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Thread: Cheapish home sound system?
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06-08-2014, 03:58 PM #1
Cheapish home sound system?
I'm thinking about putting a sound system in my house. The house is pretty small, one main open area with the living room , kitchen, dining room. A small workshop out front, and a porch / fire pit in the front yard.
I would like to be able to plug my I pod or phone in, probably in the living room, and control the volume separately from all three areas.
Is this possible to do for a few hundred dollars?
Sent from my SCH-I545 using TGR ForumsOriginally Posted by Smoke
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06-08-2014, 04:18 PM #2
Airport Express + Active stereo speakers (self-powered) in the locations you want. Control everything from your computer.
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06-08-2014, 04:39 PM #3
I have B&W Zeppelin and a Harman Go-Play. For rock music I like the Go Play better and it is portable.
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06-08-2014, 04:56 PM #4
I was able do that with my father-in-law's 35 year old Onkyo tuner and a trip to Radio Shack for something like $50
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06-08-2014, 05:02 PM #5
I'm going to jump into this thread looking for advice because I'm in the market for something similar to the OP.
I want a real stereo system that can receive a signal from the laptop via bluetooth or wifi and broadcast via bluetooth to a 2nd zone in the house. I need it to be cheapish, preferably under $500. I could spend up to $500 for the first zone and add self powered speakers for the 2nd zone later if need be. A 3 zone system would allow me to add outdoor speakers but it's not necessary. It needs to have a good radio. I'd like it to look decent out in the open on the hutch...
The Onkyo TX-8050 looks interesting but then I read an unfavorable review on avsforum and since I'm a total stereo neophyte I'm nervous about wasting $250 on something that will be a huge hassle.
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06-08-2014, 05:06 PM #6Registered User
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I have a pair of awesome KRK Rokit 5's hooked up in my edit suite ($300 for a pair) and I can control what gets played from any computer or phone in the house. That's all with free software. Not really portable but as long as you don't care if the music is playing inside to hear outside, my situation works fine. I can also bring my laptop or anything anywhere within wifi reach and stream all my music that way so I can basically play any audio or video I own with any device within wifi range again, with free software.
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06-08-2014, 06:39 PM #7Registered User
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We have a couple setups, both inexpensive, both work well. We like music, but are by no means audiophiles.
First is an old Marantz receiver I bought in Boulder twelve years ago with a couple small speakers and an Apple TV plugged into it. Works great.
Second, we have a couple Sonos Play 5 speakers, one in the living room and one upstairs.
Advantage of the Apple TV: you can AirPlay video from Amazon over the iPhone to your TV and receiver. The interface is great, better than Roku (although I think there are fewer services on the Apple TV).
Advantage of the Sonos: you can sync multiple systems to play the same music at the same time. You can drive multiple sytems from a single device (smartphone or computer) over wifi. The sound that comes out of the Sonos sounds really good to me. The smartphone app is really good.
If you just want to listen to music, Sonos is worth checking out.
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06-08-2014, 09:33 PM #8
I have one of these hooked to my desktop computer:
http://www.dx.com/p/vmr6512-hi-fi-fm...1#.U5UphJSwJdo
Any radio in the house gets whatever the computer is playing. Not super high fidelity but darn cheap and pretty good.
If you hunt the web sometimes you can find a version that has an led readout of the transmit frequency. I've managed to get a couple. It's pretty low power but I've picked mine up on the car radio 1/4 mile or more from home.
Here's the led version:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-...560932594.html
It nicer in that it has a mini-usb jack that takes power so you can power it from the computer.Last edited by stevesmith7; 06-08-2014 at 09:53 PM.
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06-09-2014, 12:00 AM #9
If you have/get a receiver with HDMI inputs you can also use something a google chromecast or apple tv. Then control music plus everything else it does from your phone or computer or whatever. Or if it's near a TV you can just use the audio out. I have a chromecast plus an android and it is pretty great. receiver is cheap and old 2.1 single zone with no hdmi a little limited on what I can do. New receiver plus some decent speakers would let me have dual zones and not have to turn on the tv to listen to music. Have heard these speakers were pretty decent for the money:
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PU...eakers/SP-FS52
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PU...peakers/SP-C22
Second zone would be outside so I guess some sort of an outdoor speaker. I've seen some yamahas for cheap.
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06-09-2014, 08:23 AM #10
cheapest way is to use a stereo receiver and wire a 4-channel impedance matching network, preferably one that has volume controls on the front so you don't have to wire from the speakers to the volume control and then to the matching network. Cable each pair of speakers to the IMN, and the IMN to the receiver A channel. That channel will drive all the speakers and the IMN can control the volume at the head-end.
get a dock, or a cord to plug the iPod into, docks charge and cords don't, docks, plug in and get more data for better sound than a cord plugged into the headphone jack.
This assumes that you can wire from each speaker to the head-end stereo location.
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06-09-2014, 08:30 AM #11
Great inexpensive outdoor speakers: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I have them and they sound great.
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06-09-2014, 09:49 PM #12
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06-10-2014, 07:52 AM #13
I have a pair of Audio Engine A5+ self powered speakers. I am very happy with the sound.
http://audioengineusa.com/Store/Powe...wered-Speakers
I'd rather have a couple independent sets of self powered speakers and bring my phone to the room that I'm in then to try to control the phone from a separate room. If you have independent setups people in other rooms can listen to different things.
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06-10-2014, 08:07 AM #14
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06-10-2014, 08:56 AM #15
a Yorx portable double tape deck w EQ
"timberridge is terminally vapid" -- a fortune cookie in Yueyang
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06-10-2014, 10:22 AM #16
I bought a pair of the BS22's a couple months ago and highly recommend them, I don.t think you can find a better speaker for the price ($129.00) ,They had them on sale on amazon this weekend for $65.00 a pair and almost bought a second pair even though I didn't need them, they also had the 52's for $65.00 each and really wanted to find a use for them but couldn't and didn't order them. I have the 22's connected to a 80wpc Denon receiver along with a 250 watt 12" subwoofer in the bedroom and it sounds very good , especially for a third system in the house pieced together with unused parts. Parts express ( www.parts-express.com ) has great deals on Sherwood receivers that get very good reviews but I have not heard them.
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06-10-2014, 11:18 AM #17
Got one of those Splash outdoor bluetooth speakers, coupled to my Kindle(or laptop) and tunes on cloud that works very well.
watch out for snakes
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06-13-2014, 03:49 AM #18
I went to the Apple store about 7 years ago and found something very similar to this, almost identical, but I remember it being $150, not $450. You could set up 3 of these. Klipsch is quite awesome, and to this day I'm surprised at the value. I literally can't turn it all the way up, and the sound is amazing for 3 little speakers.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1886685,00.asp
Or you can go down the rabbit hole. I restored some Marantz stuff, started out with this setup, and have since gone to a 2325 all in one unit, and the speakers have been replaced the speakers with $6k Dynaudio MB15 studio monitors. %10 of the $$$ for 90% of the effect, 90% of the money for the last %10, but that last %10 (although I'm probably at 98%) is blissful.
"One season per year, the gods open the skies, and releases a white, fluffy, pillow on top of the most forbidding mountain landscapes, allowing people to travel over them with ease and relative abandonment of concern for safety. It's incredible."
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