| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 1279.1 | My recommendation is... | ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI | We're part of the fire that is burning! | Tue Apr 25 1989 09:07 | 20 |
|
No. I've never tried it. Personally, I wouldnt even consider
*any* of the commercially available "street" units - especially for
bass - they're all a joke, in my opinion.
A much better approach can be had via your own efforts. Start
with a good, 20WPC, stereo "graphic EQ" or even better (but more
expensive), a 20WPC "powerplate" for car audio - one with line inputs.
Forget using "D" cells - those are for kid's toys. Get yourself
a couple of 12V, 5AH lead acid motorcycle batteries, and build a
enclosure for them; use a "battery eliminator" to charge 'em.
Get 2 speakers with some diamater - 12" minimum if you want to
be heard at all. Mebbe the batteries can be installed in the cab!?!
All you'll need is something to drive the power amplifier -
Joe Jas
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| 1279.2 | Trying To Keep It Simple | AQUA::ROST | The closer I am to fine | Tue Apr 25 1989 10:34 | 21 |
|
Gee, Joe, you're overreacting....I've heard plenty of street musicians
and the idea is not to have super fidelity or even *lots* of volume.
The Mouse is the amp of choice for almost everybody who plays the
streets in Boston, it just doesn't cut it for bass with its 8" speaker.
10 watts is plenty with an efficient cab.
The other thing to keep in mind is portability. Ideally, I need to get
everything except the cab and bass into a backpack (i.e. amp, stomp
boxes, cables), toss the bass into a gig bag, and only have a (small)
speaker to lug around. The 12" is a compromise for size, I could
always use my 15" Thiele cab but it is harder to move around than I
would like. I considered the "homemade battery pack route" but it's not
nearly as portable, so I rejected it. Power and portability are
inversely proportional, the more power I use (i.e. like a car power
booster) the more battery power I need. As far as driving a power amp,
that's easy, I already have an LPB-1 8^) 8^) 8^) 8^)
The idea about stuffing batteries into the cab is actually a real
good idea, I hadn't thought of that....
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| 1279.3 | Real tube battery portable!?! | ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI | We're part of the fire that is burning! | Tue Apr 25 1989 12:14 | 31 |
|
Car power boosters may take less current that you think. With
one 5AH motorcycle battery, I can run my booster for 10 hours at
idle, one hour at 10W/ch continuous. Unless your compressing, the
bass signal has a fairly quick envelope, so "continuous" is debatable
- you'll do better than an hour.
Running one channel only at 10W "peak", you may get past two
hours of operation. With two batteries, you'll get 4 hours - that's
a lot of street playing!
Like I say, "D" cells are for toys. The barrier between "toy"
and "serious" is the battery type. With a $50 investment, you could
get two M/C batteries that would last for *years* with some care and
maintainance. Or, perhaps you could get those nice sealed Gates
rechargable lead acid batteries...They may cost more.
A simple setup would be to include the battery, amplifier and
charger all in the speaker cab. Just carry the whole to wherever
you're going; you'd need to bring your preamp too. When you get back
home, just plug it in overnight and it's all ready to go for the next
day.
I guess the point of my excitement is, with "just a little"
ingenuity, you can develop your own system which will out perform
any "commercial portable" by factors of perhaps "10" or maybe even
"100"!
Stay away from trying to run Tubes off batteries, however. ;')
Joe Jas
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| 1279.4 | In Search of Battery Packs | AQUA::ROST | The closer I am to fine | Tue Apr 25 1989 17:11 | 27 |
|
I've already looked into sealed rechargable packs, Gates, Panasonic,
Dryfit, Yuasa and others make them. I can get 12V packs in 6AH size
for about $35-50 and 10AH for about $70. I also have spotted a
rechargable pack from Johnson with a charger included, uses a standard
cigarette lighter jack for charge *and* output, comes in a leather
case, 12V/9AH for $79. These prices seem reasonable to me. I
would still probably take the Peavey amp over a car booster, though.
With a 10AH battery driving an amp rated at 10 watts RMS, I could probably
get close to 8 hours off a charge even running full tilt...I need
at least 4 hours continuous operation to be safe. One advantage
of the Peavey unit is I can always use D cells in an emergency.
How difficult is it to charge these things? I saw one charger listed
at $55 !!! But the Johnson unit looks like a wall bug !!?? The
question I'm asking I guess is how do you current limit to protect
aginst trying to charge too fast? I noticed the $55 charger allowed
"float" charging but that sounds like something you would use for an
uninterruptable power system.
I talked to Lectrosonics, who makes Mouse, today and got the impression
that they use sealed packs rather than nicads (the person on the
phone was frustratingly non-technical). The list price on
a Maxi-Mouse, BTW is $375!!! Pretty steep for such a thing when
you realize that a Boogie 22 only costs $500.
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| 1279.5 | Caution! Caution! Caution!!! | ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI | We're part of the fire that is burning! | Wed Apr 26 1989 09:00 | 26 |
|
Hey! I guess when you get your *name*, you can charge anything!
Mebbe the next "rat" distortion pedal will cost $250 -
I wish to make a general note of caution here, concerning the
idea of installing lead acid batteries in speaker cabinets, which
I purported in an earlier reply.
