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bjfish11

Outdoor Home Audio- Need suggestions

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Looking for a nice little setup for a cousins patio. I have never done anything like this, so looking for suggestions. Needing a receiver and 4 speakers that are not flush mounted. Prefer to order from PartsExpress, but not limited to that. Price range of 4-600 bucks. Shop for me fellas!

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Covered patio or out in the wet?

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Covered. I should probably add the receiver will be inside the house as well.

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Music source?

Size of patio?

Goals?

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It's actually 2 seperate patios on opposite sides of the house. We probably won't be on the patio as much as just hanging out in the yard.

Music source will most likely be regular radio and then phone/pandora if possible.

Goals? Well his house is a good drinking spot, so our goal is to catch a good buzz when were out there. Haha. He won't be real picky about something incredible sounding. He's out in the country with no neighbors, so something that will produce good volume while still maintaining some quality.

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In that case, I'd buy a miniDSP, a used Adcom 535 (easily can handle 4 ohms), a set of Faital 8FE200 (8ohm), and a compression driver and horn of your choice. Run the phone/pc into the miniDSP (make sure you get the volume control for a couple bucks) and the miniDSP into the amp. Build a box appropriate for the FE which doesn't have to be huge that is ported to around 70Hz and you'll have a system that could use a sub, but rips otherwise and won't suffer the same way that using home audio gear will outside. If you shop wisely for the horns it'll all fit in your budget as well.

miniDSP $130 with ship

Adcom $100

FE's $270

of course it'd be better if you could up the budget a bit for the horns, but there are options.

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2nd the used Adcoms.

 

I bought 3 of them used from Audiogon for the Zone 2 portion of my inlaws whole house audio system.  2 of them running parrellel sets of 8 ohm speakers.  Great little amps, sound good too...

 

BTW, Audiogon always has Adcom gear on there.

 

Check out Parasound, Rotel and Acurus too...  Great used bargains...

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Thanks for the info fellas, I'll pass this onto him. Anyone else have any input as well?

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Thanks for the info fellas, I'll pass this onto him. Anyone else have any input as well?

 

Mine would be a little different, but my speaker preference would be and a little more than your budget. The power above would be fine, but I am a Paradigm guy and love the Stylus 470 for outside.

 

http://www.paradigm.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=177&Itemid=2

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Just one other clarification. I put $100 in for the 535. You'll need 2 of them so it'll be $200. I know I pushed your budget, but hey, that's me.

The amp & miniDSP as a front end/pre-amp and amplifier for $300 is a huge bargain compared to some random receiver you'd get. You "could" use a pre-amp instead of the miniDSP but the processing is rather nice to have. It also alleviates the need for a crossover which makes a ton of sense. I am assuming you are helping him with this so the enclosure and tuning isn't an issue. Building 4 sets of passives for $200 (price over just one amp) is not going to be easy...

Otherwise you are left with something like the Zaph MCM/Vifa 5" or the like and with that budget I'd focus on getting more capable drivers.

If you wanted to go more home oriented and still had the DSP power you could afford to do Dayton RS28's with the RS225. *assuming you have a PE wholesale account still. That combo will NOT work passive so well as you will need some serious slope to protect the tweet and get things to blend nicely. I also am not nearly as keen on that compared to the pro audio solution for doing well outdoors both because of weather and output.

The HiVi M8N is a bit more weather proof than the Dayton if you want to stay home audio focused. Nasty peak again that will benefit huge from active tapering.

There are cheaper options, but getting below $35 a cone means I am pretty much out of having experience with them. Sort of a cost versus time equation for me then.

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Thanks for the info fellas, I'll pass this onto him. Anyone else have any input as well?

 

Mine would be a little different, but my speaker preference would be and a little more than your budget. The power above would be fine, but I am a Paradigm guy and love the Stylus 470 for outside.

 

http://www.paradigm.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=177&Itemid=2

Hey now, if I am allowed to double his budget I'd recommend differently as well. Although output wise my first option will seriously destroy those and fidelity wise the second will also. Pretty unfair though as retail wise a set with the raw drivers as picked would go for 4-10x the budget depending on cabinet and execution.

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Thanks for the info fellas, I'll pass this onto him. Anyone else have any input as well?

 

Mine would be a little different, but my speaker preference would be and a little more than your budget. The power above would be fine, but I am a Paradigm guy and love the Stylus 470 for outside.

 

http://www.paradigm.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=177&Itemid=2

 

Hey now, if I am allowed to double his budget I'd recommend differently as well. Although output wise my first option will seriously destroy those and fidelity wise the second will also. Pretty unfair though as retail wise a set with the raw drivers as picked would go for 4-10x the budget depending on cabinet and execution.

 

Just offering something a little different and I have personal experience with, but there are other options that would cost less.

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Those are $400/pr he has $600 for a receiver and two pair.

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