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codycassidy Unregistered guest | Hey I have a Laney ck30 keyboard amp to use for my microphone. I was searching e-bay and came across some speakers that I would be interested in: http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Cross-Audio-PS-10-Pro-DJ-Band-PA-Equipment-Speakers_W0QQ itemZ7358729809QQcategoryZ47094QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I was wondering if there was a way if I could connect 2 of those speakers to my amp with a mixxer and have my amp act as a center channel and the two speakers as left and right channel. The speakers are stage speakers for performances so they should be able to handle vocals and guitar. I was also wondering If I would somehow be able to connect that system to a cd/mp3 player so I can blast my tunes out of it. Kind of like a dual purpose kind of thing. thanks in advance. p.s. I can upgrade my amp to the ck80 model, which is 80 watts, quite a bit better, would this give me a way better sound with the whole system? |
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Silver Member Username: CheapskatePost Number: 448 Registered: Mar-04 | this is a confusing question. when you say "center channel" you're using home theater terminology for a 3rd channel independenent of the left and right. you really need to describe your gear better. when you say "laney keyboard amp" i'm guessing that you're using a self contained unit much like a guitar amp from the other keybaord amps i've seen in the past. when you say "amp" here, most people will think you're talking about a multichannel (home theater), stereo or monoblock power amp with no speakers or volume controls etc. what it sounds like to me is that you want to use an integrated amp/speaker unit to power two other speakers and mix an MP3 player along with your vocals and guitar karaoke style. you need to give a better description of your gear. 1. is your "amp" a self contained amp/speaker unit 2. does it have speaker outs for adding more speakers? 3. how many amplified channels do you actually have? i'm guessing just one. if your "amp" is what i think it is, it's a mono unit. you can't get left center & right out of one amp. you can only get 3 mono channels unless your gear is different from the picture in my mind. without knowing exactly what you have, i'd say just get a cheap mackie mixer and run all of your signals through it into your mono amp. (if that's what you have) i love my little mackie. it's phantom powered mic preamps are really nice and at $50 street price, it's less than a single phantom power unit without 8 channels of near pro quality mixing too. they have an even cheaper $35 unit with only one phantom powered (for high end electret condenser mics... stage mics are dynamic and don't need phantom powering) and fewer stereo channels. your question is tough as it is very vague and out of the home audio realm. there probably should be a "recording & DJ" forum as these questions pop up once in a while. give more info, and i can give you a better answer. basically an entry level mixer combines various low level inputs (mic, line, effects units & guitar etc.) and allows you to control their individual volumes and pan mono signals left to right in a line level stereo out into a stereo recording device and/or a stereo amplifier driving two speakers. there is no center channel in a cheap mixer. more expensive mixers offer 4 or more individual outs. ONLY powered mixers (expensive) have amplifiers. regular mixers are only only low level signals. it sounds like your trying to get gear to do what it wasn't designed for with some wishful thinking. |
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Silver Member Username: CheapskatePost Number: 449 Registered: Mar-04 | as a side note... i'd say you'd be better off skipping the keyboard amp if you don't have it yet. get the 2 speakers that you want. a cheap 100wpc stereo reciever (or cheap DJ amp). and a cheap mackie mixer. then you can mix ALL of your mics etc. in true stereo. if you already have a keyboard amp, it could be your center channel by just running whatever mono signal you want (mic) into it outside of the mixer. your mixer wouldn't be able to control the keyboard amp's volume, but it would add a TRUE center channel to your system with TRUE left right stereo from your MP3 player. ACTUALLY, if you weren't running EXTRA low level (mic & guitar) signals left and right, you wouldn't even need a mixer as the reciever would have it's own volume controls. for about the same price as a cheap new reciever, you could get a higher powered DJ amp (eg. pyramid) with left right volume controls if your MP3 player is your only signal other than your mic. recievers and amps can only do line level (cd players, mixers, preamps, tape decks, VCRs etc) but not low level sinals (mics, guitars and phono 