Bose L1 Model II

The Bose Corporation of Framingham, Massachusetts, founded by Professor Amar Bose in 1964, is one of those companies that has managed to challenge me on more than one occasion. The first time was in 1972, when they launched the 801 PA loudspeaker. To a musician/engineer who had cut his teeth building Baltic ply 1x18 bass bins and 2x12 mid cabs, loading up JBL horn flares and powering them all with racks of Amcron DC300s and 150s, the idea of a plastic box with eight little speakers in it that could soak up a couple of hundred Watts seemed bizarre. However, stack four of them together in an array, drive them with a kilowatt or so and the results are (or rather, were) pretty impressive. Incidentally, Bose — to their great credit — have continuously developed the 801 into its present incarnation as the 802 MK III, delivering in the process what must be a record lifetime for a PA loudspeaker. A few years ago, when I was involved in the hi-fi industry, the Bose WAVE Radio raised my eyebrows again with its internal labyrinth and 'room-filling' claims. I should have known better and just believed in the concept straight away

Which brings us to the present day and another couple of Bose products that fly in the face of much conventional wisdom, custom and belief: the Bose L1 Model II personal amplification system and the T1 ToneMatch audio engine. Since the L1 is basically an active loudspeaker system and the T1 is essentially a mixing console, I will look at them separately and bring them together later.

As form inevitably follows function, there has to be a really good reason for making a powered loudspeaker as a 7ft tower, and Bose certainly has one! The philosophy behind the design originates from the way in which we listen to sounds and perceive them. In the human mind, sight and sound are closely interlinked. For example, if you watch a group of musicians playing acoustically, you'll find it pretty easy to pick out individual instruments. But, if you put these musicians on a stage with a conventional PA, two things happen: firstly, the natural balance between the instruments disappears once the pickups and microphones come out to play, and secondly, the sound comes from sources that aren't directly related to the musicians' position on the stage. This affects both the way in which we perceive the performance and the way in which the musicians play — it doesn't necessarily make things better or worse, but it does change them.

Younger players may occasionally wonder why early amplifiers had a plethora of inputs (my Ampeg had inputs for Instrument, Accordion and Microphone). The answer is simple: in the early days, a band would all plug into the same amplifier, singer included. With that amplifier acting as both PA and monitor, individual players' dynamics were crucial in ensuring that everyone could be heard clearly. As PA equipment arrived and moved through its various stages of development (getting louder at every stage), instrument amplifiers were able to become more powerful and the dynamic interaction between musicians changed dramatically. Until finally, with the advent of the mixing console, the band's entire balance was handed over to FOH and monitor engineers.

In 1973, American band The Grateful Dead, whose members' musical roots were in acoustic folk and bluegrass, wanted a distortion-free PA system that could also serve as the band's monitors. The system that was finally toured was an array, behind the musicians, of 586 JBL speakers and 54 Electrovoice tweeters powered by 48 MacIntosh 2300 amps giving out 28,200 Watts, which were controlled by the band, without a front-of-house engineer. This system became known as the 'Wall of Sound', and a friend of mine, who heard it on its debut at the Cow Palace in March 1974, described the sound as crystal clear and not deafeningly loud, but giving the same volume at the front of the hall as at the back. There are other reports of the Wall producing high quality sound in the open air out to 200 yards, and acceptable levels to 400 yards — at which point the wind began to degrade the sound.

The Bose L1 systems, just like the Dead's Wall of Sound, are designed to enable the audience to locate a musician using sight and sound, to allow that musician's natural balance and dynamics to assert themselves, to act as both PA and monitor systems, and to remove the need for a front-of-house sound engineer. So, how do they do it?

Closely spaced loudspeakers interfere with each other, both constructively and destructively, and that results in a very directional vertical dispersion. The horizontal dispersion of an array is the same as that of the individual loudspeakers. Because this tight vertical dispersion tends not to excite the reverberant field in large spaces, line arrays in the form of column loudspeakers have been used for years in railway stations, cathedrals and the like. Even our 1960s 4x10 Vox and WEM columns were line arrays — although not quite as sophisticated as the L1.

