Forums Music Sound Equipment Mini Rigs

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  • #1056060
    facto
    Participant

      Hey, I’m interested in getting a portable speaker/amp to play tunes load when im out. People keep saying minirigs are the way to go but they are so small. Whats the sound and volume like?

      #1274245
      Anonymous

        Minirigs are awesome and you can daisy chain them. For portable music they are top notch. Plus they look so lovely mines brushed metal with my name on the bottom.

        They go nice and loud to (although that’s a bit of a relative concept).

        #1274261
        Pat McDonald
        Participant

          @facto 550039 wrote:

          Whats the sound and volume like?

          Depends on how big the batteriy pack? I’ve heard some home made pretty punchy rigs the size of a PDA but they only last 10 minutes before they need recharging!

          A Bluetooth speaker arrangement will give maybe 7 hours for a few people at reasonable talking volume.

          #1274264
          facto
          Participant

            @photographthesun 550050 wrote:

            Minirigs are awesome and you can daisy chain them. For portable music they are top notch. Plus they look so lovely mines brushed metal with my name on the bottom.

            They go nice and loud to (although that’s a bit of a relative concept).

            If you daisy chain them do they go louder or just stereo?

            #1274246
            General Lighting
            Moderator

              you could do either, depending how everything is connected up (though many rigs actually operate in mono)

              #1274265
              facto
              Participant

                @General Lighting 550171 wrote:

                you could do either, depending how everything is connected up (though many rigs actually operate in mono)

                Nice. Does is become significantly louder with 2 chained together?

                #1274262
                Pat McDonald
                Participant

                  Not really but it covers a larger area at the same volume? Depends where you are positioned relative to the speakers…

                  #1274251
                  thelog
                  Participant

                    I have just the thing for your, brought to you by that fantastic lads at KSS audio Sound Buggies

                    #1274258
                    MadPsy
                    Participant

                      Here’s my idea of a mini rig (recently out on the Isle of Gigha last weekend) powered off a 2.8KVa petrol genny from Lidl (£170 new)

                      2 x 18″ Peavey Black Widows – 4ohm (custom cabs – ask Raj for details 😉 )
                      2 x 15″ Eminence Kappa 8ohm (In Yamaha S115 cabs)
                      2 x Yamaha 1″ CDs 16ohm (in Yamaha S115 cabs – 40×60 horns)

                      Powered (3 way) by T-Amps from Thomann Cyberstore using a SUPER-X PRO CX3400 and Soundcraft Notepad mixer.

                      Total power is around ~1.3kw which is perfect on a 2.8KVa genny.

                      Do not underestimate the volume from such a mini rig. To put no fine a point on it, it was fucking pounding.

                      [ATTACH=CONFIG]85515[/ATTACH]

                      The green doesn’t show too well in the pics but is extremely UV reactive! (plastikote fluorescent green)

                      #1274263
                      season.
                      Participant

                        Damn i like madpsy’s mini stack! When im home ill upload a photo of my cheeky setup. Done a few small parties for good mates running off a genny similair to what madpsy described and the hard trance was pumping to say the least;)

                        #1274259
                        MadPsy
                        Participant

                          Thanks for the appreciation – Just for the record that mini rig ain’t mine – it’s tekn0fairy’s but I designed the spec for it and donated the drivers, the amp rack and hard graft was done by her to make it look like it does 🙂

                          #1274254
                          cheeseweasel
                          Participant

                            Would you rather, minirig or guinea pig?

                            #1274247
                            General Lighting
                            Moderator

                              @cheeseweasel 551320 wrote:

                              Would you rather, minirig or guinea pig?

                              no reason why you cannot not have both.

                              Under UK and EU animal welfare law you are legally obliged to provide them with exercise facilities, so you just run a belt drive to an alternator on the these, rectify them and charge the system’s batteries. by monitoring the rpm from the device you can judge when the animals are getting tired, and at that point replace them with ones which are sufficiently rested (as its also against the law to overwork them).

                              i’ve seen some American kids light a 1.5V glow lamp from an old style torch with a very inefficient roller transfer on a wheel containing a single rat, so would have thought 3 or 4 guinea pigs (being physically larger) would provide a reasonable amount of power, but there are warnings that it is unhealthy for a guinea pig to curve its spine so a treadmill type device would be more appropriate.

