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Public library looking to purchase powered bluetooth speakers for 35' x 35' room

saunadog

saunadog

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I work at a public library, and we sometimes show movies for our library patrons to watch in our community room. We don't have an AV system in the room, we just use a laptop as our dvd player and in the past have used a pair of laptop speakers (obviously not ideal!).

I've been asked to look into solutions. For now, we want to continue using the laptop (which is bluetooth capable) so I've been looking into purchasing some bluetooth speakers. We're a smallish library with a modest budget, and are hoping to keep them under $200. We're not looking for a "home theater" experience, just something that will be adequate for everyone to hear without difficulty.

The room is moderately sized (around 35' square, so just over 1200 sq ft). I've been looking at some Edifier speakers but I'm not sure if they'd be loud enough. Specifically, the R1280DBS (currently $150 at Amazon). They're listed at 42W RMS. The Klipsch R-51PM look interesting, but I'm afraid are out of our price range.

Looking forward to any experiences or suggestions!
 
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I should mention that we're not committed to buying speakers that come in pairs. There are quite a few single speakers in our price range, but it seems that their main application is for a PA system. Not sure how they'd handle DVD audio, particularly dialogue which would be an important consideration :)
 
Sorry for the delay; I was waiting to hear from a friend who had purchased those speakers for a similar need in a similarly sized room. She said they were plenty loud (and clear) for the room.
 
swechsler said:
Sorry for the delay; I was waiting to hear from a friend who had purchased those speakers for a similar need in a similarly sized room. She said they were plenty loud (and clear) for the room.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I'm currently at work, and the Edifiers just arrived today from Amazon. I haven't had the chance yet to try them out, but will give them an audition later this afternoon.
 
So I've set up the Edifier speakers and have had time to check them out. I have to say that they put out quite a bit of sound for their size. Pairing them with our laptop was pretty easy. They're certainly not the final word in HT speakers (obviously!), but they should do the trick. I popped in a Transformers dvd, and the bass gets boomy pretty quickly at loud volumes (I had to turn the volume almost all the way up for adequate volume in the rear of our meeting room). So I just turned the bass way down, and the treble up a tad which made vocals a bit clearer.
Overall I'm pretty satisfied. We'll see how our library patrons react after we show our first movie later this month. It's funny because I was actually considering buying these for myself to bypass the crap speakers on my home television. Instead, I decided to put some spare bookshelf speakers to use and purchased a SMSL mini digital amplifier, which has an optical connection. I had to go small because there was no room for even a smallish AV receiver.
Thanks Swechsler and Orwell --
 
I notice these have a subwoofer output (although the pictures make no mention of it). Adding an inexpensive sub may be a good way to recover the bass.
 
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