Hello from UK need expert advice please

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Hi, my name is Ken and I am a volunteer working for our local volleyball club. We would like to set up a PA system to use in the sports hall so we can announce scores, read out raffle winners etc. As with everything else, funds are tight so I was wondering if I could use a microphone through my old JVC stereo system.

The system is a JVC model DR-E2L AC 240 v 50Hz 170w
it has a headphone jack in the front.
On the reverse there are 4 input sockets under a heading CD/AUX/Phone L and Left and R and Right. my CD player were plugged in to these via some red and white jacks.
There is also a section called Output - Beat Cut DC12v 100mA max. There is a femals style socket here in which I plugged my turntable

I have 2 speakers - model SP-E1BK - it states on the back;
power handling capacity 40w (80w music) - impedence 8 and what looks like a horseshoe - is that ohms?

As you can tell, I am not very knowledgeable so could be easy prey at any local superstores. Is it possible to plug a mic into these system and if so what type of cable should I get and where should I stick it (be polite please) - the headphone socket?

If this is not possible, could anyone recommend a suitable cost effective solution.

Grateful to everyone for reading and responding.
 
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Hi Ken and welcome to diyAudio.

You could really do with posting that question in the PA systems forum,
PA Systems - diyAudio

but can perhaps give you a start. Yes the horseshoe symbol is ohms :)

Problems. Unless the unit has a dedicated microphone input socket then a mic on its own is no good. You see a mic puts out a really tiny signal and the mic input on any amplifier has a lot of gain to allow it to work. If you plugged it into a CD or Aux input you wouldn't hear much.

A possible workround is to use a cassette deck that has mic inputs and feed that into the CD or Aux inputs, but that gets a bit messy.

Another very real issue is power handling of the speakers. Filling even a relatively small space with sound soon soaks up the power and it would be easy to overdrive speakers and amp. That said if you were careful and turned it back down below the point at which any distortion set in then you would be OK.
 
Another option could be a DVD player that has mic jacks for karaoke. Those turn up regularly in thrift stores. Even a broken one may be useful: on my DVD player, the mic input stuff was on a separate board and included a reverb effect. The only connections to the rest of the guts were line level out and 12V power, so it would be trivial to hook that up to the line level (aux) input of a stereo system or something.

A pair of pro speakers (10" to 15" with horn mid/tweeter) would help. Pro speakers tend to be much more efficient than home speakers, and have higher power ratings and more protection built-in. The higher efficiency (or more accurately, sensitivity) is the most helpful; a 10 watt amp into 100 dB pro speakers will be as loud as 100W into 90 dB speakers, or 400W into 84 dB speakers. Try visiting a forum of SE triode fans since people with 7 watt amplifiers have a keen interest in sensitive speakers that still sound good. There may be some (semi)pro speakers out there that deliver sensitivity and decent sound at a good price.
 
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Hello Ken,

I have looked at your unit on Google and it appears to be an all in one. Those are not suited to your application.

I would suggest you look at Craigslist or similar as these things are not rare. You get a mic and amp set-up or an older karaoke unit for a good price. Here's one local to me and I think this would be right up your alley. I'm sure you can find something close by. You might have to buy a mic separately but they can be reasonably priced too.

Vintage 4-speaker Karaoke machine (guitar/voice speaker)
 
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