Lead acid batteries emit hydrogen gas when charged. Ideally,
because of this, they are usually kept in well ventilated places;
the inside of a speaker cab is no such place. You can guess what
will happen with a spark, and a speaker cab filled with H and O2...
The speaker cone would make it's last excursion.
Motorcycle batteries provide a tube by which these gases can
be brought out elsewhere. If you put one of these in a speaker cab,
this vent MUST be brought to the outside. Preferably, mount the
battery on a carrier attached to the back of the cab so that it's
out in the open and no explosive gasses can collect in a confined
compartment.
Whew!
Joe Jas
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| 1279.6 | DC-powered amp from Rat Shack, $50 | AQUA::ROST | The closer I am to fine | Fri Apr 28 1989 15:26 | 10 |
|
Just to add more confusion:
I got a Radio Shack flyer today and saw advertised a 20 watt "PA"
amplifier. Two 1/4" inputs with individual volumes, "aux" input
with volume, master volume and tone, 20 watts into 8 ohms, 4/8/16
ohm speaker taps, runs on AC or 12VDC (AC cord and cigarette lighter
cords provided). Regularly $80, on sale this month for $50, hmmm....
|
| 1279.7 | $.02 | ANT::JACQUES | | Mon May 01 1989 11:40 | 26 |
| Just a thought. They make plastic battery boxes for boats that
accomidate a regular car-sized battery. If you could find one
small enough for a motorcycle battery, it would be a good idea
to use to contain any spills. Joe, if you are planning on building
a rig with 2 motorcycle batteries, you could probably fit 2 or
more (plus a battery eliminator) into a marine battery box, and
fashion a carrying strap for maximum portability.
I currently have a Pignose, which plays reasonably loud with fresh
batterys, but eats em pretty fast. When I say reasonably loud,
it could easily fit in with boisterous acoustic instruments with
enough gain to solo over them. I use it with a couple of Boss
stomp box effects (compressor and dynamic filter). I would like
to add a Boss DD3 digital delay, and another Pignose. I could
use the DD3 to produce a great stereo effects, and in the small
settings battery rigs are designed for, a stereo effect could
be appreciated (as compared to a club setting where any stereo
effect is lost in the sauce. Pignoses can be picked up used for
about $50, but of course, they are no good for Bass. Wait till
SR&D comes out with a boom-box style bass rig like the one they
have for guitar (expensive overkill, but great fun).
Mark
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| 1279.8 | more toys | ANT::JACQUES | | Wed May 31 1989 09:43 | 17 |
| I recently have updated my portable setup. First of all, I added
a Boss DD3 delay. I then realized that I might as well get a PSM5
power supply so I wouldn't eat batteries, so I got the PSM5. I
bought a battery eliminator from McDuffs for my Pignose. It puts
out 9v @300ma, and only cost $8.00. I then went to radio shack
and bought a converter that plugs into an auto cigarette lighter
which produces 9v upto 900ma. That's enough current to drive 2
Pignoses and a PSM5 (which requires a 200ma wall bug), with 100ma
to spare. This adapter ran me about $13.00. Now I need to make up
a cable so I can connect this to the Pignose, and my PSM5.
The next thing on my shopping list is a Boss BCB6 carry box .
Favorite past-time = spending $$ on musical equipment.
Mark
|
| 1279.9 | street performance sound gear | COGITO::SULLIVAN | Singing for our lives | Mon Jun 03 1991 18:00 | 6 |
|
So, Brian... did you end up going with Maxi-Mouse or the RS 20Watt
PA amplifier for your street performing? Were you satisfied with the
sound?
Justine -- looking into getting the maxi-mouse
|
| 1279.10 | Mighty Mouse | VOYAGR::JACQUES | Vintage taste, reissue budget | Fri Jun 04 1993 11:07 | 42 |
|
I recently bought a "Lektrosonic Mouse" amp as part of a package
deal. The amp is in perfect condition. I opened up the cab and inside
there are 2 sealed lead-acid batteries. The amp came with a wall bug.
I did not get a manual with it and was wondering if anyone can answer
a few questions.
How long should it take to recharge the batteries fully?
How can you tell when the batteries become fully charged ?
There is a green light that stays on during the charging
process. Does this light shut off when the batteries are
fully charged ?
How much are these amps worth. Keep in mind this is not
a "Maxi-mouse". Features include:
1/4" input jack
Volume
Tone
Input selector switch (0db or -10db)
1/4" Output jack. (for using external speaker).
Battery charger jack w/ wall bug.
8" speaker.
2 sealed lead-acid batteries mounted inside the cab.
This amp plays much louder than my Pignose, but it get's dirty
when the volume is cranked above 4. The tone control provides a
pretty good range of tones from warm to icepick. The amp played much
better after charging the batteries over night. I think the wall-bug
is really only intended for charging the batteries, not as a battery
eliminator.
I may be interested in selling this amp. If anyone is interested,
make me an offer. I bought the amp with a guitar, and mainly just
wanted the guitar. It seems like it would be perfect for playing the
streets or jamming in the great outdoors. Definately loud enough to
get you thrown out of most camping areas.
Mark
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