425486.gc

A lot of DJ's have been talking and using this sound card and have been getting good results, which I am going to pick up 2 of them next week, which is simple & easy to use, plus they have inputs so you can record with them. USB interface, not firewire.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Behringer-U-CONTROL-UCA202-USB-Audio-Interface-702540-i1154403.gc


All these suggestions are within your budget for a great sounding home system.

Hope this helps....

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Lito
"It's all about having FUN"

I've been using Carvin amps for about 8 years now, my old bands sound guy turned me on to them, he had a killer 10K watt ALL (well except for a few processors) Carvin rig.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

OK, I just ordered the Cavin XP1000L-LM15 CHANNEL PA SYSTEM.

http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/s ... 15&cid=102

Hope the Mrs. will like it. Good choice?

More than adequate for a nice home set-up! You should not be disappointed.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Nice Choice Give us a report on how well you like it; Before you know it you will be wanting to pick up a subwoofer to rattle the house a little bit! Carvin also makes some nice Powered Subwoofers that are reasonably priced.

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Man Must Know His Limitations -Clint Eastwood

Will I be able to plug my laptop into the mixer?
Should I go ahead and order a subwoofer or just wait?

wait on the sub, you won't need it in home with 15s. you can get cords to plug your computer in through its headphone jack till you have the budget to get one of those ext sound cards.

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the voices arent real, but they have some good ideas

You can get the proper cord to plug the laptop into your mixer.
http://www.zzounds.com/item--HOSCMP15

The laptop sound will be adequate, if you want to bump the sound quality up a bit & add some a decent recording interface as well to your computer as well, take a look at the Lexicon Alpha. It's a USB I/O interface that won't break the bank and still sound very good. I bought one for my laptop originally and have recently replaced a $200 M-Audio 'pro' audio card in my PC with one of these.
http://www.zzounds.com/item--LEXALPHA


Wait you may not need them. Nice thing about subs is you can always add them later.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

The XP100L also sounds nice because it has a dedicated amp for monitors if you should ever want them.

I would be interested in finding out how you like it!

The Christmas gift was a big hit. What a difference in sound! Now, can I remove my Bose speakers connected to my receiver and have the sound from my TV and other devices run through the Carvin speakers???