Artist PBB01 Battery Bank Power Supply Review
Artist PBB01 Battery Bank Power Supply Review
Today’s article is my full review of the Artist PBB01 Pedal Battery Bank Power Supply. In this review, I will compare it against the legendary 1-Spot power supply from TrueTone/Visual Sound.
The Artist Guitars PBB01 Power Supply does 7 Things Your 1-Spot Won’t
In today’s review, we are checking out the Artist PBB01 battery bank power supply from Artist Guitars. This power supply does seven things your 1-spot won’t. I’m a massive fan of the 1-spot power supply and have been using them for years, but the PBB01 has a few additional benefits and features over the 1-sot that I’ll showcase in this video.
1) No Wall Socket Connector Required
Unlike the 1-Spot, The Artist pedal battery bank does not require a wall socket connection for operation and will give you up to 6.5 hours of battery life with all of the outputs utilized. If you are using low-draw pedals, this will no doubt increase the runtime, but the official runtime is 6.5 hours. 6.5 hours of runtime will be long enough for any of the gigs I’ve ever done, and it’s long enough to work in a home studio environment for long recording sessions or jamming.
2) Powers Your iPhone or Tablet
The second thing the PBB01 Battery Bank can do over a 1-Spot is power your phone, Tablet, or USB device. This USB charging is convenient for folks who read lyrics off a tablet at a gig or if you need to charge your phone in a pinch. Being that it powers USB devices essentially means it can power anything else that you generally require USB power, including lights, Bluetooth speakers, and more.
3) Reduced (or Zero) Ground-Loop Issues
The Third benefit to the Artist PBB01 is that it reduces any ground loop or hum. Of course, not everyone will experience this ground loop or hum with a wall socket-based power supply. A battery-powered PSU makes it less likely to have a lot of hum or noise polluting your signal chain.
4) LED Indicators
We get LED indicators on the power supply, letting you know which pedals are powered. These LED lights are a simple yet effective feature. LED indicators make trouble-shooting signal chain issues a lot easier.
5) Fits Under Your Pedalboard
The low and compact form factor means it’s straightforward to store and place under any pedalboard. You velcro this to the bottom of your board and never have to worry about bunching cables in a bag like I’ve been doing for years after gigs.
6) Included Power Cables
Unlike the 1-Spot, where you only get the power supply in the regular pack, the Artist PSU comes withseven7 pedal power cables. This inclusion saves you buying a daisy chain to run between them all.
7) No Cable Wear and Tear
One of the things that I’ve never enjoyed about the one spot is being in a situation where the only power cable on the wall is low to the ground. Therefore, you need an extension cable or power board to run so you don’t stress the wires. At my house, it’s not an is, sure, but at many venues, they have power right along the bottom of the skirting boards, which will wreck the cable going to the 1-spot brick. This cable issue is eliminated with Artist PB001.
PBB01 Pedal Power Supply Review
The 1-spot is still one of the best value and best-performing power supplies on the market. This value and performance are why I have two of them. Most battery banks like this are far more expensive or cheaper and offer far fewer options. Take this Harley Benton version, for example. It’s very affordable, but we only get one output, and for whatever reason, this one is so noisy in the signal chain, which renders it unusable.
The Artist PB001 pedal battery bank is affordable at $69 and delivers features in way more expensive units.
What’s in the box
Included in the box are the power supply, seven power cables for going from the power supply to each of your pedals, and a USB cable for charging the unit. So you use an iPhone or Android charger to charge the unit, and it’ll be good to go.
My only nitpick with this setup is that Artist guitars don’t include any right-angle power connectors, which save a lot of space on both sides of your pedalboard setup. These straight cables aren’t the best for pedals with side-mounted power inputs like the VS Audio Vibler. The right-angles make mounting this on the board a lot easier, save space, and keep things a lot tidieSincehat these right-angle connector cables aren’t expensive to buy, it’s not a deal-breaker, b’s worth mentioning.
Specifications
The only other thing to note is that this supports 9v power only. For those new to power supplies, you can run any 9vDC pedal into any of the seven 9v 100mA outputs or one 9v 300mA option. If you have any 9vDC pedal, it will work fine plugged into the 300mA output without causing any issues.
All in all, this is a great little unit. At AUD 69 and offers features in way more expensive units. This power supply does not negatively impact my signal ch, ain, and it sounds dead quiet. Additionally, I jammed around on this for an hour or so, and it’s performed exceptionally well. The Power Bank performed great when I used it with the daisy chain cable or the individual power cables.
Thanks to artist guitars for sending the PBB01 Power Supply out for this video. I appreciate it.