'which also requires a special EQ' to compensate for how vinyl changes tone) a mixer would allow you to add more channels to your stereo mains (left and right) eg. a second MP3 player or reverb unit loop as well as balance and pan (move left to right) mics and guitars etc. from one central location. that sounds CLOSER to what i think you're aiming for. regarding amps, more power doesn't necessarily mean "better sound" as much as it does higher volumes. if you're trying to do gigs, then 30w isn't enough, but many people listen to 30wpc stereo amps at home because they consider simpler smaller amps to sound more refined. the brits call this "eye fi". heck... many high efficiency speaker fanatics love the sound of their 2 watt tube amps. in club gig situations though, 100 watts is considered puny as you need to move alot of air in a big space. every time you move 6 feet away from a speaker (i think) you need to double your amplifier power to hear the same volume. that's why rock concerts use tens of thousands of watts worth of power and nightclubs use several hundred (even thousand) watts. |
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codycassidy Unregistered guest | Thanks budget minded. Sorry I didn't give enough information(I thought I had). I already have the keyboard amp(and yes its a single unit like a guitar amp, just meant for a microphone and/or keyboard). It also has the outputs so I can hook it upto a mixxer. So I can hook up the two speakers and the amp together through the mixxer and plug my mic into the mixxer and have the 2 speakers and amp work at a l/c/r right system? Thats the exact info I was looking for and you answered it for me nicely, thanks a bunch! From what I got I should be able to hook up a cd/mp3 player into the mixer and have it play though my speakers and amp. Another that just struck me, if i was also using it as a system to play my mp3 I would probably need a sub woofer to. You mentioned something about 3 mono channels, if i added a sub woofer that would be 4, would that work? |
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Silver Member Username: CheapskatePost Number: 456 Registered: Mar-04 | ok... well if you want to add more speakers, you're still going to need to power them. when you say "out to mixer" you must mean that your amp can send line level to a mixer for recording. you would run whatever you want into the amp, use it's EQ and/or effects and then be able to record off of the amp without miking it like studios usually do with guitar amps. i don't think that's what you're trying to do though. i think you're trying to integrate it into a PA system. if you sent line level into a mixer, you'd be wanting to have the sound in your amp play through another amp into additional speakers. does your amp also have have SPEAKER OUT jacks? a signal that goes into a mixer is not speaker level. you're trying to add speakers with no apparent way to power them. you really wouldn't use your amp to send to a mixer if you were using it as a PA speaker. you'd do it the other way around, you'd send a signal from your mixer to your amp so that it's volume matches your other speakers when you adjust your master volume. (the volume control on the mixer for everything after you adjust each input's volume seperately) it would be pointless to send the sound from your amp into a mixer as once you adjusted it's volume in your other speakers (which still need another amp) your keyboard amplifier would stay at the same volume when you change your MP3 player's volume because it's unaffected by the mixer because it's pre-fader (mixer volume controls). is there a reason why you want to use the keyboard amp so much? if your're trying to do a gig, the only two uses for the keyboard amp would be for signal processing (tone, reverb, distortion etc.) and as a monitor so that you can hear yourself play in a band situation. if you're listening to MP3s, you'd want to hear them in stereo right? that would be the most compelling reason to have two speakers. if you're getting large DJ type speakers (eg. 12-15 inch woofers) you don't really need subs unless you're trying to rock a party very loud. big DJ speakers are already pretty much subwoofers by themselves. if you're looking to spend more money to get a sub i'd suggest this instead as being cheaper and more practical. get a cheap mackie mixer. run EVERYTHING you want to hear through it. you then use it to adjust your MP3 player's volume IN STEREO and mix your mic to the center (not channel, but same volumme in your left and right speakers) i'd say spend the extra $15 for the UB802 so you can do stereo recording with high quality studio mics down the road if you chose and to have more channels so you're ready to add other signals down the road. hitting a brick wall where your gear can't do what you want it to is annoying. $15 more is a small