Karaoke Forums

I am looking to buy a karaoke system for my wife. We had the MAGIC SING and it worked just fine, but the song selection was horrible (nothing modern) and the chips were limited and almost 100$ each. BUT it was easy to set up (A/V cables and power).

I am looking for something that has a good song selection, easy set up and under 500$ with wireless microphones.

You're asking a lot for $500. You can check out the all in one systems here:

http://www.acekaraoke.com/all-in-one-systems-500.html

I can't vouch for any of them though. You'll need to do some research to figure out if any of them fit your needs. Testing one would be ideal to make sure you aren't disappointed after you get it.

Ace also has some refurbished systems you can look at:

http://www.acekaraoke.com/refurbished-a ... hines.html

Sometimes Craigs List has some listings from people who want to sell their all in one systems. You could check there too:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites

Find your local area then search for sale/wanted for "karaoke".

I hope this helps at least a little.

What do you consider a "good" song selection? Most systems that would come with songs would come with like a 100 pack of songs or less. I would be wary of anything that comes with much more than that in the price range you gave, as the songs would probably be either illegal or crappy MIDI versions.

Anyway, check out this system ($205.00)

http://www.provantage.com/emerson-ixt-k ... MKX00R.htm

Then, check out these wireless mics to go with it ($39.99):

http://www.amazon.com/Nady-Handheld-Wir ... B000N5YEDG

I personally don't have any experience with these, but there are dozens of people on the forum that swear by these things when it comes to inexpensive wireless microphones.

That's a decent little home system for about $245.00. Then spend all the $$$ you want to buy a few CDG song sets. Good deals on E-Bay and karoake.com. For a few good bank-for-the-buck base song sets, I'd go with the SUPERCORE set, which is about 180 songs for about $24.99 and Sweet Georgia Brown, which is about 1000 songs for around $60.00 (check Ebay for the best deals on these), then fill out your newer music with a Karaoke Kurrents set ($69.99):

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=p ... GdJeAj1dPw

That would give you everything you need, with about 1350 songs from classics to currents for about $400.00 plus shipping.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Thanks guys. I guess I was looking for a system that plays the CD-G rather than the chips that the Magic Sing has. It seems you can purchase much better song selections with the CDGs. Is there a system that you can interface via A/V cables that uses like a MP3 type format? Or does the CD-G players allow you to place several CDs in the system. I just dont want to have to constantly change out CDs to find a song

Do you own a laptop?

You are going to want to go with a harddrive system or a computer, laptop or desktop

In that case, however, I don't think you are going to be able to do a complete system on your $500.00 budget. A decent harddrive system or computer is going to run you $300-400 new before you even start buying software, speakers, amp, and mixer.

You could probably do a used laptop or desktop computer with a small PA for about $500.00.

You just are not going to get everything you are asking for a low budget. Even if you could get close, it is going to be the lowest rung of budget, lower quality stuff.

If you can up your budget to about $1000.00-1200.00, then you can start talking about a digitally-based karoake system.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I have several laptops. Once has HDMI outputs also. But wouldnt I have to have a quality soundcard to get a good sound out of the microphones? Im trying to picture this setup in my head. What are recommended programs? BEcause were were actually at a bar the other day and a guy was running the system through a laptop

The program you choose depends on what you want it to do with it. Each program has their pluses and minuses. My suggestion is to try all the demos.

If cost is a factor, then I suggest either AUtoKDJ or JustKaraoke as they are the lowest costing hosting solutions. I prefer JustKaraoke personally. www.autokdj.com and www.tricerasoft.com are the websites.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

The laptop would just output the karaoke music and lyrics. You would still need to then run the karaoke music through a mixer or mixing amp, and speakers or powered speakers to mix the microphone output with the karaoke music.

The microphones would hook up to the mixer/mixing amp. You can run the karaoke music through the 35mm headphone output on your computer and the karaoke lyrics out to your TV through the HDMI/S-Video/VGA or whatever on your laptop.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

If you already have a PC that you can use, then maybe the Vocopro PV-1800 active speaker would be an option for you. I've seen this advertised at $369 and with Topher's suggestion of the Nady wireless mic @ $40, you have a sound system with built-in mixer with echo effects for $409.

I have no knowledge of these speakers other than what is in the manual. But it looks like this could be a good option for a basic home system which could be easily expanded as the budget allows.

Here is the user manual:

http://www.vocopro.com/products/pdf_manuals/pv1800.pdf