Karaoke with Your Home Theater System

Setting up karaoke with your home theatre is easier than you think. Most people only use their system for movies, but adding a wireless microphone and a small mixer turns it into a karaoke setup for parties at home.

Jump to: What you need | How it connects | Step-by-step | Start singing

What you need

• Your home theatre system or AV receiver and smart TV
• A wireless microphone system. Current options include the TrueWave Pro AIR-B2 (2 mics) and AIR-B4 (4 mics), both with a 6.35 mm (1/4") mixed output.
• A small audio mixer. This demo uses a Phenyx Pro PRX-100.
• Audio cables and, if your TV or receiver only has optical, a digital-to-analog (DAC) and an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter

How it connects

AV receivers can normally select only one audio input at a time. So the TV audio and the wireless mic both go into the mixer, and the mixed signal goes from the mixer to your receiver as a single input.

Step-by-step

1. Connect the microphone to the mixer

Use a 6.35 mm to 6.35 mm audio cable to connect the receiver's mixed output to one of the mixer's input channels.

2. Connect the TV to the mixer

If your TV has RCA outputs (red and white), use an RCA male to RCA male cable from the TV to the mixer. If your TV only has an optical output, use a DAC to convert it to analog, connect the TV to the DAC, then connect the DAC to the mixer with RCA cables.

3. Send the mixer output to your speakers

If your AV receiver accepts RCA input, connect the mixer output to it with an RCA male to RCA male cable. If it only accepts optical, run the mixer's REC out to an ADC with RCA cables, then connect the ADC to the receiver with an optical cable.

Play music and start singing

Turn on the wireless microphone system and your TV. On the AV receiver, select the RCA or optical input you just set up. Play music from YouTube or any app on your smart TV, pick up the microphone and sing. If you cannot hear anything, raise the channel and master volume on the mixer.