The result of all of this is that the surface area of the wavefront produced by a line array effectively only expands in the horizontal plane, and therefore, it doubles in area for every doubling of distance from the array. This equates to a 3dB loss in level for every doubling of distance. In contrast, a single loudspeaker produces a roughly spherical wavefront, which expands to four times the area with every doubling of distance, and therefore, the loss in level is 6dB. What this all means in practice is that, given the same reference SPL at, say, 10ft, a line array will be as loud at 60ft as a conventional speaker is at 45ft. Or, to put it another way, you'd need to feed a conventional speaker twice as much power as an array to get it up to the array's level at 60ft.

From an audience perspective, front-to-back levels in a hall vary much less with a line array (as per the Wall of Sound) than with a 'normal' PA where the level is always going to be louder at the front of the hall than at the back. Incidentally, arrays aren't immune from the Inverse Square Law, which is what the 6dB loss with every doubling of distance is known as. For every line array there is a distance (known as its 'critical distance') at which it begins to behave like a 'normal' PA.

The Bose L1 system Model II tower is set up as an articulated line array, which simply means that individual drivers point alternately slightly left and slightly right, rather than simply straight ahead as in the Model I. This arrangement has no effect on vertical dispersion, but does spread the horizontal dispersion out further to give a claimed 180 degrees in the horizontal plane. Vertical dispersion is stated as being in line with the tower itself, which means that it might have to be angled back in a raked auditorium. Bose don't supply measurements to back up these claims — they supply no technical performance data at all — but, in practice, these claims don't appear to be exaggerated.

The recommended complement of Model II systems is one per performer, sitting at the back of the stage, facing the audience. The ideal on-stage placement is in a grid, with systems and peformers being equidistant from each other. In other words, if you can get six feet in front of your individual systems, each musician and each system should be six feet apart.

So what happens when you get on stage? Since the systems are line arrays sitting behind you and projecting out into the hall, and as all of you have to co-operate and self-mix in order to be able to hear everything on stage, your audience hears exactly what you hear and — so the theory goes — everyone has a better experience.

The review system came with its maximum of two B1 passive bass modules, which are dinky little rear-vented subs that fit between the legs of the power stand. Their connection to the stand is via short four-conductor, Speakon-equipped speaker cables, which not only daisy-chain the B1s to the stand but also tell the L1 system (via the extra conductors) whether or not there are B1 modules connected to it. Plug in the IEC power cable and switch on, and that's the system up — it took me a whole two minutes first time round!

Checking out the top panel connectors and controls on the power stand revealed a surprising lack of clutter. The mains IEC socket, the Power Off/on switch and the associated Power/Fault LED (blue for 'system on' and red for 'fault') sit on the top. Below these are the only two outputs — the Bass Module Out Speakon socket for the mandatory B1 module and the balanced Bass Line Out jack, which carries a post-DSP bass signal to drive a Packlite power amp (or amps), powering an extra two B1 modules apiece. Below these are the balanced Analog (sic) Input jack and its trim control, and the ToneMatch port, which is the digital audio and power connector for the optional T1 ToneMatch audio engine.

So, it was off to the first gig to try the Bose out. One of the bands that I play in is a three-piece (piano, fiddle and guitar/mandolin/banjo), which plays for contradances. We're an ideal target customer for a Bose L1 Model II PA system, as we're acoustic-based, play relatively small halls and don't need to be deafeningly loud. Having only one Model II system instead of the four that we'd theoretically need, I decided to test it by replacing the two EON 10P speakers that the fiddle player and I use as monitors, as we have the same mix, which is set so that we can hear ourselves and each other, plus a bit of piano. The hall (the West Park Centre in Leeds) is about 75ft long and around 40ft wide, and has a dancing capacity of around 250. We rigged the PA — two JBL EON 15Ps for mains and four EON 10Ps for monitors, driven by a JBL EON desk mixed on stage — in the usual 30 minutes or so, and it took me another three minutes (including carrying time) to put the L1 Model II up about six feet behind my seat. The soundcheck went smoothly and, once everything was set up, I swapped the monitor send to the L1 Model II, switched it on and wound up some level.

