Shopping for a portable Karaoke machine can be a fun experience. With a little research prior to setting off to purchase your machine, you will find that you know enough to buy that absolutely correct one to fit your needs. Prior to going, you should consider these things:

1. Features

Features and Flexibility work hand in hand with any Karaoke unit. There are several features which you will need to decide that you need or not. These include adjustable gain for the microphone inputs as well as whether the Karaoke unit has onboard effects, such as reverb. Reverb is especially important to making many singers sound better, adding a little bit of a echo sound to the singing.

Another feature to look for is the type of microphone input. Many lower-end machines, especially portable Karaoke machines, tend to make do with 1/4 inch inputs. These can limit your choices of upgraded microphones later.

Better karaoke units offer a different type of input called an XLR input. These inputs offer better a better signal path resulting in getting the most out of any microphone that is used. If you intend on upgrading the microphones to those similar to what someone in a band uses, then you will definitely want to find a unit with XLR inputs. XLR inputs will be about the size of a dime, with 3 holes for 3 pins. A 1/4 inch input looks like the old-fashioned headphones output.

2. Flexibility

Flexibility has to do with how easy the machine can adapt to different places, different TV technologies and what type of files it can play. The portable unit should have the ability to hook up to various types of TV's including the latest digital TV's. Even a digital TV, however, should have the ability to play video from a single yellow RCA input. What is more important is whether the karaoke unit can send a signal to multiple TV's. Even a portable unit should have a couple outputs, one for the singer, one for the crowd that is going to be watching.

The other element of flexibility is whether the machine will play CD-R's that you have burned karaoke content onto. Finding Karaoke music online is easy but if you have to order it and have it shipped it adds cost and time to any additions to your music library. Some new karaoke machines have USB ports so you don't even have to burn a CD. Simply plug a portable memory device in and go.

3. Price

Finally, your purchase is going to boil down to how much it costs. Especially with portable units, the prices vary quite a bit. The features and flexibility dictate how much the machine will cost. You will want to decide on a budget, as well as which features are must haves. From there, you will want to find the karaoke machine that best balances those needs.