I run two charity haunted trails for an Ohio State Park. I work on a very limited budget(out of my pocket) and the profits go to the park. I always have a great deal of problems with the sounds I need. The sounds for each scene or prop, as well as the overall music. Power is at a premium and only provided by generators. I am purchasing a few of the MP3 players that were n a earlier post. My biggest problem is the volume of the sounds. I've used cheap CD boomboxes that sound great in the store or in my garage, but when I get them out in the great outdoors on the trails they can hardly be heard. What I need to know is how I can get a large sound from the MP3 players without spending a fortune or requiring a great deal of power. Battery power would be great as long as it will last 5-6 hours plus a night. I sure need your help.
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A BAD DAY ABOVE GROUND IS STILL BETTER THAN A GOOD ONE UNDER...I THINK?!
I have two sets of these wireless speakers. They have good range and can run on batteries or AC. The batteries seem to last forever. I had one speaker set up in the graveyard on batteries and it has been in the house since then running quite often without a problem.
I'm using a pair of Bose Roommate II speakers running off a 12v battery. They're a little big but they have great sound and are very loud, even outdoors with a bunch of screaming and laughing kids around them. I bought mine (with the wire covers dented in) for $20 at a garage sale years ago. I know they're more expensive than that but aren't outrageously priced (<$80-$100). Here's one on ebay now (I'm not associated with the seller):
I ahve looked for battery operated speakers, but I am not sure which ones will solve my problems. I have bought speakers like this in the past and they have been a bust. I could just buy the most expensive ones I see, but That would be a problem also. I had hoped that i could get alot of help here, guess not. I thought that someone would maybe have a cheap way to build or add something to cheap speakers or know where I can buy some decent sets cheap. I don't want to be ungratefull or whinny, but it just seems when i post a questions I get one or two answers. It just seems that others get pages of answers. Mayube I just ask stupid questions.
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A BAD DAY ABOVE GROUND IS STILL BETTER THAN A GOOD ONE UNDER...I THINK?!
I've spent several thousand dollars over the past 12 months buying sound systems. This doesn't make me an expert but I did find some interesting facts.
Outside venues require some real wattage. Look at Craigslist for used PA systems. Do some research though. Anything outside with less that 200 watts is not worth using. Forget about battery power.
Inside systems require much less. Look at the Klipsch Promedia 2.1 speakers. They are available on Ebay for as little as $60 and have really great volume and quality.
Rick, it's not a stupid question. Your doing something that only a small percentage of haunters have to deal with. I would guess there's 5% or less of us on the forum that run haunts outside of a home/yard/garage/commercial building. Not having an electrical outlet handy makes a lot of stuff nearly impossible to do. (I run my pneumatics off of batteries and CO2 tanks because I don't have power for a compressor and a generator would be too loud.)
To be heard outdoors, you've got to move a lot of air, which requires a lot of wattage, which requires a lot power and a whole lot of $$$. Jerry is right about not using battery power if you're running some serious wattage. I think my Bose speakers are somewhere around 30 watts. They work awesome for background sounds and screams, but even they wouldn't make realistic thunder unless you were less than 5 feet away from them.
Depending on how much distortion is acceptable, you could probably pick up an inexpensive 100 watt car amplifier and speakers for under $100 at one of those traveling discount shows they normally have at hotels and VFW posts every few months. You would still be looking at drawing 9+ amps at 12 volts...
As far as PA systems go, they may have too much distortion to do what you want. I have a decent wireless Fender 10 watt PA system that is painfully loud from 5 feet away, but sucks at reproducing anything but voice frequencies and is barely audible 50 feet away outdoors.
I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you. If you find something good, loud, distortion-free, battery powered, and cheap, let me know. I'll take 10.
I have been designing an elaborate system that runs off of 12v 5a SLA (Sealed Lead Acid) batteries. I have found PowerSonic model PS1250 batteries for as little as $10. Two of these in parallel will output 12 volts DC at 10 amps, enough to power a car stereo amp & speakers for several hours. If you throw together a small DC-DC converter (consisting of one zener diode and one biasing resistor), you can also power your MP3 player off the same batteries. Pick up a car battery charger at Harbor Freight for another $20, and you're set.
SORRY for my raving on this thread. I've been in and out of the hospital and manged to be let go at my job of twelve years where I was #2 in sales and only the third guy in the companies 153 years to hit 2 million in yearly sales. started a new job 2 weeks after being let go at the other, but just not the same. I am not really making enough to pay the bills each month and am forced to do a little rotating. Jobs,even sales jobs, are very tough here in the Toledo, Ohio area,rust belt and all. So again I'm very sorry and thanks for any and help you all have offered.
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A BAD DAY ABOVE GROUND IS STILL BETTER THAN A GOOD ONE UNDER...I THINK?!
Here are some ideas that might help you with the power...
Most products these days come with what we like to call "Wall-Warts" or Transformers and they normally step down the 120voltage right down to 12 or 9 volts in most cases.
A nice big generator would be great to power everything then just step it down, but in cases where you want to run off batteries experiment with removing the transformer from the connection and finding alternate power sources such as batteries, car batteries can last a long time and are easily charged with car battery chargers!
I run parts of my yardhaunt from strictly 6volt batteries that are commonly used for security systems. I can put these in parallel and series combinations to form 6, 12, 18, 24 volts, the possibilites are endless!
I also do this for asthetics, its a lot creepier when there is a nice big prop in the middle of the front lawn that people can walk around fully and not trip on any cords, it makes it much more realistic!
As for your problem with sound carrying outdoors...
Sound travels by reflecting off solid objects, walls, ceilings, tables, chairs, etc. Once you remove those your dealing with a much more complex sound system. Normally one would add more wattage and more speakers to create a "surround" effect. Increase the overall volume and number of speakers and put them in a circular formation around the area being concentrated with sound
Some cheap ideas might be as follows... Turn the speakers away from where you are pointing them and put BIG heavey objects about 12"-24" away , try peices of wood . Even attempt at aiming them at the ground partially or into the trunk of a tree.
Go and look at outdoor speakers in the stores, you'll notice thy are setup diffrently, for two reasons, water proofing and sound travel ! Normally the speaker cones face down or up, never out a side and they provide some sort of hard material ontop or below them to help resonate the sound.
I hope this mumble jumble will help you!
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- The Crypt Keeper
Be Afraid. You never know whats lurking around the next corner.
Crypt Keeper, Thanks for all the info. I will head to one of the big box stores and check the layout of those outdoor speakers. My wife and I today were out treasure hunting at about 8 of the local thrift stores and found some cool stuff I can use on the trails(with a few changes). One interesting thing I ran across was a couple Kareoke machines. Would something like these put out the desired sound and volume. I noticed that they also had jacks in the back for more speakers and aux. euipment. Whatdo you think? I can pick them up for around $25 a piece. They are the home use type units.
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A BAD DAY ABOVE GROUND IS STILL BETTER THAN A GOOD ONE UNDER...I THINK?!
MP3 player help
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