Battery operated amplifiers?

[eddykirk]

any suggestions or experience with portable battery operated amps for small outdoor situations? Generally solo instrumental and nylon string playing.

[jonfields45]

Roland Cube Street EX, AC-33, or Roland Cube Street. All OK for low volume.

Anything large, a cheap 400 watt modified sine inverter and a 25 AH sealed lead acid AGM battery (applied glass mat, not quite a deep discharge marine battery, but cheap and good enough). Enough to run a real PA for a 3 set gig with plenty to spare.

[dogdog49]

How small a gathering, what size area do you need to cover? If it's really, really small the Yamaha THR5A is superb for its size. The AER Compact Mobile may be the best sounding option of all, but at a price. In between is the Roland AC-33 and the larger BA-330. More towards the PA side of the spectrum is the Carvin S600B. All great options depending on your needs.

[Mandobart]

I tried out the Roland Cube Street EX a while back and thought it was pretty good. Better than the other Roland models. Two channels, some effects, metal vs cloth grille, mounts on speaker pole.

As I posted here a while back (scroll down to #48) I ended up building a 200 W inverter to run my Carvin AG300 for about half the price.

[pf400]

Love my Roland KC100 with my nylon string guitar, and batteries last at least 10 hours. Have busked outside with it for 3 summers.

http://www.tesco.com/direct/roland-k...r/136-1675.prd

[eddykirk]

Great, thx .... This saves me some searchin time.

[FunkenBlues]

I can say with 100% certainty, the Yamaha THR10x ( green colored unit) is one of the best purchases i ever made. It is the size of a lunch box, runs on 8 rechargeable batteries that give me at least 8 hours of playing time. The THR10x is their high gain model but I play a hollowbody through it and the tone is unreal. It has 5 killer different amp models and 3 clean channels.

Favorite part of amp is the 1/8th input so I can plug in my iphone which has over 1000 different jam tracks from Spotify in every genre....blues, funk, R&B, jazz, hard rock, metal, in every key and every BPM so I basically have a backing band with me when sitting outside. Because the amp is only 10 watts, doesn't bother people in park, Cool thing as they get closer to me, they get weirded out for a second because they hear a backing band and only see me plugged into amp.

But I love playing for people whether it's a biker gig with 100 bikers or a single person in the park. I get the same feeling as being on stage. And let's keep it real: it feels great when you are in key flying all over the fretboard playing the blues outside. It feels even better when you have a crowd of 5 people hanging out and digging it as much as I do. Inspires you to really play well.

I couldn't imagine practicing all day without backing tracks. Plus I also have 2000 songs loaded so I can learn new songs, jam, and this box is literally size of lunchbox. I probably would NOT get the 5 watt model even though I am sure it sounds amazing and is half the size of a lunchbox because I thought I was missing a feature or two.

Plus amp has really good delay, chorus, and a few other effects with built in tuner.

As you can tell I love this little tone monster. If you have a home studio, it also makes a great guitar interface through USB. I find the guitar tones are a bit better than Guitar Rig 5 or Amplitude 4. Truth of matter is all these software modelers kick *** and instead of spending hours trying to get perfect sound, I spend 5 minutes getting a decent tone with some delay and next two hours recording riffs with a background drum loop.

But as battery powered outdoor amps go, if there is something better please let me know.

[jricc]

I just picked up a Roland Mobile Cube, which is pretty nice sounding for low volume situations. They also make a Mobile Cube AC which is aimed more at acoustics. They are Stereo, 5 watts, very small, the size of a small hard covered book, with reverb, chorus and a 1/4" mic input with separate volume. Runs on 6 AA batteries or adapter, sold separately.
I have to stress, this is for low volume situations.

[dannyg1]

Lithium batteries are about to become at 2x as efficient. If you like your AC only amp, I recommend that you use that, in conjunction with a bettery and inverter. Price for price, sound quality vs sound quality, there's no solution that's even close to competitive.

I'm a big fan of the Fishman Loudbox amps (mini and artist).


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/te...aign=nova_next

[otavio]

I really like THR10c.
For guitar, bass, acoustic, recording, ipod player.
Use for praticing and little jam.
Yesterday I took it for the rehearsal(eletronic drum, not so loud), and did incredible well.

I raelly recommend THR5/10 line.
They have Thr10(a more generic, from classic rock to metal)
Thr10c(more classic not so high gain)
thr10x(high gain)
thr5(just acoustic)

All of them have and input for acoustic with "mic simulator" for piezzo pickups...

[dannyg1]

It should be said that none of the Yamaha amps can withstand being sung through. The the amp I sang through kept shutting down in a protection mode as I played and sang through it. To be fair, there was no proper vocal channel and I had it Jerry rigged with an impedance matched.