Bose L1
Les Cargill wrote:
It's not bad at all. Sounds quite a bit better than most all MI store
small club kit. I was expecting sort of an Acoustimass experience - not
so at all. Sounds like a modest PA, but much better than the usual
weekend warrior kit. The absence of horns and tweeters ( and I'm sure
the sophisticated active crossovers in the brain box ) made it darned
smooth.
It has some weirdness in the top couple octaves and that weirdness changes
with position. I'd call it an "overprocessed" kind of sound. However, I
agree strongly that this beats horn resonances hands-down for listening
pleasure. Especially the nasty "15in plus plastic exponential horn" systems
that you see in MI stores.
With the things behind the band, you get a much more open stage sound
and I'm sure it sounds more like it does in the room when heard from the
stage. It is sound *reinforcement*, not a kill-a-watt bullhorn.
Yes, and that makes it pretty much unique in the MI store market.
Here's the thing that surprised me - it's the best "monitors" I've
heard onstage that were not full pro arena kit. And this actually
produced an improvement in performance, stage levels and coherence of
the band itself. You can *listen* again onstage instead of guessing.
Yes, this is the point of the whole thing. The bad part that comes along
with this, though, is that the gain before feedback is not anywhere near
as high as you would get with a conventional monitor or even a 1970s-style
side-fill.
I usually detest stage monitors in clubs - I'd rather use the room
return. Yes, this includes allegedly nice monitors in clubs. which are
invariably obnoxious, even with earplugs. These, I liked - and I
don't need plugs as much with this band anymore.
I'm not sure it's really road worthy, and the price is kind of out of
line with the sort of market you might use them in. But I was
impressed. It solved a lot of problems.
Bose is very good at that. They look at the market, they see something
that people want that isn't being provided, and they sell it. They have
a bad reputation in the industry because often what they sell isn't designed
to sound good, but that's because the market niche was for something that
didn't require good sound to sell.
I think it's possible to build a much better system for a small acoustic
group than the Bose... but the fact that Bose is doing it and that you
can buy it at your corner MI store is important because you aren't going
to find Tannoy stuff there.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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