Sarno Black Box Mini?

[Robby Harris]

What’s your experience?

I’m particularly curious to hear from single coil players.
Brad has mentioned that those who have tried to rig a leg clip together for the standard unit experience excessive hum.
Is proximity to single coils still a factor with the mini? Or does the external power supply resolve this?

I welcome any other thoughts regarding the standard vs mini you may have! I’d like to pick one up, just a matter of weighing which one is best for me. Thanks!

[Jon Jaffe]

I tried it with a '75 Sho-Bud with an original pickup and also an '83 Kline U12. I did not notice any hum. I think they are essential for dialing in my tone live.

[Rich Ertelt]

The mini uses a wall wart, and comes with a leg clip. I have mine on my Mullen with a single coil (and had it on a GFI with single/lace/humbucker) and didn't notice it added any hum. Wall wart is on the floor, so not near the pickup.

I did replace the JJ 12ax7 with a Tung Sol RI. I'm not a big fan of JJ 12ax7s.

[Jon Jaffe]

I don't like power transformers either, but a battery option is available for the Mini. I power my TONEX One with an iPhone backup battery. And for reasons I won't go into, I had to use it to power the Mini for one set. It worked just fine for an hour. I didn't try it for all three hours of the gig. It will power a MacBook, so I assume it's not doing the Mini any harm.

[Brad Sarno]

Black Box MINI runs of 9v DC supply (tip negative like for every guitar pedal) and consumes about 535 milliamps. So you can do the math. Like a 2,000 mah 9v battery (milliamp-hours) should give about 4 hours of run time on a full battery. Just be sure it's 9v or very close.

B