Covering the length of a street skate with sound was a complicated problem. As well as the volume of the sound being affected by the amount of weight the bike can carry there is a limit to how loud you can make it at one point without hurting those close to it. Skaters absorb sound, the moving air carries it away and without the walls of indoors there are on reflections to boost the levels. The inverse square law states that for every doubling of distance the perceived sound levels will drop by a quarter. It was a big problem and one which we did not have funds or time to overcome in the first season.

The solution was to have repeater sound systems spaced through out the skate and some kind of radio link. We looked into FM transmitters and various bespoke radio solutions which were all dismissed for one reason or another, legality, cost and power consumption being just a few.

At the time The Thumper Sound Crew were experimenting with linking their rigs together with a Trantec S4000IEM, in-ear monitoring kit. Designed for speaker less stage monitoring, the kit consisted of a UHF transmitter which could be powered by our 12v batteries and small belt pack receivers which plugged into the ASBOx. A demonstration was hastily arranged.

The actual repeater sound systems were easy to envisage and several simple examples were to be found on various European skates. The crux of the design had to be weight and durability as they needed to be carried for at least two hours and withstand the odd knock or two. We purchased a second hand rucksack, a 400wt max amp, a pair of 400wt max 6.5 speakers, some 6mm plywood, recycled one of the 12Ah batteries from Bass Freight MKI and ASBOx I was born.

With a simple on off switch and input for any kind of personal player the MkI proved to be loud, light and durable, running on its own battery for over 4 hours at a time.

Once built we were eager to try out the radio link and arranged for a trial one Sunday on the Roller Stroll. The Thumper Crew had the transmitter set up on their sound and we simply plugged the small receiver into ASBOx I. Despite it being a rather showery day the system performed remarkably giving us distances of nearly 100 meters and even remaining connected out of sight and around twisting side roads.

Convinced it was right we ordered a system with three receivers and went about building a second and later third ASBOx.

The idea of mounting a car stereo on a back pack prooved popular and the ASBOx inspired several other systems covered elsware on this site.

Over time several improvements have been made to the system. A ground plane aerial was added to improve the range and the transmitter on the bike provided with its own battery to it breaking up when we drove the main sound hard. Receivers on ASBOx’s were mounted at head height and the 9volt battery used to provided power replaced with a 9volt feed from the main ASBOx battery to improve performance.

ASBOx I & II were almost identical and performed well all through the 06 season though we always wanted them to be louder. During the Autumn using parts left over from the Bassfreight refit ASBOx III The Bass Invader was born. Fitted with a 1K Max amp and a pair of the original 6x9s from BassFreight MKI The Bass Invader is heavier than ASBOx’s I&II but delivers a phenomenal amount of sound.

At the start of the 07 season and in line with our constant quest for increased volume ASBOx I & II went for a re-fit. The speakers were replaced with more powerfull 100wt RMS 5 inch drivers from theloudest.com, the same brand responsible for the Bassfreights mighty punch and the wiring spruced up for optimum performance.

Combined with the main sound on the Bassbreight the radio linked ASBOxs add up to an awesome sound.