"Mini" audio project (1 Viewer)

[ziggybozbo]

Okay, so after some careful thinking, I have made a plan on how my layout will... lay out. So, the issue is whenever someone is making dinner in the kitchen and wants to watch the news at the same time (our 47" TV is visible from the kitchen), they would have to crank up the volume a ton, which gets pretty annoying to everybody in the house. My initial solution was to do a switcheroo of TV's and monitors around the house so we could put a nice 24" right next to the kitchen. The first problem was the cable box, because we didn't want to move it, but then that would mean getting either a 50 foot hdmi cable or RCA composite (that's what it's called, right?) which would be kinda expensive. Well, I guess that was the only problem, but I thought of a good solution: just wire an audio cable from the 47" to some small speakers in the kitchen.

So that's my new plan; I have only two questions: 1) should I use 3.5mm or RCA? They're both the same price, but I don't know enough to say whether one is better than the other. I personally would think 3.5mm because I could then just plug it into the headphone jack on the 47" and take it out really easily whenever we wanted to watch something on the big screen (so I basically answered my own question, unless someone has a comment about it). Q# 2)What's a good pair of speakers for this kind of thing? I'm looking for really cheap, but not so cheap that they break/rupture/etc. (which I've had happen before twice). I mean, considering the only thing they have to do is play voices, so I don't need anything spectacular. Thanks for any help I can get for my fairly simplistic questions

 

[Jason Charlton]

The only thing you're overlooking for your speakers is power. The speakers will need a power source if they're to work. Normally, that's what an A/V receiver does - provide power and signal amplification for external speakers. I take it you don't currently use an A/V receiver?

Given your constraints and the fact that budget is extremely tight, a simple pair of powered "computer" speakers may fit the bill in this case. You won't need any fancy systems with subwoofers or anything, but just keep in mind that the speakers will need to be plugged in somewhere in the kitchen, and chances are you'll need an extra long cable to connect them. For the extension cord, Amazon has a 50 footer for real cheap, but I'd be concerned about signal loss over such a long run. At least the investment for trying will be pretty low.

As for the speakers themselves, you can probably find some cheapies at Best Buy or some other retailer for less than $30 (here's a pair by Logitech on Amazon).

 

[ziggybozbo]

Hey, thanks for the advice. Yeah, I'll probably get some kind of logitech's, cuz I've had good experiences with them. Thanks!