The result was the best monitor sound that we've had in ages. Everything was crystal clear and showing none of the harshness that, as an acoustic musician, I often feel from conventional monitor setups. Thinking about it later, we felt the difference was that we were in a sound field, rather than each of us being in the line of fire of a relatively directional horn. The other surprise was the amount of level that we could get, which was more than we needed, even though we were both using microphones on our instruments and were only five or six feet in front of the L1 tower.

Eager to see what was happening out in the hall, I turned off the main PA and ran a rough piano and fiddle mix through the L1. The even spread of sound down and across the hall was impressive to say the least, but the clarity was even more so. The West Park Centre hall has a cavernous reverb, which was a lot less noticeable with the L1 than with our PA, and illustrated the tight vertical control of the L1's articulated array. Although I felt that the top end was beginning to drop off slightly as I got around 50ft from the stage, this was probably due more to the fact that I wasn't running the L1 at any great volume and I'm pretty sure that a bit more level on stage would have 'fixed' this. In comparison, the EON 15Ps, although projecting superbly to the back of the hall as would be expected, did leave a bit of a hole in the sound field in front of the stage that I couldn't quite eliminate, even after toeing them in considerably. During the dance, I couldn't leave them toed-in, as that gave too much spill onto the stage, so we had to live with the hole. Afterwards, a few people came up to compliment us on the sound, so I'm pretty certain that the monitor mix from the L1 Model II must have filled the gap admirably.

The next test gig was with a barn dance band, playing for a birthday party in a local village hall. This time, the lead instruments were my mandolin, plus a concertina backed up by piano and bass. I set the L1 Model II up as the PA and monitor for myself and the concertina player with the EON 15Ps carrying the piano, bass and caller. Due to space restrictions, I had to rig the Model II about three feet behind the concertina player and I, but again managed to get a surprising amount of level out of it — more than enough for a 50ft hall with around 60 dancers and another 30 or 40 sitting around the side — without any trace of feedback. This combination PA worked really well and, again, audience members came up and complimented us on the sound — especially on the fact that we weren't too loud and everything could be heard clearly.

Back at home, I spent a couple of happy hours playing around, feeding various sources through a mixer into the L1 Model II's Analog input. Running a CD player into it emphasised just how good it was at playback. My voice, using an AKG C535 condenser vocal mic, sounded completely natural and, again, I was surprised at just how much level could be gained from the system without feedback.

Bose suggest that great results can be obtained for electric guitars with a Line 6 POD, or a similar type of preamp with a speaker simulator. So, out came my POD XT and TC Electronics G-Force, both of which have pretty good speaker simulators. Since the L1 Model II is a great playback device, the result was probably as good a sound as can be got from these preamps. The difference from my usual stereo valve power amp and speakers was the loss of any stereo spread (which is really only for my benefit on stage), but the gain of a much wider angle of sound field and the knowledge that my sound would be projected evenly down a hall, instead of being hot-spotted for anyone directly in front of my amps. Preamps like the POD are never as dynamic as the real thing, so another Bose suggestion is to use a guitar amplifier with a power soak or a low-powered amp with a microphone.

To check this out, I rigged my '64 Deluxe with a Groove Tubes Speaker Simulator and got a sound that had more dynamics than the POD and was much more fun to play. Having said that, the POD and the G-Force are much easier to carry around, and I'd probably tend to use them instead. Trying out my little valve Cornell Stinger with an old AKG D1200E dynamic mic just off-axis on the speaker, gave a very accurate representation of the little amp's unique sound. The only practical restriction with using a miked-up amp is that you have to run it at a level that can't be heard over the L1 system, which would tend to preclude its use in small gigs

Moving on to the bass guitar, I found that, to get a balanced sound at higher volumes, I really needed a bit more bass than I could get from two B1 bass modules. Luckily, you can buy extra bass output in the form of a Packlite 250W amplifier, which will drive two more B1 modules. The Packlite is fed from the Bass Line Out of the power stand. If four subs aren't enough, you can keep on adding Packlite/B1 combinations until either you've got enough bass or you run out of cash. Of course, once you're into multiple B1s, you can stack them up into a little line array of their own.

