Hi All.

Well, today I’m doing my first product review. This one is for the Bose PAS/L1.

First up, the opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own and are not those neccessarily shared by the Bose corporation.

Ok, all the official crap is now out of the way. Let’s get into it.

First up, I am in fact an owner/operator of the Bose L/1 personal amplification system, and have been for almost 6 happy and trouble free months now. So I’ll be speaking from first hand knowledge.

As our regulars here will know, I make my living as a solo performer these days. While shopping for a P.A to do the job,the first thing I found was that it was hard to bring in a decent P.A system for the task for under $5 000AU. Ouch!

So what do you do when the retail outlets are letting you down?

All together now…..THE INTERNET!!!!!!

I went home and turned on my clapped out, virus riddled computer. First stop, Ebay. Hmmmm, I thought. Second hand. Could die in the middle of my first gig. How embarrassment!

I then thought about some of the more popular brands of small P.A’s used by other performers in my business. Bose was the first to spring to mind. First I thought I might be going the wrong way as Bose, while good, are costly. But, you get what you pay for. Anyway I started nosing around the site and stumbled across the PAS/L1.

The first thing that caught my eye was in big black bold letters under the picture of the system. It was the price. $2995AU. OK, at least that is sitting well with my wallet, so it’s worth reading on.

This is the wierdest looking P.A you’ve ever seen. It’s a stick and a bread box. That’s the best description I can give it. The stick is around 7′ high with 24x 2″ speakers running from top to bottom that comes apart in the middle for transport. The bread box is the sub, ( Hahaha, bread, sub’, get it?), and that’s about it’s size too. The stick sits and clips into the power amp base where lie your inputs and outputs with attenuators. Two inputs are both balanced and 1/4″. The second set of inputs are just 1/4″, also with attenuators giving a total of 6 in’s.

I kid you not, this system is out of the included cases and up inside of 2 minutes! it’s down almost as fast. Power? Well this little baby will fill a room with crystal clear audio containing up to 500 people.

“What about foldback?”

In short, not required thank you very much. The system sits behind the performer. This is where the magic happens and what makes the Bose PAS/L1 so special.

The performer hears what the audience is hearing. The system is for all intents and purposes, feedback proof. Having said that, if you walk up to the stick and crank the volume then proceed to shove your mic right into the thing then of course you’re asking for it. It’s still speakers and microphones afterall. Don’t be a moron just to prove me wrong. I am talking feedback proof with “NORMAL” use. I have not heard a single squeal in 6 months of operation. However, I can still get sustained feedback through it with my electric guitar. I don’t get it either, but it’s a good thing. The axe still wails.

As I said before, the performer hears what the audience hears. The L/1 speakers radiate sound in a horizontal arc of about 160 degrees and not in a 360 degree circle as do standard speakers, thus hitting ceiling and floors creating unwanted extra reverb as standard speaker arrays do. This means the sound at the back of the room is the same as what’s on stage with minimal volume loss and no added room reverb. It’s crystal clear.

In my set up, I have just one sub and I run my electric guitar and vocal mic through the first 2 inputs. Then plug my accoustic and backing tracks mp3 player into the second 2 inputs.

There is also an included remote that you can hang over your mic stand to mix on the fly. It has volume and 3 band EQ controls for the first two main channels and an overall master volume. So in my case, I have seperate control over my vocal and electric guitar mix, and the master controlling the level of the backing tracks. It’s totally sweet dude.

Can it be blown up?

I don’t think so. I have had the odd gig where I’ve given the system a good nudge. The only thing I noticed is what appeared to be an inbuilt compressor kicks in clamping things down a tad. I was ok with that as it really added a nice punch to the sound.

