I’ve been using the SBox Ghost Box & Recorder for a couple of months now. It is now a tool used and appreciated by my guest ghost hunters on the Stories in the Cemetery Interactive Ghost Hunting Experiences in downtown Charleston, SC. I’d like to cover a few features of this device and explain why I use it.
SBox Aesthetic Features
This device was designed by the team at GhostStop.com. You can find their logos and website all over this page. But with that in mind, they kept the ghost hunter in mind when creating this device. When compared to the popular SB-7, the SBox is both affordable and useful.
For starters, the built in speaker is loud! There are no attachments bulking off the edges of the black and red design. The digital face on the screen is easy to read and shows battery life. The battery is also rechargeable, so there’s no carrying of extra batteries for multiple ghost hunts or road trips. The tool simply plugs into any micro USB cable and voila, you’re charging. That’s the cell phone charger you’ve been using for your old phone, in case you were wondering, not the new USB-C types.
It’s compact and has a leather type wallet that doesn’t allow accidental button pushes. The wallet is sold separately of course, but I am highly recommending it. The power is controlled by a toggle button and it sits on top of the device away from all the other controls. I can’t tell you how many times my SB-7 got jostled around my gig bag and it gets turned on by accident while I’m driving away from my location.
And last but not least, there’s a flashlight on the device that works even when the power toggle button is in “OFF” mode. It’s not the brightest of bulbs, but hey, sometimes any light is good!
Overall, the functionality of aesthetics and thought process is evident in the gadget. Let’s talk about it’s main functions.
Recording with the SBox
With a micro-SD card inserted, the tool has the capability to record your spirit box sessions. There are highlights and pitfalls and once you get the gist of the rules, this is a great device.
I should first say, that when the device is recording a sweep, outside noises and voices cannot be heard. For my ghost hunts with teams of people, this can be a good thing or a bad thing. I’m already recording the entire audio for the team to review later, so it’s not necessary to record outside audio through the SBox, but it would be great to hear questions through the recording and then the answer through the sweep. A “PAUSE SWEEP” button would be very useful here.
However, listening to a synced MP3 file with the natural audio from a separate recorder is not all that difficult. The morning after a ghost hunt, I can listen to both toggling the file until I find what my guest heard.
The other great feature about the recordings is that no matter where your volume turnstile is located (either loud or on mute), the recording comes out in one even level. This is fantastic because during my ghost hunts, we often stop for me to tell the data of a specific location and I ask that spirit boxes are turned down so they can hear, all the while, the SBox is still recording. That’s a wonderful feature to have.
MP3 Files
I have really had only one pitfall with the SBox and that deals with the files. Because I do 6-12 ghost hunts a week, I need to label the files. The files do not give me a date/timestamp of when it was taken and is assigned a number. Renaming the file isn’t the issue, losing the assigned number, but making sure I have the correct file for each tour can be a bit of a struggle. Granted, I’m uploading this files to this website the very next morning but if an amateur ghost hunter toggles the power button several times throughout the tour, then I have to remember how many files that ghost hunt gets. It’s not necessarily difficult, but it does make my job easier when there are the same number of files as per tours that evening.
I recently took the SBox to my paranormal vacation in Pennsylvania where I visited Gettysburg (3x locations), Falling Waters, and the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville. Most of the places I went to “investigate” did not allow recordings of any kind. This is where the SBox was set to record and went into my pocket discreetly. Once back at my computer, I labeled each MP3 file according to my locations each day for review later. I tested each file to make sure they recorded properly and the length of time and put them aside for when I do the full research for each location.
Summary
All in all, I give this gadget a 9/10. For the outside functionality and the recording side of the device, this tool is an absolute must have for my tours. The designers were thoughtful in creating a device that not only works with sweeping technology, allowing us to review the data later with the recording function, but they also gave us a safety light in case our dark spaces turn darker.
To my knowledge, you can only get this great little device from GhostStop’s website. It typically runs $89.95, but often goes on sale. Click the banner below to check it out.
More than just a blog…
This will be episode 36 of the Stories in the Cemetery podcast.
S7E77 The Scole Experiment – Stories in the Cemetery
Let’s go Ghost Hunting!
If you are traveling to Charleston, SC or you live in the area, let’s go ghost hunting! Stories in the Cemetery is also an Interactive Ghost Hunting Experience. This is not your average walking ghost tour. You will be using tools of the trade including the SBox Ghost Box as mentioned in the above review.
Other tools used during the ghost hunt are the FLIR thermal imaging camera, SB-7 spirit box, laser grids and more. What’s even better than getting to use all these gadgets? You get the link to your specific ghost hunt’s data to further your investigation. I give you a quick analysis of what I found in the data as a collective and then you get to review it over and over again at your leisure.
Here is the August Tour Evidence Page: August 2020.
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