price to plan ahead. if you want to add turntables to your system down the road, get a DJ mixer instead. most have jacks for stage mics, but not the high quality studio type condenser and ribbon mics. get a cheap pyramid DJ amplifier. i've seen 200 watt units selling for just $120 then you'd have enough power to play reasonably loud. if you want to get really loud, get a bigger amp if you want to spend $500 or so on an amp, you could either get a really high quality respected name like crest, crown or QSC or get a cheaper brand like pyramid with several hundred watts. then, get the nicest DJ/PA speakers you can afford and just listen to everything in high powered stereo. if your keyboard amp has some sort of signal processing that you want to use, you can send a signal OUT from your mixer, into the amp and then back into the mixer using the "effects send" which is a channel dedicated to adding effects to your mix. if you want more bass, get speakers with either 15 inch woofers, or a pair of woofers to move even more air. smaller woofers (10-12 inch) will tend to punch faster and clearer than big ones but big ones will move more air deeper which is more of the "club sound" you're probably looking for. a tower with 2 X 15" woofers will rock pretty hard if you give it enough power. that's pretty much the setup that most bands use to play gigs, only they mix both speakers in mono usually, but you could mix in stereo as that's how the MP3s were recorded. you'd then have a system that's 1/2 band PA (mic in the mix) and 1/2 DJ (stereo prerecorded music) i don't really see any need for the keyboard amp at all for what you want to do unless it has effects that you want to use especially if you're talking about subwoofers and the amp is only 30 watts. serious subwoofers start at 100 watts. 1. signals... MP3, mic, guitar etc. 2. mix them with your mixer (keeping stereo in stereo and mixing mono to center) 3. amplify them with a 2 channel amp 4. send the amp to your DJ speakers (no keyboard amp) you could get DJ speakers for as little as $90 each for the gemini GSM1250 with a 12" woofer, horn tweeter and 3 supertweeters and spend up to $800 or more per speaker depending on whether you want say JBL top of the line or not. at ZZsounds, i see peavey towers with 2 15" woofers selling for as little as $220 each. if you didn't want to deal with a seperate amplifier, you could always buy speakers with amps built right in, but they are more expensive. instead of trying to add more and more speakers, you'd be better off getting more power and 2 better quality speakers. looking at the consumer ratings at zzsounds, people don't seem to like yamaha PA speakers but JBL gets high marks (which would be expected considering their reputation) i'd say concentrate more on quality than quantity. a pair of PA tower speakers with enough power will sound better than just throwing a bunch of speakers together. besides... if you wanted a sub, you're going to need yet ANOTHER amplifier and a crossover too when a large pair of speakers and a powerful amp will do the job just fine. if you're only looking to play say a small coffee house, a 200wpc amp and 12 inch DJ speakers would be adequate but if you want to rock a club you'll need more power and bigger and/or twin woofer towers. |
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Silver Member Username: CheapskatePost Number: 457 Registered: Mar-04 | i just looked at the speakers you were thinking of buying. $50 each is reasonably cheap, but 55Hz and a 10 inch woofer isn't exactly a party speaker. instead of compensating for the weaker bass from the 10 inch woofer (it would have to be a cheap one as drivers without cabinets sell for that much and more and cabinets are the most expensive part of a speaker) stretch your budget a little more for a larger speaker with deeper bass. $50 for a 10" DJ speaker is pretty darned cheap though. it almost looks too good to be true. i would wonder how a small maker could offer better than volume discount prices without cutting corners somewhere, but the seller does seem to have a high rating... maybe they aren't running the "white van scam" that i'm so eager to accuse them of. the white vans never stick around to get a feedback store... once they have your loot... goodbye. maybe look to see if they have larger speakers with deeper bass eg. 2X12" or 15" even 18". |
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downgrader Unregistered guest | ciao - I have a woofer + 5 little speakers belonging to a faulty 5.1 dvd player i'm binning, and I'd like to hook them up to a nice 1970s integrated stereo amp i've just had fixed. trouble is, i really don't know how to go about the woofer. i guess i should hook it to the + of both L and R speaker outputs, and to the - of one of them. Right, but the lead doesn't split in 3!!! is there an easy way out of this? |