An excellent high quality karaoke setup for under $1000

Excellent Karaoke Setup Guide.md

Excellent high quality karaoke setup for under $1000

For my Vietnamese wife a good karaoke setup is serious business. Problem is, I noticed that some people spend thousands of dollars on unnecessary stuff like gigantic receivers and speakers, only to end up with hiss, clipping, and clunky operation. Smart/consistent home setup should definitely fit under $1000, and that's with speakers and expensive Nvidia Shield box. You could definitely cut it to under $500 and still have a great setup. I did some research and put together a convenient setup for amazing quality at-home karaoke that isn't worth thousands, isn't a chore to operate, and passes Asian quality standards with flying colors.

How to use this setup once it's ready:

1. You find any song on your phone's Youtube and cast it to your TV
2. You pick up the microphone, start singing, and it all just sounds surprisingly beautiful

This guide assumes that you already have a TV with HDMI ARC or Optical/Coaxial audio output, and that you have WiFi at home. First thing is that you don't need 5.1, 7.1, 10.1 or anything else. We embrace stereo. Karaoke is stereo.

Devices you need

What you need	Recommended item	Link	Why you need it
Quality stereo speakers	JBL Studio 530	$250 (on sale)	Insane quality for the price. Sound is clean and powerful.
Amplifier	Aiyima A07	$80 (on sale)	Easily powers Studio 530s with included power brick.
YouTube box*	Nvidia Shield (or Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire Stick, Roku, any smart TV)	$150	A quick/convenient way to cast Youtube from your phone to TV.
Mixer with effects	Alesis MultiMix 4	$99 (on sale)	2 microphones, equalizer on 3/4, vocal effects
HDMI audio extractor**	Soucor HDMI ARC Audio Extractor	$21	Extract audio from whatever's playing on TV.
Dynamic microphone	Shure SM58 Stage Kit	$130	Industry standard mic, mic cable, sturdy stand in one box.

* If you already have this, or you have a smart TV, you won't need it.

** If you have stereo (headphones) output on your TV, you could skip HDMI audio extractor, and get this cable to plug your TV straight into the mixer.

Cables you need

What you need	Recommended item	Link	Why you need it
2 HDMI cables*	Monoprice HDMI Cable 6ft (x2)	$14 for 2	YouTube Box ➔ TV TV ➔ HDMI audio extractor
2 speaker cables	Amazon Basics Speaker Cable 6ft (x2)	$26 for 2	Amplifier ➔ Left Speaker Amplifier ➔ Right Speaker
2 RCA to 1/4" stereo**	Tisino Dual 1/4 inch to Dual RCA 3.3ft (x2)	$34 for 2	HDMI audio extractor ➔ Mixer Mixer ➔ Amplifier
1 power strip	Amazon Basics Power Strip	$15	Amplifier (power plug), Youtube box (power plug), mixer (power plug), HDMI audio extractor (USB plug)

* If you already have YouTube box or smart TV, you only need 1 cable.

** If you didn't need to buy HDMI audio extractor, you only need 1 cable.

Now that you have everything, time to connect it

1. Setup your YouTube Box so that you can open YouTube app on your phone, and cast any video to your TV.
   Important: If you plan on using HDMI ARC to export audio from your TV (not optical or coaxial cables), then DO NOT connect this box to the HDMI (ARC) port. Use any other HDMI port.
   • Or if you have smart TV and you can cast youtube to it, ignore step one.
2. Plug in the power strip into nearby power outlet.
3. Plug in the HDMI audio extractor's power (USB).
4. Take HDMI cable, plug one end into HDMI audio extractor, the other into your TV's HDMI (ARC) slot. (Make sure it's the one that says ARC on it.)
5. (If you skipped HDMI audio extractor, plug your audio cable from TV audio out into the "3/4 (L/R)" on the mixer, and go to next step.) Take the first RCA to 1/4" cable. Plug the big end into the "3/4 (L/R)" ports on the mixer. Plug the small end into the "L/R" outs on the HDMI audio extractor.
6. Turn the tiny switch on the HDMI audio extractor to "ARC" mode (left) if you're using HDMI ARC as suggested here.
7. Now take the 2 speaker cables and plug them into the amplifier on one end, and speakers on the other. It doesn't matter if you use top or bottom ports on the back of your speakers, they're connected (DO NOT REMOVE THE BRACKETS THAT CONNECT THEM). Just make sure to color match the wires, and to make L / R actually correspond to your left and right speaker.
8. Take the second RCA to 1/4" cable. Plug the big end into the "Main Out" (top right) of your mixer. Plug the small end into the "inputs" of the amplifier.
9. Plug the amplifier into the power strip.
10. Plug the mixer into the power strip.
11. Take the XLR cable that came in the microphone stage kit. Plug it into 1 (left top) on the mixer, and into the microphone. (Make sure +48V button is NOT pressed).
12. On the top/middle of the mixer make sure that 3/4 USB button is NOT pressed.
13. Turn on your TV, amplifier (make sure the volume is at the bottom), mixer.
14. On your TV, check settings to make sure that it outputs the sound via ARC. If there's an audio format choice somewhere, set PCM.

