Karaoke Forums

Hello,

I wanted to setup karaoke for use in our living room. My setup is using my laptop and a Shure PG48 to a Behringer 1002FX to my reciver(Pioneer VSX-816) and using my regular speakers which are Athena Micra 6, which is a surround sound setup with 2 fronts, center, 2 surrounds, and a sub.

We won't be using this much and not terribly loud. We will just use it once in a while for fun when friends are over. By no means a professional setup.

Will this setup kill my speakers? Does anyone suggest a different setup?

Thanks in advance!

Personally recommend you pick up a pair of MTX TP-112 speakers. It should drive well with your Pioneer in stereo mode. Just wire them (they have binding posts) to speaker B and use them for karaoke.

You say "not loud", but the fact is that at a party you have to be loud enough to get over the sound-absorbers (people) and conversation. Your little speakers probably will not do it. I recommend getting speaker stands as well, to get the speakers up.

If you will  have a max of 6 people, you might avoid it. But any more, you will need more oomph. Your amp is enough to drive the TP112 speakers to provide that.

I speak from experience, as I have used the exact same setup. My Bose 301 speakers don't cut it for karaoke, and the TP112 work great.

Yeah, I would not want to run vocals through those little Athena's.  I have run vocals through expendable home speakers, but would not want to do so through my main system.

Another speaker option is the JBL RM10, which can be bought on-line for $110 each.  In fact, I just bought a pair for my home Karaoke vocals.    

By the way, I have the same mixer and mics, and also use a laptop.

As mcky mentioned, you can use the B speaker outputs (with A turned off) if your receiver has them.  Or, you could use A and just swap the speaker cables back and forth between speakers.

Another option is to buy an amp in addition to speakers, and then use mics -> mixer -> amp -> speakers just for vocals.  Then run your laptop's sound to the Pioneer and Athena's for the music.  This is what I do.  It keeps vocals totally out of my home audio system and gives me the ability to adjust music level independently with my receiver's remote.

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll have to decide what's going to work best on a budget here. So it sounds like there is possible damage to my Athenas right?

We used the setup last night with only 4 of us and the sound worked for the small group, but I see what you guys mean if there's a lot of people in the room.

Thanks

It’s one of those “use at own risk” or “you have been warned” situations.  The speakers may hold up fine, or may not.  To me, it’s not worth the risk of killing my main music speakers, given that replacement tweeters are about $90 a piece, assuming I can still get them (Polk LS90’s made in mid 90’s).  

If you don’t mind the risk/cost of replacing parts or the whole speakers, then don’t worry about it unless something happens.  Only you can determine this.

If you don’t want to spend much money right now, you could always try to look for a good deal on something used – Craigslist, thrift/pawn shop, etc.  If you kill them, it’s a cheap experiment that determined that you need speakers that are better suited for vocals.