One point that needs to be emphasised is that the L1 Model II system can go very loud indeed. When fed with a CD player properly gain-staged into the power base, it produced levels that were way beyond comfort. With sensibly positioned mics on acoustic instruments and vocals, the L1 system went well beyond the required level before feedback, and I'm certain that if I'd got out my Behringer Shark feedback destroyers, I could have achieved considerable levels indeed. To give you an idea of what these L1 systems can do, Steve Miller of the Steve Miller Band uses two L1 systems as his acoustic guitar monitors. And even more extreme, Todd Rundgren uses one L1 system either side of the stage, instead of conventional wedges, and his engineer has measured a level of 110dB between them — definite hearing loss territory.

Since there's no technical specification available, power ratings are only conjecture. Bose do state that the L1 Model II has only two power amplifiers — one for the column and one for the base — and we can probably assume that the bass amp has a rated 250W output like the Packlite bass amp. Bose quote a current draw of three amps, which would give a power output of 720W, assuming no heat losses. So, I'd be betting on something approaching a rated 500W driving the Model II tower. Bose justify the lack of Model II technical specifications by saying that to reduce complex physical and perceptual properties into simple numbers that can somehow be used to determine the quality or real-world performance of a unique product like the L1 system nonsense. And for once, I'd wholeheartedly agree.

Performances like that of the L1 Model II don't come from simply putting 24 enclosures in a line, adding a couple of subs and connecting a couple of power amps. Bose do state that there is digital signal processing involved and, although there are no artefacts that I could discern, it seems to me that the success of the L1 Model II system is due in no small measure to whatever it is that the DSP is doing. If you delve into the theory of line arrays, you will find there are techniques that can be used to give an array performance capability beyond that due the physical arrangement of its drivers. As Bose don't give any details and I don't have access to an anechoic chamber, it's impossible to detail what goes on in the L1 Model II DSP, so we'll just have to content ourselves with the fact that the system works and works extremely well.

The T1 ToneMatch audio engine is basically a compact three-mono/one-stereo input, mono output digital mixer with onboard dynamics and effects that has been designed primarily for use with Bose L1 systems. However, the inclusion of a two-channel USB output means that, as a stand-alone mixer, it can also be used with other PA or recording setups.

Opening the box reveals a carrying pouch containing the tiny grey plastic bulk of the T1 itself. Also in the box is the ToneMatch cable (RJ45 connectors in XLR shells), which connects the T1 to the L1 Model II power stand, and the hardware that conveniently and simply mounts the T1 on the L1 tower itself. The T1 front panel is protected by a locking clip-on cover, the removal of which reveals a small display screen, switches and rotary controls.

From the top, the first horizontal row of controls contains the four Trim pots for inputs 1, 2, 3 and 4/5 with their associated signal-present LEDs, and the Phantom power switch that delivers 48 volts to channels 1 to 3 for condenser microphones. Below the Trim controls lies the 55 x 30mm display screen, alongside which sits the rotary selector for global and channel-related functions. The selected function determines the operation of the three rotary encoders that incorporate push-select switching and sit beneath the display screen. Immediately below these is a row of individual CH(annel) Edit selector switches, and below these are the FX Mute switches for each channel. The individual channel Vol(ume) pots plus the Master Vol(ume) controls are placed in a line below the FX Mute switches, with the individual channel Mute switches below these. If I'm being picky, I'd have liked to have seen a master mute switch as well, but I suppose you can't have everything.

The back panel contains three jack/XLR combination connectors for inputs 1-3 (with direct preamp outputs for each input), two balanced/unbalanced jack inputs for inputs 4/5, two user-definable outputs (Master and Aux), the ToneMatch port that connects to the Model II power stand, a USB 1.1 port that allows Windows computer connectivity and the On/Off switch. The ToneMatch port also doubles as the input connector for the optional power supply, which is required when the T1 is not connected to a Model II system.

