Distributed Party Zone speaker idea thread…

can we please make quarry stage a reality?

So Mendo Magic has neighbor sound limitations and we want to party all night. I have this idea for a distributed party zone…basically take what we did with our half-dozen UE Booms and use actual speakers to make an actual party zone. Why? Because we have an official limit of 50db at 50' and an unofficial limit of “don’t piss off the neighbors”. And with big speakers we play them loud to have a large zone of moderate sound to dance in….so the idea here to create this large zone of moderate sound with only moderate sound. The idea is to string some cables between trees to support a hanging grid of ~50 speakers, 15'-20' apart, about 15'-20` off the ground, firing down. A 7x7 grid of small speakers like this would cost $1000 and cover a 140'x140' dancefloor I think the downward firing and the lower individual volume will let us have decent volume, but I’m just going on a hunch. Thoughts? @dry-vase-19852 @early-dress-81582

I think this is feasible. The sound that traveled far was from the mains not the subs. @early-dress-81582 has a small battery pack that would power a controller and transmitter for hours of fun.

I think the amplifier and all of the DJ equipment would still be down on the ground. This isn’t a particularly easy to move setup, so it would be fixed in one place for the duration of the event.

The entire setup could be rolled in a cart for mobility

moving it isn’t the issue. Stringing it up in the trees and hanging the speakers would take time

Just stop moving and party

I don’t think you’re smoking what I’m pushing here…

Facing the ground?

yes

@early-dress-81582?

throwing sound at sound-absorbing ground should def be quieter than throwing sound in a horizontal cone that also spreads upward

This is an interesting topic and I’m sure whatever we try will be fun. One idea is for us to look into FM silent disco receivers (we already have some headphones and transmitters in the community right?). We could go DJ > transmitter > a bunch of receivers > aux input on a bunch of Bluetooth speakers

Bluetooth speakers are generally omnidirectional. I specifically want to use directed sound firing down.

Here is the receiver only - https://www.go-on.cn/Silent-Disco-Headphones/412.html Model no. RF-8650 I was emailing with Kitty ( <mailto:sales04@go-on.cn|sales04@go-on.cn>) at that company a few years ago when we were considering silent disco tech as a workaround for wireless monitors for The Circuit Jerks. Not sure if she’s still with the company but was professional and helpful.

Bluetooth speakers are also typically more expensive and would need to be recharged

Do we need 50 outputs? Can’t one daisy chain speakers?

I know you can daisy chain self powered speakers. Not sure how it would work with cheap passive ones.

I thin this would produce a less fun party vibe. Have you ever hung out in a room that has several speakers near the ceiling all playing the same thing? I have and it kills the “where the party at” vibe bc any where you go is equally loud. I know that should be a good thing, but for animal hominids somehow it doesn’t get the ppl going. We want the BIG BIG thing over there and then like to hang out at some distance from it. Silly, but true. my 2 cents. Otoh, a bunch o distributed speakers could be a fun toy for other art projects, so i suggest you get 10 and we can try them out.

Good point, but I think this would work differently outdoors than indoors. There’s still a “music zone” to congregate to and a quieter perimeter to retreat to. I’ll try a small scale experiment for when we go to MM next 🙂