Also, I don’t take a guitar amp to my gigs. It’s obsolete with this thing. I have a Marshall JMP1 preamp which I plug straight into the P.A. Most multi FX units these days have some sort of speaker emmulation built in, so you should be good to go. However, the two main inputs do have preset EQ’s with a card telling you which preset to use for Fender Strat style guitars, Gibson Style guitars etc. Same for your mic, be it Shure, Samson or whatever you use. Then you just fine tune the EQ on the remote to get it just as you like it. My accoustic and MP3 player have their own built in EQ’s which is why I use the other two inputs for those as they don’t have EQ presets in those channels.

OK, so let’s get freaky with you guys who fear change.

We have grown up since Woodstock with the idea of having a backline of guitar amps, bass amps, keyboard amps, drum fill. Then add the foldback and sidefill, then the front of house. This set up is ingrained as the accepted norm and can never be beaten. Dare I say it? It’s TRADITION. We’ll guys and gals, Bose has kind of now pooh poohed that with this system. That set up is so yesterday dude.

We have gone on to perform accepting that the vocalist is going to yell at the guitar player to turn down because he can’t hear himself or the keyboard player on the opposite side of the stage. The drummer has his fill so loud, he may as well play on his own. And then there’s the bass muddying up everything. Then you have a badly designed venue that’s boomy as hell and no matter what you do you’re producing mud. “But that’s rock and roll, man”.

We had no choice then. But now we do.

See if you can wrap your head around this concept.

The whole band equipped with the Bose PAS/L1. The guitars have the standard rig, like mine with the single sub. The bass player can have 2 and up to 4 subs on his system, as can the drummer, and the keys can have one with 2 subs, or also up to 4 if he likes to drone away on the bottom end. Also, let’s not forget the lead singer with his standard Bose PAS/L1. Singing guitar players can also plug a mic into their systems as well.

So let’s look at what we’ve achieved with this.

We’ve eliminated live guitar and bass mics. Keys usually D.I anyway. So we only have vocal mics and drum mics on stage. We’ve also put the mix back in the hands of THE BAND. When playing in your average nightclub or pub, You’ve just eliminted completely the need to even have a P.A system and foldback. More bucks for the muso’s.
Remember, this baby will comfortably fill a 500 person venue with crisp clear sound from front to back. With no foldback there’s no sound bouncing of the floor and ceiling muddying the stage sound. Remember, these things throw out in a horizontal arc. There’s no verticle component. Also, you will hear everyone else in the band just as clearly as you hear yourself. An end to the volume wars. What you guys hear on stage is exactly what the audience at the back of the room hears! THE BAND HAS CONTROL, not a sound engineer who’s never heard the band before in his life and has no idea of what you’re going for.

“That’s great guy, but I’m in a bigger band that does 5000 seat theatres.”

So what? you think this still won’t work? Will the stage hold around 500 people? I didn’t think so. So your on stage sound is still more than taken care of with this system. Therefore, still no need for muddy, squealing foldback. Just add a front of house and D.I everything straight into the FOH desk. That’s it. You’re done. Same on stage sound, but you have a big FOH system taking up the slack out front.

This is a set up that I currently dream of trying. I think if the whole band was equipped with these babies, you could say goodbye to bad sound forever. Also, I should mention this. There is no need to re EQ from one room to another. That’s right. You heard me. Why? Because the sound is not being impacted in any significant way by the type of room your in.

In closing, this is rather new technology and definitely a fresh approach to some very old, long standing problems. If your still dubious, do yourself a favour and go see the system in action. If you live in Sydney, you can come to any of my shows. If you’re overseas, I’m sure the good people at Bose can point you in the right direction.

My guitar rig hasn’t left the house in 6 months. It’s obsolete. I just take my rack and the Bose. When I walk into the gig the laughter soon stops when I start playing. It’s hard to laugh when you’re jaw is on the floor. Fender twins? Marshall JCM900’s with 2 quad boxes? I eat them for breakfast.

It’s going to take a while for the mainstream to come onboard with this because we’ve all been so brainwashed. But give it time. I’m sure we’ll see a mass awakening over the next few years. Not to mention a lot of out of work FOH operators. Sorry guys.

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