When connected to a Windows computer, the T1 can download ToneMatch presets and system updates, and upload shared performance 'Scenes' to send to other T1 users. In addition, it can act as a USB audio device for recording and playback purposes. Other than confirming that the T1 was recognised by my Sony Viao laptop running Windows XP and that it was working correctly as a two-channel, 48k/24B USB audio device, I didn't explore this area of use in any detail.

Operationally, being screen and menu driven, the T1 is simple to use, although you sometimes do have to learn and remember what turns up where — for example, the Pref(erence)s menu is where you find the input and output level displays. I suggest that you explore this for yourself by visiting the interactive demo at http://t1.boseadvocate.com/T1simulation.swf, where you can go through every possible option.

As I mentioned earlier, the T1 comes complete with hardware that conveniently mounts it by fitting between the two halves of the L1 tower. Once you connect the T1 to the L1 Model II power stand (or plug in the optional power supply) and switch on, you're ready to roll. The rotary function selector is organised into Global and CH(annel) Edit segments. The first channel setting is Aux, which determines where the preamp outputs of channels 1-3 are fed from — Dry, Post EQ and FX, and Pre or Post the channel fader. Having set the output to Dry, as though I would be running into a recorder, I plugged an acoustic guitar into channel 1, set the trim level to give an LED indication of steady green with occasional flashes of yellow, and used the convenience of the Tuner setting to check my tuning.

Following the logical path through setup, I turned the rotary selector to the ToneMatch position and used the channel 1 encoder to select the 'Steel String w/ Piezo' setting from the available options. If I had been using a microphone on the guitar, I could have selected from various presets optimised for a miked-up guitar. Or, if I had been singing, there is a range of presets for various common microphones — for example, the Shure SM58. The ToneMatch presets are organised in banks: Vocal Mics, Electric Guitars, Acoustic Guitars, Keyboards, Basses, Percussion, Winds and Horns, Special (Accordion, Electric Mandolin and Electric Violin, since you ask) and DJ/Playback. Up to three optional preset banks can be downloaded to the T1, and in this particular unit, the Taylor Guitars and Audix microphone sets had been preloaded and were available to me (although, sadly, I don't own any Taylor or Audix products).

Selecting a ToneMatch preset also brings in its matching zEQ setting. This is one of these 'It's so simple, why hasn't it been done before?' concepts, whereby the range covered by a simple three-band equaliser is shifted according to the source selected. Obviously, the frequencies required for a bass guitar are very different from those of an acoustic guitar or vocals, and zEQ (which I imagine an american pronounces as 'zee-kew') works brilliantly in practice to give the optimum EQ range for the ToneMatch settings. Having tweaked the basic tonality to my satisfaction, I moved round the dial and used the single available band of Para(metric) EQ to notch out a bit of body resonance at around 250Hz.

Next comes the Comp(ressor) Gate function, which gives access to three levels of compression: low, medium and heavy — a limiter, a de-esser, a noise gate and two KickGates (regular and fast). All of the dynamics work in the usual fashion and are very effective in operation. The compressors, limiter and de-esser all have preset ratios, with variable threshold and gain parameters. The noise gate and KickGate both have preset attack time, with variable threshold and release parameters.

The KickGate is a proprietary Bose technology, designed specifically for bass drums. In operation, this gate not only allows you to adjust the apparent tightness of the bass drum using the Threshold and Release controls, but also ensures maximum gain before feedback to make your bass drum as loud as possible through the L1. The fast setting is recommended when using a double bass drum pedal. Since I don't play drums, I couldn't totally verify the KickGate operation, but bashing a bodhran through an old AKG D12 showed that it worked as described and certainly allowed more level than if it were bypassed.

Mod(ulation) effects come next and comprise three choruses (Brite (sic), Warm and Dark), two flangers (Tape and Feedback), four phasers (Stomp, Rack, Warm and Bright) and a vintage-style tremolo. The choruses all have mix, speed and depth controls, the flangers and tremolo have speed and depth controls, and the phasers have speed and feedback controls. All these are good sounding effects and I settled on a touch of Brite chorus for the acoustic guitar.

