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u/DavidO_Pgh — 22 hours ago
▲ 7 r/karaoke
Review: Seratone karaoke device by New Town - safely sing karaoke through your home audio / TV / home theater / sound bar / vintage Hi-Fi equipment
TLDR - Shorter review:
I had a lot of fun using the Seratone box for home karaoke. In addition to my original test with the prototype I was able to test out what I consider would be a typical configuration using Seratone for home karaoke, i.e. using Karafun with your existing TV and sound gear.
My setup:
- Ipad running Karafun and using Airplay to transmit the karaoke to a Smart TV
- Seratone box connected to Smart TV using ARC HDMI port.
- Seratone box connected to a cheap Ultimea soundbar (I tried using both the analog and optical connections)
- Wired Seratone microphone connected to the Seratone box
- Smartphone connected to Karafun using a QR code to browse the catalog and enter requests into the queue.
Using the Seratone was nice and easy. Very simple controls. Anyone can master it quickly. The reverb works well for your voice and gives a good karaoke experience. Everything you need to get connected quickly was included. The included wired microphone was very good. It worked very well with Karafun.
Those are the pros, now some cons:
The price - Seratone is for people with an expensive sound system who want to leverage it for home karaoke. If you have a cheap soundbar or sound system it wouldn't be cost effective.
Other things:
- The manual I had was a draft and could be clearer.
- The reverb is global across both mics.
- The included mic cable is adequate but isn't totally kink-free.
- No tone controls.
I consider these things minor when using it.
If you want more info, Seratone’s Kickstarter website has a whole lot more detailed info.
The Seratone official website
Bottom Line: When you consider everything that comes with the Seratone box in this Kickstarter package, I think it’s a good value for a quality karaoke experience. I recommend it.
Longer Review:
This longer review is a follow up to an earlier post. I was able to review a final production unit after reviewing a prototype.
My original review is here and I reposted some of it below.
https://www.reddit.com/r/karaoke/comments/1q5oibt/exciting_news_for_2026_a_solution_to_safely_sing/
From my original review:
People come to this Reddit group all the time asking how to sing karaoke through their home audio system. By default these people don’t have the necessary knowledge or gear to do this. And because of the variables involved it would be difficult to adequately instruct someone to do this safely. Even with the gear and some knowledge people would still have to experiment on their home audio gear to get the proper settings. Not an ideal situation.
If you follow my comments here I’m pretty consistent about not singing karaoke through home audio gear. My usual response is “Home audio gear was never designed to handle the audio peaks generated when singing. You risk damaging your home audio gear”
Seratone could be the solution for people who want to safely sing karaoke using their home audio gear.
I gave the prototype a thorough review. It sounds good, is easy to use, and I pushed it to the maximum to see if I could blow out any of my home audio gear. And I really tried. Even pointing the microphones directly at the speakers to create feedback. In every case the device did a great job to limit the audio peaks.
I tested the prototype with a TV’s internal speakers, sound bars, vintage home hi-fi stereo system, even computer speakers.
Follow up:
I had a lot of fun using the Seratone box for home karaoke. In addition to my original test I was able to test out what I consider would be a typical configuration using Seratone for home karaoke, i.e. using Karafun with your existing TV and sound gear.
My setup:
- Ipad running Karafun and using Airplay to transmit the karaoke to a Smart TV
- Seratone box connected to Smart TV using ARC HDMI port.
- Seratone box connected to a cheap Ultimea soundbar (I tried using both the analog and optical connections)
- Wired Seratone microphone connected to the Seratone box
- Smartphone connected to Karafun using QR code to browse the catalog and enter requests into the queue.
The draft manual I had wasn’t finalized and I needed a little more clarity for this type of configuration.. The one thing about using the ARC HDMI port configuration is you must use external speakers like a soundbar or home theater system. ARC sends audio out from the TV. The Seratone takes the karaoke music coming from the TV and mixes it with the microphones to output the final audio to your soundbar or home theater system. Once I got that straight the setup was pretty easy.
Using the Seratone was nice and easy. Very simple controls. Anyone can master it quickly. The reverb works well for your voice and gives a good karaoke experience.
I tried both the analog Aux and the digital Optical connections. Both worked well although I think the optical connection for my setup gave a slightly cleaner audio for the karaoke music.
Karafun worked great. Using my smartphone to browse the catalog and add songs to the queue was easy.
Now that I gave the pros, now some cons:
The biggest one is price - Seratone is for people with an expensive sound system who want to leverage it for home karaoke. If you have a cheap soundbar or sound system it wouldn't be cost effective.
When I evaluated the prototype I gave a lot of feedback about areas that needed work. And to their credit, they really listened to my critique. In the end they spent more time and money making a quality product than cutting corners.
Other things:
- The manual I had was a draft and could be clearer. I know this will be addressed. To their credit their website has some good videos on it's features and how to use it.
- The reverb is global across both mics.
- The included mic cable is adequate but isn't totally kink-free.
- No tone controls.
I consider these things minor when using Seratone.
Bottom Line: For people who want to safely use their home audio equipment for a quality home karaoke solution they definitely need to check out Seratone. I recommend it.
If you want more info, Seratone’s Kickstarter website has a whole lot more detailed info.
The Seratone official website
Some additional info
The Kickstarter package comes with a very nice set of accessories:
- Seratone Karaoke Interface
- 1 x Premium Microphone (Metal)
- XLR Cable (15’ / 4.5m)
- HDMI Cable (5’ / 1.5m)
- Optical Cable (10’ / 3.0m)
- ( FYI - make sure you take the protective caps off the ends of the optical cable!! lol )
- USB-C Charging Cable (5’ / 1.5m)
- USB-C Charging Brick
I thought all the accessories were a nice touch. You have everything you need to get up and running quickly.
I understand If they get to $150,000 in pledges from the Kickstarter they will include a two-month free subscription to KaraFun Premium, another nice touch.
About the microphone that comes with the package:
Initially I mistakenly dismissed the included wired Seratone microphone as something cheap New Town included, but after talking with New Town and inspecting the microphone closer this is a quality custom microphone. The microphone was custom made for New town by a company named Carol. They sell something similar on Amazon for over $100 and it has good reviews. The mic is very well made, no handling noise, and has good sound quality. Similar look to my Sennheiser E835 but also includes an on/off switch.
Here is a good youtube video comparing the Seratone mic to a SM58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITHDIB6FAWY
Seratone Technical Specifications
- Inputs
- Two combo XLR / ¼” mono TRS analog audio ports (Mic level)
- Works with any dynamic microphone that does not need phantom power
- USB-C audio (Stereo)
- HDMI (Stereo)
- Two combo XLR / ¼” mono TRS analog audio ports (Mic level)
- Outputs (all can be simultaneous)
- RCA (Stereo) Line Level
- Optical (Stereo) 48kHz 24bit
- HDMI (Stereo)
- Power USB-C (5 watt power brick or greater)
- HDMI Passthrough:
- Supports practically all HDMI formats (HDMI 1 to HDMI 2.0)
- Supports Dolby Atmos
- Supports 5.1 and 7.1
Bottom Line: When you consider everything that comes with the Seratone box in this Kickstarter package, I think it’s a good value for a quality karaoke experience. I recommend it.
u/DavidO_Pgh — 1 day ago