Test it

At this point you should have a hot mic, just need to turn up a few knobs.

1. Turn the red Gain knob on the left strip of your mixer to about 90%.
2. Turn the white Level knob under it to about 70%.
3. Make sure all blue knobs on the mixer are in the middle (50%) position. We don't want to mess with equalizer yet.
4. Put the main volume slider on the right to about 80% position.
5. Start slowly turning the amplifier's volume knob and talking into the mic. You should start hearing the speakers. Success!
6. Cast something from your phone's YouTube app to play on the TV.
7. Mess with the Gain and Level knobs on the 3/4 strip until you hear the music from your speakers.
8. Sing and enjoy.
9. Bonus: try adding some lows on the mixer to the 3/4 channel, these speakers can surprise you.

Optional upgrades

What you need	Recommended item	Link	Why you need it
Speaker stands	Kanto SP26PL 26"	$120	Great stylish stands, very high quality.
Remove mic wire	Xvive U3	$200	Turn any dynamic mic into a wireless mic.
Add another mic	Shure SM58	$109	Sing together with someone.

As mentioned in this table, you could also splurge $200 on the Xvive U3, and get rid of that XLR microphone cable. Quality remains the same, but feels freeing.

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If you have any advice on how to make this guide better, leave a comment. Would love to iterate on it.

Hi I follow everything you said with the same setup, and I couldnt get it to play, I double check everything but nothing 730 dollars spent on this, please help

@pedropablo809 Hi! I did this setup twice now, and both times it worked. I'm sure it's something small to fix. Not sure how to help without more information. Any luck so far?

@maxim hi, thanks for the replay, I returned the audio extractor and the hdmi cables, since I will not longer use the audio extractor, nor will I use a youtube box, I read too fast and purchased things that I didnt need lol. I notice my tv has a stereo (headphones) output, I ordered the other cable you suggested UGREEN 3.5mm 1/8 TRS to Dual 6.35mm 1/4 TS Mono Breakout Cable Y Splitter Stereo, I think the audio extractor was bad, I got the speakers to sound but they sounded weak as hell, I will get the other cable tomorrow, and I will plug it directly on the tv and then to the mixer and see if it works that way, I will get back to you tomorrow with the results, thanks.

@pedropablo809

I got the speakers to sound but they sounded weak as hell

In both my setups speakers were strong, but I don't know the size of your space. I have both setups in normal rooms. If you're in a normal room, and they sound weak to you, keep in mind that you have 3 or 4 volumes between your sound source, and your speakers. You have:

• The volume on your TV
• The volume on your amplifier
• The volume on your mixer's inputs
• The volume on your mixer's output

You have to calibrate all of those volumes to make sure that you're giving speakers enough sound. If all those volumes are up, and they are still weak, try to isolate the problem. Plug some music source directly into the Aiyima amplifier, and see if it plays loud. It could also be that you have bad speaker wires, or they are plugged in badly.

Or maybe you just expected them to sound super loud, I'm not sure. These speakers can take more power, and this amplifier can give more power if you buy a stronger power adapter. I didn't need additional power for my use. But they do play pretty loud for us. Like house-shaking loud.

P.S. One more thing I forgot to mention/update. 😬 I no longer recommend the Pyle Pro mixer. Turns out it has bad vocal effects. (I use an old Alesis mixer at home, and it seems to do everything well). Maybe try this Alesis mixer instead of the Pyle. 🤔 The main requirements I have for the mixer are:

• Not too big
• Not too expensive
• Good vocal effects (hall/delay)
• Equalizer on all inputs (high/low knobs on each lane)

I just received the alesis mixer, plugged everything with the new headphone stereo cable too, now it sounds really loud but the speakers are not sounding full, they sound like toys , like the speakers of a smart phone

is there anyway I can send you pictures of the setup, so you have an idea whats wrong, I check the volume everywhere you said, but still the speakers sound like toys

I remove 2 gold plates from the speakers not knowing what they were for, I put them back and now the speakers sound really good, but I cant find echo on the alesis mixer to sing with

@pedropablo809 The knob 1 (Halls) should give you effects. However you might need to play with knobs marked "2" and "?" to make sure the effect applies to your microphone. Check the manual that came with your mixer.

@pedropablo809 And yeah, those gold plates were needed. They connect highs and lows on the speakers, if you only plug in 2 cables. Without gold plates you have to have a separate source of highs and lows for each speaker. No wonder you had bad sound. It was only playing highs. 🙂

Updated the guide with new mixer recommendation, "do not remove connecting brackets on the speakers", and how you don't need some cables if your tv has audio out.

@maxim Great guide, I finally was able to get everything ready. Yes no wonder the speakers were sounding bad, it needed those gold plates, I didn't know, thanks a lot for the help maxim, now everything is running smooth as it should.

P.S. They do sound pretty damn loud, the speakers I mean =)

@pedropablo809 Thanks! Turn up that LO knob on the 3/4 to get some extra oomph from the speakers. 🙂 Enjoy!

@pedropablo809 If you don’t mind me asking, how did you find this guide?

I googled " karaoke under a 1000 dollars, and then I saw the link.