The Delay setting gives access to three distinctly different-sounding delays (Digital, Analog and Tape), each of which has a delay time ranging from 10 to 500 milliseconds. I have fond memories of the old Watkins Copicat, so I dialled up the Tape setting with an initial 200ms delay, for old times' sake, and used the Mix and Time controls to get it sounding just right.

The final effect is a global reverb, where there are five Reverb Types available (Small, Medium and Large rooms, a Plate and a Cavern), each of which has a decay time ranging from 0.2 to 9.99 seconds. These decay times are accessed by the Time control, plus a Bal(ance) control, which adjusts the early-to-late reflection ratio from all-early to all-late. The separate Reverb setting allows control of the wet/dry reverb mix and the overall tonality of the chosen reverb. Being a plate man, I used this setting with 75 percent early reflections and a 0.75-second decay.

The penultimate position on this journey around the T1's rotary selector is labelled Pref(erences). I find this a bit of a misnomer, as it allows the user to check (and in several cases to modify) what I think of more as the status of the T1. The status itself gives an at-a-glance overview of what is on each channel — my channel 1 setup results in Mod, Dly and Rev being listed next to it. I can then meter input and output levels, check the T1 software versions installed, monitor which option ToneMatch presets are loaded and confirm that the power stand is connected. I can also individually set the left and right channel sources feeding the USB out (channels 1,2, 3, 4/5, Aux or Master) and the destination of an incoming left and right USB audio stream (channel 4/5 or Master). Finally, I can decide whether the Master output (as opposed to the ToneMatch output driving the L1) is pre or post the Master fader.

The T1 rotary selector has one last trick up its sleeve in the final rotary selection, Scenes. A scene remembers all T1 settings except Phantom power, channel Trim, channel Vol and Master positions. The T1 has 16 scene locations — five read-only factory presets, 10 user-definable scenes and one user-definable shared scene that can be uploaded to a PC for distribution to other users.

The T1 works extremely well and is one of the nicer small digital mixers that I've used. The ToneMatch presets really do back up the claims that they optimise the performance of a ToneMatched instrument, pickup or microphone and even gave my venerable Shure SM58 — a microphone that I abandoned long ago in favour of the AKG C535 — a new lease of life. Given its sound quality, compact dimensions, facilities and flexibility, the T1 deserves to have a life of its own away from the L1. Although it only has a mono analogue out (ignoring the two-channel USB output), it is a capable little unit that deserves consideration for preamp/submix and small PA duties.

Bose start from the premise that DJs, and anyone playing in any style in venues of up to 500 seats, will be better off in terms of sound quality and playing dynamics if they use an L1 Model II system. Ideally, if you're more than a solo act, every member of the band should have one system each. However, recognising that not every band member will be able to afford one of these systems, Bose also very sensibly gives examples of setups for multiple players going through one system, and the factory-defined scenes mentioned above feature a couple of these very setups. While they're doubtless correct in all this, the reality is going to be driven by budget, by whether or not the band 'gets' the idea, and by audience expectation.

Years ago, I paid my way through university working as a mobile DJ, and I'd have given my eye teeth for a pair of L1 systems to use at every one of the party, wedding and classical gigs that I did. Stylish, unobtrusive, virtually instant to rig and capable of giving an appropriate volume level in a room without deafening those on the dance floor — what's not to like? If I were setting up again today, I'd be purchasing a pair of these like a shot. But if I was running a reggae sound system where my audience expects to see a mass of bass bins towering over them, then I doubt I'd use the L1s.

I can't honestly see a band like Metallica going on stage at Wembley with a forest of L1 systems as their PA and monitors, but I could certainly see a Metallica tribute band playing in my local pub with them. Soloists, duos and cover bands doing the pub, restaurant, party, wedding and corporate circuit, and jazz and acoustic/folk performers, would all seem to be natural markets for the L1/T1 combination. Searching the web for users seems to confirm that function (as opposed to club) DJs, soloists and members of small groups form the majority of users of the L1/T1 combinations — although, I did find a 10-piece funk band and a few rock bands along the way. There are also a significant number of praise groups using them in churches, as well as the jazz/acoustic/folk/country musicians and vocalists that you'd expect to find.