                              #1274255
                              cheeseweasel
                              Participant

                                You would also need to consider the daily noise dosage level encountered by the guinea pig as minirigs are quite loud. Above Lep,d of 85dB(A) and you would have to advise the creature to wear tiny earplugs, above 90dB(A) and you would have to enforce this, maybe requiring some superglue (which might cause you to fall foul of the UK and EU animal welfare laws you mentioned earlier). So it looks like one or the other really. Minirig or guinea pig.

                                #1274256
                                cheeseweasel
                                Participant

                                  Aside from all this fucksense I actually bought a minirig last week and I’m pretty pleased with it. It’s ruggedly build, loud and the battery lasts for ages (around 18hrs, but probably a fair bit less if you run it at full volume).

                                  #1274248
                                  General Lighting
                                  Moderator

                                    @cheeseweasel 551469 wrote:

                                    You would also need to consider the daily noise dosage level encountered by the guinea pig as minirigs are quite loud. Above Lep,d of 85dB(A) and you would have to advise the creature to wear tiny earplugs, above 90dB(A) and you would have to enforce this, maybe requiring some superglue (which might cause you to fall foul of the UK and EU animal welfare laws you mentioned earlier). So it looks like one or the other really. Minirig or guinea pig.

                                    I’m not going to link to it as I’m not particularly fond encouraging the nastier side of animal experiments, but I actually found at a lab supplies place a small animal cage with sound reduction panels made exactly for this purpose (indeed the same laws do apply to animals used in labs, which are often noisy places due to the use of pumps, fume cupboards, centrifuges etc) and in any case excessive sound levels will stress the subject animal greater than the experiment itself).

                                    #1274249
                                    General Lighting
                                    Moderator

                                      @cheeseweasel 551471 wrote:

                                      Aside from all this fucksense I actually bought a minirig last week and I’m pretty pleased with it. It’s ruggedly build, loud and the battery lasts for ages (around 18hrs, but probably a fair bit less if you run it at full volume).

                                      what sort was it? To be fair there are a lot of decent quality small amp modules an efficient the DC-DC converter from 12V to +/-36V built in.

                                      #1274257
                                      cheeseweasel
                                      Participant

                                        @General Lighting 551473 wrote:

                                        what sort was it? To be fair there are a lot of decent quality small amp modules an efficient the DC-DC converter from 12V to +/-36V built in.

                                        It was a Pasce Minirig, they’re hand-built in Bristol. I think it just has something like a 4″ car speaker inside it, with a small amplifier and a limiter. The battery charges via USB and it has a ‘high gain’ and ‘low gain’ minijack input on it. No controls, no on/off switch – it’s just a chunky metal box that makes noise when you plug an ipod into it. Brilliant piece of product design IMO.

                                        #1274250
                                        General Lighting
                                        Moderator

                                          @cheeseweasel 551476 wrote:

                                          It was a Pasce Minirig, they’re hand-built in Bristol. I think it just has something like a 4″ car speaker inside it, with a small amplifier and a limiter. The battery charges via USB and it has a ‘high gain’ and ‘low gain’ minijack input on it. No controls, no on/off switch – it’s just a chunky metal box that makes noise when you plug an ipod into it. Brilliant piece of product design IMO.

                                          I can see how (after making up a few bodge cables) that would be very useful as a compact squawk box to check that there really is audio at the distant end of a long cable run…. (it has very high input impedance as well so shouldn’t upset things if you are splicing into a krone block or similar)

                                          #1274252
                                          Dan Ooops
                                          Participant

                                            Apparently, there is a bass bin version coming soon – although I can’t see it on their website….

                                            #1274260
                                            sim667
                                            Participant

                                              @facto 550039 wrote:

                                              Hey, I’m interested in getting a portable speaker/amp to play tunes load when im out. People keep saying minirigs are the way to go but they are so small. Whats the sound and volume like?

                                              I had my first proper look at one at boomtown fair over the weekend. I was quite impressed by it tbh.

                                              I built this myself a couple of years back and its great (although I need to fix it at the moment)
                                              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Km_ZsDSXM

                                              That cost me about £60 all in, but I didn’t pay for the box, so say £30 for that its the cost of a minirig anyway. Main differences between what I did and the mini rig is that maybe the mini rig is a wee bit quieter and more directional sound, my box is probably a little warmer bassy sound too, but for portable and lovely build quality the minirig is the way to go I reckon. They’re bringing a minirig sub out too.

                                              #1274253
                                              Dan Ooops
                                              Participant

                                                Or you could just buy two packs of pringles and spend £1.79 on postage!. I just got five of them – now I need to butcher the wiring to fit into one plug and hey presto! multi mini rig for less than a tenner….

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                                              Forums Music Sound Equipment Mini Rigs