portable battery powered gear . the leap forward in last years

Keira-WitherKay

i spent time travelling around the world performing as i travelled,

but ended up relying on gear i bought in other countries or from what hotels supplied ( most upmarket hotels around the world supply gear if one perform for them)

but a portable PA back then was 40 kg , which is way too heavy to fly with .......without exorbadant expense and small PA's back then still sounded crap.............. and everything was relient on mains power.........

a few years back crate brought in the taxi amps which i used for a long time weighed in at 11kg but had an 8 " speaker and sounded good......... just too heavy

then everyone started to follow suit and make battery powered gear ............ love it ... below i looked at some of the amps.but even multi fx and mixers are also battery powered these days ..........

AER Compact Mobile
- This amp is virtually identical to the AER Compact 60, but with one of the coolest features we know of on an amp: A rechargeable battery that gives you 3-6 hours on a single charge, and recharges on the fly when you plug it back in. It also adds auxiliary ins and pannable digital effects. Includes padded AER amp cover. 13 x 13 x 11. 35 lbs.(approx 17 kg ) but with all thing AER very expensive in comparison to similar gear and at 17 kg way too heavy to realistically travel with .........

roland AC 33 is a new release in 2009 ...great features.. has a looper onboard and reverb and chorus but only 20 W when used on battery's but weighing 4.7 kg
Rated Power Output
15 W+15 W (when using the AC adaptor)
10 W+10 W (when using the Alkaline batteries

roland cube street this was released in about 2007 but is only 5 W output but weighs 5.2 kg but has cool features and COSM modelling
Battery driven (6 x AA, maximum 15-hour continuous use)
Dual-channel architecture with Guitar/Inst and Mic/Line inputs
8 COSM AMPs, 6 digital effects, and chromatic tuner built in
2-band EQ, Delay/Reverb for the Mic/Line-channel

roland also have a BA 330 which is a 2009 release out but weight is 13.8 kg and nowhere can i find a power rating for it even on the roland site

roland mobile cube has been around for a while but is also only 5 W but the lightest so far at 2.5 kg

then Behringer make the EPA 40 (which i own ) which is rated at 40 W weighs in at 3.2 kg and has a rechargable battery which last 8 hrs on 4 hr charge with 5 inch speaker

fender Passport range make one identical to the behringer or vice versa and is rated at 27W also with 5 inch speaker and at 3 kg

then other companies like mipro ect have a range of battery gear

so in 2010 we have options at last ................. and the world travellers can have battery powered mobile sound at about 3 kg for 40W which is not a bad tradeoff ..........

cos lets be honest . travel sound need not be absolute audiophile quality but it needs to surpass, a bad boombox sound and finaly it seems the technology has either caught up to make it possible or companies have finally realised there is a need for this...........and remember your portable PA becomes the sound of your "busking" rig (cos at big venues you'd use their in house sound) but also your mp3 player and pc sound............... and at such low weights for reasonable power output and being battery powered it's all becoming possible...........

let s see what happens in 2 years time....... 60W out of a unit weighing 1 kg and the size of a cigar box but still with good sound ???? lets hope for that

heres a video of me using the behringer EPA40 at a wine and art festival to stroll around a bit ......... i still used the main PA just did this to add to vibe........ but the video quality is not great but good enough to hear how well the guitar sounded........... to me thats all i need quality wise...... a natural sound just louder now only if i can get that at less weight this unit weighs 3 kg ....... for 40W
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPJ1JUDkNsY

Keira-WitherKay

zohn wrote: Nice clip Keira! 8)
wow, did you say 3kg? - that's awesome.

I fancy the AERs', but they're very expensive. My requirement is not portable as in "flying" portable, but I certainly believe compact equipment is the way to go.
No matter who makes the amp, the battery packs they use generally have an unpredictable life too. Some more, many less. The good news is that unlike before, battery development seems to be the buzz nowadays, and they can only get lighter, more efficient and more reliable.
?

oh yeah zohn the AER's are the mercedes benz of acoustic amps..all of them........... i tried even the 40W and they sound awesome..... but the "bang for buck" is what worries me....... i'm a working muso so spending above 15 K for a 40- 60 W amp is just not an option....... and believe me the other acoustic amps these days are catching up and tonally sound almost as good... for 20% of the cost ......... even cheaper ....... i would say about 5 yrs back AER was the only acoustic option but now days everyones got a good and above all natural sounding acoustic amp ....

and yes that portable amp is 3 kg and 40W and once the battery technology gets better it can be lighter cos the battery pack weighs at least a kg by itself ....it's a big square rechargeable battery ..good time ahead for us travellers

AlanRatcliffe

Good posts folks! Methinks it's due to airline restrictions, credit crunches and increasing flight costs in recent years - the manufacturers have responded admirably to meet the demand.

