Audio Station for a restaurant

[luinzi]

Hi,

My Aunte wants me to put together a PC soley for playing music in her restaurant. What kind of soundcard/ amplifier can people recommend??

I am thinking of a Soundblaster Audigy SE. It will need to output to upto 8 speakers around the restaurant.

The Current Core PC Spec is:

Athlon XP 2800+ CPU
512Mb DDR 3200
Maxtor 6L250R0 Diamondmax 10 250GB 7200rpm ATA/133 16MB Cache

Its is all going to be housed in a Antec NSK1300 Case MicroATX.

I will be installing Windows XP Home Edition. Does this spec look like it can handle the requirements? It will need to run for 12 hours a day.

Will I need additional cooling given the Hardware used??

Thanks........

Luinzi

[Forthy]

I am thinking of a Soundblaster Audigy SE. It will need to output to upto 8 speakers around the restaurant.

I take it these are already connected to some kind of amplifier?

Basically, for restaurant sound you're only going to be looking at outputting a stereo signal in to an amplifier, and then let the amp power however many speakers you want.

Otherwise, it should be just fine. Get yourself a nice touchscreen to control it :D

[LSG501]

I know this may seem a daft observation :)

You have got a matx motherboard havent you, if you havent then that case isnt going to be any good :rolleyes:

As to whether the system will run 12hours a day, should be fine, not the nicest leccy bill though :mad:

Just a little side note, if the music is going to be played from mp3's etc ripped from commercial bands (ie pusscat dolls - dont shoot me, cant think of many "current2 acts) I'm 99% certain a license is needed too

[six5tring]

You don't say budget wise so I'm purely going to guess from a semi-pro way.

Audigy SE is more than enough for music... you only need 2channels out.

I'd look at getting a pair of studio amps a cheap samson servo or alesis should do the job. Split the audio output from the pc L&R to either amp. (possibly combine L&R to give a mono sum of the two). This will give you 4 volume zones. £100-130 each

Then get 8 x 8 or 16ohm speakers and pair them up in the amps. Are you going mega subtle or fairly or doesn't matter?

six

ps. Make sure the amp you put in can handle the speaker lines. 4Ohm amp means that you can run 2 8Ohm speakers off each side (or 3 16Ohm)

[WTF_Shelley]

Ild consider going mini atx and a 2.5inch hardisk. the better ones have good sound built into them and they run off a 60watt psu!! Some cases are smaller then a Hardback book and you can lob it on a shelf and forget about it. when you need more music connect it to a laptop and telnet the music over to it

[Tom]

Ild consider going mini atx and a 2.5inch hardisk. the better ones have good sound built into them and they run off a 60watt psu!! Some cases are smaller then a Hardback book and you can lob it on a shelf and forget about it. when you need more music connect it to a laptop and telnet the music over to it
s/`mini atx'/`mini itx' ;)

[luinzi]

Cheers for all your advice guys. I do have a matx mainboard kicking about in a cupboard. It does have onboard sound but I'll use a SB Audigy SE, as it should be able to provide better sound quality to the Amplifier.

The only thing I need now is a half decent amplifier. Any recomendations for a budget of around £100???

Thanks...........

LuInZi

[burgi]

www.richersounds.co.uk has plenty of amps less than £100.