To successfully switch from a conventional PA setup to using the L1 Model II system and the T1 ToneMatch audio engine, you're going to have to rethink your approach to sound, both on stage and in the audience. You will no longer be able to simply play at one level all night and rely on your sound engineer and/or PA to sort it out in the mix. Once you've all committed to the changes in your personal equipment setups that are necessary to get the best from the Bose system, sold the amps and the PA and found yourselves standing on stage with 7ft black towers behind you, you're going to need to interact on a level that you probably only do in quiet rehearsals.

To me, that is the beauty of this approach. If you are the kind of band or artist where dynamic interplay is an important component of your sound, then you are going to love playing through the L1/T1 system, your performances are going to be better and your audience is going to have a better time. Mind you, if all you want is a new compact PA system that'll do loud, you can simply replace your current PA stacks with a couple of L1 systems — your audience will get the benefit of the sound quality and you can suffer your amps and wedges on stage.

I've been lucky to have had an L1 Model II and T1 system to put through its paces for a couple of weeks, and without this opportunity, I doubt that I'd have considered buying a system (let alone the four that my band now lusts after). L1 systems are only available through two dealers — Sound Control's national chain of music stores and London's Turnkey, where you'll get specialist advice and demos — but Bose UK's Andy Rigler will also bring a demo L1/T1 system out to you if you're genuinely interested in purchasing one.

As I mentioned, my band would really like to get hold of four L1 Model II systems, four T1s and two extra B1 bass modules. That would give us one each, plus one for any caller/vocalist that we end up working with, as we don't want stage level vocals coming out of our personal systems. The real challenge would be to manage the transition from our existing JBL EON-based system to the L1/T1/B1 system.

The first step would be to bite the bullet and buy two L1 Model II systems, plus two extra B1 modules, to replace our usual PA of four JBL EON 15Ps and two EON-powered subs (which would have to be sold). Once the financial dust had settled from that, the next stage would be to purchase two T1 ToneMatch audio engines and switch the L1 systems from FOH PA duties to their 'proper' role as both PA and monitors. One system would carry just the piano and the other would carry my instruments and the fiddler's fiddle. At the same time, four of our five JBL EON10P monitors would move to FOH PA duties, carrying the caller/vocalist and any other musicians, plus feeds from the T1s, just in case they're needed. Stage three would be to buy another L1 Model II/T1 combination so that the fiddler and I could have our own systems. And finally, we'd buy a fourth L1/T1 for the caller/vocalist and sell off the EON 10Ps and the remaining small mixing console.

As you'll see from the system pricing, this would not be an inexpensive exercise, and the savings in transport and setup times are going to have to form a fair bit of the justification for the changeover, as well as the expected improvements in our interaction and our on-stage and audience sound. Doing the first stage from scratch would be about 50 percent more expensive than an EON-based solution, and we might have ended up substituting the older L1 Model 1 systems, accepting a slightly narrower horizontal tonal dispersion and saving on the need to eventually buy T1s, as the Model 1 power base has a two-mono (with ToneMatch)/one-stereo input mixer built in.

It's been a long time since I've had so much enjoyment from playing my instruments through a PA or monitor system and I really don't want to see this L1 Model II/T1 ToneMatch combination go back to Bose UK — perhaps Father Christmas will arrive early this year.

Having said that, it isn't going to be an appropriate system for every band in every situation (especially given the cost). But for many smaller venues, function bands and DJs, soloists and groups — especially those performing jazz and acoustic-based music — the Bose L1 Model II system is potentially, in my opinion, the ideal solution.

At the very least, you should listen to, or better yet, try out, an L1 Model II system. And if you're looking to really hear it at its best, or just interested in a small digital mixer for live performance or recording, do take a good look at the T1 ToneMatch audio processor as well.  0