PA has changed a lot in recent years, with a lot of focus going into smaller, lighter and less expensive systems which are quicker and easier to set up, from the small (Fender Passport type) PAs to the big speakers with lightweight Neodymium magnets and relatively small Class D amps which put out tons of power.

There is also a huge demand for better batteries thanks to modern power and "green" demands as well as the trend to mobile computing and telephony, so a lot of R&D is going into that side of things too. Methinks the best is yet to come on that front though.

Of course, if you need the wandering thing, but not the flying, another great solution is a wireless transmitter/receiver.

IceCreamMan

i just picked up a Vox mini 3 ....yeah i am going to GAS hell one day i reckon...

uses 6 AA batteries and weighs in at 2.8 kg's.. battery life up to30 hours is apparently possible. (but the proof is in the pudding) or 9 V power supply wall wart which is supplied.

Comes with 11 amp settings an 8 effects built in which is a bit over the top but some of the high gain "amps" are very cool.

has a pretty punchy 3 watts (10 watt speaker) thats for sure ...perfect lil practice amp and great for travveling ...as a walking muso i reckon this lil amp will do the trick. comes with aux ,head phone jack , mic jack and in black/ivory and my personal favourite , british racing green befitting of a "britsh" amp.

nice kit in the Vox tradition ,appears solid

Rudolf

I would investigate the new LiFe or A123 batteries for this purpose. I've been using A123's a little now in my bigger model for the guidance system and it's great, especially the latest and greates soft Life cells. The normal can A123's are still heavy but yea still about half the weight of normal nicad and nimh's. The new soft cell Life batteries weigh the same as LiPo packs though with all the advantages and none of the disadvantages. In other words they can be charged faster, they can be abused more and discharged further without risk, they don't catch fire etc. Also they now have a life span of more than a year and up to 500 cycles which is incredible! Only real drawback still maybe could be price.

I don't know what airlines say about Life batteries but I suspect they won't have a problem with em like they do with the LiPo stuff, and even then I don't think for this purpose you'll carry large packs like we had to for the helicopters going to the US, they won't let you carry those on the plane so you'll have to ship or buy there. Like I say however I think it's a whole new story with the LiFe batteries because they don't catch fire like the Lipo stuff.

Let me know what battery you are using now Keira and we can compare notes? By the sound of it you got a normal 12V 7Amp hour drycell battery? Like the ones they use for gate motors and alarms?

Keira-WitherKay

Rudolf wrote: I would investigate the new LiFe or A123 batteries for this purpose. I've been using A123's a little now in my bigger model for the guidance system and it's great, especially the latest and greates soft Life cells. The normal can A123's are still heavy but yea still about half the weight of normal nicad and nimh's. The new soft cell Life batteries weigh the same as LiPo packs though with all the advantages and none of the disadvantages. In other words they can be charged faster, they can be abused more and discharged further without risk, they don't catch fire etc. Also they now have a life span of more than a year and up to 500 cycles which is incredible! Only real drawback still maybe could be price.

I don't know what airlines say about Life batteries but I suspect they won't have a problem with em like they do with the LiPo stuff, and even then I don't think for this purpose you'll carry large packs like we had to for the helicopters going to the US, they won't let you carry those on the plane so you'll have to ship or buy there. Like I say however I think it's a whole new story with the LiFe batteries because they don't catch fire like the Lipo stuff.

Let me know what battery you are using now Keira and we can compare notes? By the sound of it you got a normal 12V 7Amp hour drycell battery? Like the ones they use for gate motors and alarms?

thanks for the informative post rudolf............. and frankly i do not know what batterry is in the behringer EPA40 ....... all i know it's quite heavy and a biggish block but entire portable PA unit with rechargable batterry included is only 3,2 Kg so at moment one of the lightest 40 W batterry amps available........ well if you have some insight for me........... let me know........... as i'm always keen to work on getting a lighter rig for travelling ......