Bose PA

Current sitrep on bose PA:

I’m very happy with the S1’s. Solid bass response, built-in mixer, bluetooth, stereo. I want to keep these and continue to use them. Even though I occasionally play larger gigs, it doesn’t make sense for me to have a bunch of resources tied up in assets I only use for live shows. So, I sold off the Bose L1 line array while keeping 2 B1 modules and purchasing 1 A1 amp for them. The amp has a signal indicator and an overload indicator as well, but does not provide EQ optimization or protection for the B1’s. I’ve measured the optimization+protection curve for a single B1 and it looks like this.



Basically, it’s getting rid of super low stuff, providing a boost in the solid bass region and sloping off anything mid or high. This curve can easily be replicated using any parametric eq on a digital mixer. It would involve an aux send in addition to L and R S1 outputs, which would presumably be the masters. Adjusting 2 volume controls while trying to perform live will be a pain, so the digital mixer would ideally take the master bus and send it to the subwoofer aux, or allow the volume controls for the aux and master to be linked. But it is helpful to be able to add bass at lower volumes The two digital mixers I found for this are the Soundcraft Ui12 ($275 open box ProAudioStar) or the Behringer Flow 8 ($300 new Sweetwater). They each have their tradeoffs. The Ui12 has solid build quality and USB stick stereo recording but has terrible built-in networking and virtually no local controls. It also is known to have some broader system quality issues like noisy preamps etc, though it does come highly recommended from Dan Gerbracht and I doubt it will have any significant issues, particularly if I use an external access point. Beseda.us/uimixer also offers a midi control app. The Flow 8 has local controls which are very reassuring and easy to adjust as a performer and includes multitracking over USB, giving it a ton more potential usability when I’m not playing shows. This reduces the stagnant resources I have tied up in live-only gear. However, it has much worse build quality, an incredibly flimsy micro-usb for power and no usb stick compatibility. The micro-usb would likely have to be replicated via a back-mounted pigtail or something to reduce wear. And not wildly promising for a mains mixer being amplified many times over by hearing-damage-capable mains to be all powered from a single USB power wall wart. That said, it appears to have all relevant features as long as mon send 1 can either receive the mains mix or something. Stereo mains and mono aux send to sub is something we’d still need to work out. Either way, $300 isn’t a negligible sum and I’m planning to purchase either one when I have a gig that requires it. I will retain the B1’s and A1 which don’t command much resale value and don’t represent a massive liquidity limitation for me. For every other gig I’ll use either 1 or 2 S1’s and I will be totally fine with them. May need to purchase stands for the S1’s. Crossovers Regarding combining the two speakers, here’s what my experimenting has shown. The B1’s, when optimized and protected, can produce substantial amounts of bass. However, I feel the S1 is quite good at this as well, so for most gigs, the subs won’t be necessary. If they’re needed, one option is to remove bass from the S1 and roll off everything below 100 to the subs. This doesn’t feel necessary to me. What is probably fine would be to apply the curve to the B1 aux send and then use a low-end shelving EQ on the mains to reduce the bass output by roughly however much the subs are adding in order to keep the tonal balance roughly correct. This could require some future calibration with an RTA and measurement mic. I think some frequency overlap is OK in this case because a discrete “top/bottom” approach doesn’t really sound right. And the S1 sounds quite good on its own. So the goal is to add low end extension below the S1’s sweet spot. Also worth mentioning is that 2 S1’s means 2 larger woofers which isn’t super different surface-area-wise from the design of the B1’s. Note that Sub1 reviews state the two units don’t combine organically and just feel as though the kick and bass only were directed to the Sub1. This contests the Bose marketing narrative that adding a Sub1 to an S1 makes an optimized, coherent pair. Plus the Sub1 is $900 for NO REASON. This would be a massive capital hog for virtually no valid performance reason. A budget option to also use the S1 as a mixer would be to grab a line out from the S1, reduce the bass knob on the channel (not known what the curve is for that) then use a Rolls crossover or bass filter to provide rough protection and optimization of the B1. In the case of 2 S1’s, which would be a prerequisite for any gig large enough to need a sub, we’d need line out from S1 A to S1 B, and line out from S1 B to the B1’s. This is complex because I”m not sure if the levels to the B1 would be correct.