Protecting speakers at the beach

[MisterB]

I'm helping some friends do a party on the beach. One of us will most likely have to rent speakers for the event and I'd like to know any strategies or materials recommended that will give the speakers decent protection from sand and the other elements while still letting good sound come through. I don't want to elevate the subs too much but I also don't want them sucking in a bunch of sand from sitting too low to the beach. Understandably so, the rental place tends to get if we bring back cabinets that have sand in them...

Looking forward to when I have my own BFM system so that I can tell my friends that we'll still have to rent a system because I don't want a bunch of sand in my beautiful BFM cabs

[sine143]

thin black trash bags for tops are pretty decent. might f up the sound a tad, but barely. I'd put the subs on top of shipping pallets, found behind your (least)favorite retail store.

[Ryan A]

I would put a tarp or a piece of plywood down and set them on top of it.

If you're worried about sand kicking up into the speakers from the wind or whatever, wrap the speakers in bed sheets. It will protect the speakers just enough but still let the sound pass through just fine.

[mems]

I would put a tarp or a piece of plywood down and set them on top of it.

If you're worried about sand kicking up into the speakers from the wind or whatever, wrap the speakers in bed sheets. It will protect the speakers just enough but still let the sound pass through just fine.

Along these lines I was gonna suggest a very thin pillow case should go right around most of them dependent on size.

[kkip]

My only advice would be to not forget to protect your casters. Back in the day, I was hired to DJ a beach party. All four of my bass cabinets and my amp rack had casters with open swivel bearings. The sand made its way into the swivel area and stuck to the bearing grease. As you can imagine, sand in bearings is a bad combination. Let's just say that having to replace twenty casters did not make for a very profitable evening. Not to mention the time spent vacuuming sand out of everything. Which is why beach parties became the second kind of event that I would always turn down. And the first? Frat parties, but that is a story for another time

[ncgrove]

Goin to Port A? I was down at Padre Island a couple of weeks ago, and I just put my J10 on the sand. I just blew it out with compressed air when I got home. I'm sure there's plenty of sand in there, but as long as it's not getting all over my house, I don't worry about it.

I guess it's a little different with rental cabs. Start getting excited about taking your future BFM cabs to the beach. They are so sensitive that you don't need too much amplification or a lot of large, heavy boxes to get huge sound. Moving a lot of stuff around will definitely cut into your beer drinking time. How many people are partying?

[SoundInMotionDJ]

After 5 years...I still occasionally get a couple bits of sawdust falling out of my DR200's during load in/out. I am not sure what it would take to get it all cleaned out....

[MisterB]

Thanks for the responses!

I might test the plastic bags out on my home speakers. They're not nearly as powerful as the ones we'll be renting so my theory is that if it doesn't affect the sound too much with lower powered speakers, it should be okay with higher power... I'll try to avoid drinking the beers during this process. That can sometimes have an effect on whether or not I think my theories are correct

I also like the pillow case / sheet idea. We're doing a psytrance party and maybe we could use some tapestries over the speakers as deco.

ncgrove - We'll be at N. Padre and we'd love 100 but realistically are figuring maybe 50 heads. And yeah, can't wait till I have my own BFM system. Ironically I took an extra summer job at Bassmaxx to save towards that

kkip - Very good point about the casters! If we end up with cabinets with casters I think I'll just duct tape the crud out of em to essentially seal them up. We won't be able to roll them on the beach anyway.

[Bruce Weldy]

Thin plastic sheeting that you can get a HD (paint dept.) works fine. Heard a Vertec array a couple of months ago with it on there and it wasn't bad at all (protecting against rain). It stifles the sound a little - but nowhere near what the beer will do to your ears in the first place.