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Gear / Technical Help => Battery Boxes, Preamps, Mixers, ADCs, and Processors => Topic started by: mirth on May 23, 2003, 12:03:45 PM

Title: Alto ALPHA MICtube?
Post by: mirth on May 23, 2003, 12:03:45 PM

Anybody ever hear of this product? Seems to have some decent features...

http://www.altoproaudio.com/products.asp?cat=8&type=17
Gotta select the Alpha MICtube from the dropdown, no sane way to link to it otherwise.

Opinions?

Title: Re:Alto ALPHA MICtube?
Post by: wboswell on May 23, 2003, 12:18:09 PM

Looks nice.  Finally, someone other than an Oade Brother puts the inputs on the front of the box.  Did you find out a price?

Title: Re:Alto ALPHA MICtube?
Post by: mirth on May 23, 2003, 02:05:34 PM

Yeah, best I've found so far is ~$80 w/free shipping.

Wonder, though... They say it takes AC input. Is it still possible to build/buy a battery box for this for field recording?

Title: Re:Alto ALPHA MICtube?
Post by: bush on May 23, 2003, 03:04:29 PM

Yes it is possible, but it is a Bitch!!
and you'll be carrying around batteries like you have an apogee ;)

bush

Title: Re:Alto ALPHA MICtube?
Post by: mirth on May 23, 2003, 03:42:41 PM

What, so you're saying that all I'd have to do is just build a SLA? What about the whole AC input, or are you saying that I'd have to cut up the power adapter cord (assuming the adapter is doing the AC/DC conversion)?

Title: Re:Alto ALPHA MICtube?
Post by: bush on May 23, 2003, 05:29:08 PM

no, you have to build a portable ac outlet.

you know the little convertors used for running ac power through the cig lighter in your car.

in my experience, and believe me i gave it an honest effort, the convertor run on a battery pack is very flaky...

in 6 months of trying i never got consistent results.

some of the problems i had were buzzing in the recordings, random dropouts caused by a flicker in the convertor, and just flat out inconsistent battery life.

i'm sure if you carried a big ass 250 w convertor and 3-4 12v sla's you could be consistent with it, but screw that!!!

bush

Title: Re:Alto ALPHA MICtube?
Post by: mirth on May 23, 2003, 05:51:11 PM

so you're saying that I'd have to get an ac/dc inverter w/cigarette adapter & build the battery like anybody else's SLA setup?

That doesn't sound _too_ bad.

Title: Re:Alto ALPHA MICtube?
Post by: bush on May 23, 2003, 10:30:01 PM

yeah pretty much...like i said, it did not work well for me. this pretty much says how i feel about it  >:(

the failures outweighed the successes and i had to give up and move on.

Good Luck ;)

bush

Title: Re:Alto ALPHA MICtube?
Post by: super-phat-al on May 26, 2003, 10:15:33 PM

The whole power thing sucks because i would love to have that.  Looks nice but rigging up all that power just looks painful.  +T for pointing that out.