I am starting my first Martini Lounge in an 1800sq/foot location.  I
am needing to know what type of sound system I need that would best
fit my situation (DJ Quality Equipment...or just Home Stereo
Equipment).  I will be playing Techno and Trance music 90% of the time
which will require a system that can produce great highs along with
hard hitting bass.

I will be running the music directly off of a Computer (Personal
Computer) in .mp3 format.  I don't want to have an elaborate DJ Setup
with Mixers, turntables, etc..  Just want to be able to play my music
LOUD, CLEAR, and have alot of bass.  I don't know which would work
best with hooking up directly to my computer, or even what components
I need to make this happen.

I know I will need the following:
4 Speakers that I can mount on a wall or suspend from a ceiling (nothing too big)
2 Subwoofers
1 Amplifier or Receiver

I don't want to get anything that I don't need.  Remember?I will be
running the music from my computer.  I know this will require hooking
up an amplifier of some sort to be able to power the speakers and
subwoofers.  Just don?t know what all I need.

I don?t want to buy something that when my lounge gets very crowded
that you won?t be able to hear the music and feel the bass.  This
requires this system I must purchase to be very loud?yet clear and not
sound like an amphitheater.

Please let me know what I need to buy for this and what place is your
best recommendation to go to purchase this equipment.  I don't want to
exceed $10,000 for everything.

I hope This all made sense.  It's hard to describe all this through
typing it out.  Thank you so much for your time.

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Clarification of Question by chrls-ga on 28 Feb 2005 13:38 PST

If you can't do research to find out which would be best for my
location, could you then at least provide company names and numbers
that I can contact to have come out to my location and give me a bid?

I would need companys and numbers for:
Home Audio Distributors
DJ Equipment Distributors

Let me know what you can provide, becuase the answer you gave me was
just a general "common sense answer" and not one that required
research.

Hi Chris - I am going to take a chance on this considering how much
you might save based on my suggestions. Audio is relatively low-tech
by today's standards. Unfortunately the hype and sales pitches are
not. I have done some restaurants and high-end homes very effectively
without spending a lot.

A few things to avoid are:
Transformer distribution - used for school intercoms, frequency response is poor.
Very large amplifiers and speakers - cannot be repaired to spec and cost too much.
Gold or oxygen-free cables, etc. - read the "King's New Clothes" fable
Ignore power specs that are not given in "rms". 40 watts rms is a lot
but be sure the amp can handle it continuously.

A few things that are cheap and work great:
Mid-priced 12" drivers - look for large magnets
Lots of $5.00 piezo tweeters
#12 romex house wire for long/high-power speaker cabling
Cat5 for tweeters, use a twisted pair for each.
Several low-end consumer-grade receivers with aux input and/or home theater units.
Try http://partsexpress.com/
and
http://mcminone.com/

Do this if you can:
Mount big drivers in walls and ceilings where you will get "infinite
baffle" effect. A plus with interior walls is having a big speaker in
two rooms using just one driver. Sounds as good coming of the back as
the front. Screw 'em down tight to solid 2x4's, etc.
Hang tweeters everywhere and hook up with cat5.

With the small amplifiers, use one to hook to your computer and drive
a couple small "monitor speakers" nearby. This will be the master
volume/tone control console. From the monitor speakers, pick up the
the signal with cat5 and go into the aux inputs of a few more amps
that you can distribute where you want to have separate volume control
capability. Be sure not to run the hot (red) side to the ground (outer
ring) of the secondary amp. Hook these (secondary amps) to distributed
drivers.
Buy or scrounge some little fans to put behind the amps. As long as
they're cool, you can run 'em pretty hard. If you blow one, they were
cheap, remember?
Make sure, however that these amps have a hot side and ground side for
each output channel. You will be tying a lot of grounds together. Most
automotive amps don't do this and won't work. There are 2
180-out-of-phase hot connections for each speaker to make up for the
low supply voltage (12v). You can't ground either one.

Try phasing the tweeters different ways with a reversed connections,
straight across L and R red connectors (creates a spooky 3rd channel
w/o the vocals). You can rig switches to flip phases while operation
to create very dramatic effects.

Check again for ground faults (above) and keep volume controls low
when you test for 1st time.

I'll bet you can do this for about $800. What do you think?

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Request for Answer Clarification by chrls-ga on 28 Feb 2005 16:12 PST

Thank you for the detailed answer!  However, I am not wanting to do a
custom install such as this with my location.  I just want to buy
speakers and mount them on corners up high near the ceiling.  I don't
want to create a whole new speaker out of scratch.  I would like to
buy everything to where all I have to do is hook the speakers and
subwoofers to an amplifier and the amplifier to my computer if at all
possible.

That being said, I just don't know what type of equipment to buy. 
Home theater quality, or DJ quality.  I don't even know how much watts
I need out of each speaker to be able to get loud enough to be able to
hear over a crowd in an 1800 sq/foot area.  That is my question.

---

Clarification of Answer by chris2002micrometer-ga on 28 Feb 2005 18:13 PST

Hi chrls-ga - Sorry about the "common sense" answer. Where is this place located?

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Clarification of Answer by chris2002micrometer-ga on 28 Feb 2005 20:44 PST

I did Google searches for:
St.Louis, Missouri Home Audio Distributors AND St.Louis, Missouri DJ
Equipment Distributors

which yielded the following, which I abridged, based on your needs and
budget. This is specialized stuff
and you should have them do the complete installation. Your 1800 sq ft
club is small enough to be served
quite well with these "home audio" systems. They will likely visit a
$10,000 jobsite.

http://phonebook.superpages.com/yellowpages/C-Stereo+Equipment+Dealers/S-MO/T-St.+Louis/

Bose Showcase store   Showcase Stores BoseŽ Music Theater
Saint Louis Galleria
1436 St Louis Galleria
Richmond Heights, MO 63117
Tel: 314-726-5350

Audio and Video Cables
High performance audio and video cables for Home Theater and Home
Audio. Quality cables at affordable prices.
Website  av-cables.net
	
Super Audio Video
(800) 290-4909 (toll-free)
Email: info@superaudiovideo.com
Website  http://www.superaudiovideo.com
	
Audio Express
13662 Manchester Road, Saint Louis, MO 63131
(314) 909-4821
	
Audio Express
7766 North Lindbergh Boulevard, Hazelwood, MO 63042
(314) 838-0404
	
Audiostile
815 North Kirkwood Road, Saint Louis, MO 63122
(314) 477-4487
(314) 477-4487 (fax)
Email: audiostile@aol.com
Low Voltage Systems Contractors
	
Bang & Olufsen
1471 Saint Louis Galleria, Saint Louis, MO 63117
(314) 727-6055
	
Best Sound CO
227 North Lindbergh Boulevard, Saint Louis, MO 63141
(314) 997-7644
(800) 222-7669 (toll-free)
Website  http://www.bestsoundco.com

Custom Entertainment Technologies Inc
Saint Louis, MO 63101
(314) 647-7535
	
Custom Sounds
Mo, Saint Louis, MO 63129
(314) 892-1555

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Request for Answer Clarification by chrls-ga on 28 Feb 2005 21:16 PST

Thank you

---

Request for Answer Clarification by chrls-ga on 28 Feb 2005 21:19 PST

From the listing you gave me from a single search, you might notice
from looking that BOSE is something you put in a living room, not a
Martini Lounge.  Bang & Olufsen is a more expensive version of BOSE. 
Custom Sounds only deals with Car Audio, as well as Audio Express. 
There were only 2 numbers off your list that I can call and hope can
help me.

We're going in circles here, haha!

Best thing to do would be to get a selection of suppliers to visit
your site and then let them do their pitch and then tell them what you
want. Get some different ideas from them and from that take the best
bits. Then get them back and start talking $$$! Not exactly the same,
but i did this when i was organising an office renovation and had to
sort out the IT network, which i knew nothing about. I think you could
apply the same technique here very easily, as the more suppliers you
get in, the more opinions you get and the better you can judge what is
best. Good luck.

I already had this idea in mind.  I submitted this question to see if
you do research to find out what exsiting places like I want to start
up currently use for their systems and such.

It's located just outside of St.Louis, Missouri.

Ok, you asked "Please let me know what I need to buy for this", so
that's what I'll answer (rather then "Please list lots of hi-fi
stores").

1) Amplification.
Keep it simple, powerful, and proven. There are a couple standard
choices for cost-effective, high-power, reliable amps. Typically you
should be looking at the type of amp that a DJ relies on, commonly
referred to as "prosound". Here's my clearcut answer: Crown Studio
Amps. Get the XLS-202 or XLS-402 depending on your power requirements.
I would probably recommend getting two 202's, so you can adjust the
volume on your 2 pairs of speakers individually. For $400 shipped,
your amplification is taken care of. For under $600 complete, you can
bump it up to a pair of 402's (a recommended upgrade).
EBay has many reputable sellers of these. Here's the search:
http://search.ebay.com/crown-amp-amplifier

Here's a link to a thread on AVSForum where people talk about their
success with these (other amp names are listed here, too):
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.phps=&threadid=418666&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

Speaker, etc. advice to come later, if this question is still active.

-Dave