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Old 08-14-2012, 10:35 PM
The Bard Rocks The Bard Rocks is offline
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Location: Mohawk Valley
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Default Bose L1 Compact vs. Fishman SA220, final phase of the test

For the final stage of my comparison, I had three main objectives. The first objective was to hear with my own ears what the audience hears, so I planned to put recorded music through it. Not owning an iPod or any portable music device, other than a car, I used the car's stereo, turned it up, and miked it into the mixer, then to each PA in succession. Necessarily, both PAs had to be about 10' in front of that mike. I used a Ray Charles recording to get the soaring highs of the strings and the female chorus as well as the big bass. Not exactly my kind of music, but representative enough of what is popular. That's the closest I get to rock.

With the Bose, I discovered that when I turned the volume past 3:00, an annoying loud bass hum immediately began. At 3:00 it was fine, but turn it any further - and look out. I could dial this out with the mixer, but to do so would compromise the objectivity of what I was trying to do. With the volume turned up to this point, it was loud right in front of it, but actually not too bad. And at 120' away, the music could still be heard clearly and still sounded great. The bass was quite obviously there and the entire sound was warm and inviting.

When the Fishman had its turn at the higher volumes, I got an audible hiss. To be fair, you don't hear this when music is playing and, if you are 20-30' away, you may not hear it at all. Something like that annoys me more than the audience. Like in the other tests, the sound was clear and clean. Bass was.... well.... certainly adequate, but no more. Unlike most everyone else, I don't much get into bass or drums, so that was OK. At the maximum volume that I could achieve, the Fishman definitely sounder louder than the Bose. This is the opposite of what others have said. Although a little loud when it was a few feet behind me, I could stand it. At 120', it's sound was clear and well-defined. but at this distance seemed no louder than the Bose had been.

I went in a 120' 220 degree arc around each unit and could hear each clearly until a building interfered. Not bad at all. I could tell no difference between them. For fun, I plugged in my Mackie SRM450s and ran the same arc. While surprisingly wide, it was not nearly so wide as either Fishman or Bose. (For the record, the Mackie is supposed to be just 90 degrees, the Fishman 150 and the Bose 180.)

Which brings me to the second objective, to test them with the Mackies run in conjunction as I would in a larger venue, one too big for either Bose or Fishman alone. As expected, the Mackies are considerably louder, far more so than any difference between Bose and Fishman. The connections were easy and worked well with either. The sound from the Mackies, I might add was more like the Bose than the Fishman sound, only nicer still. I wasn't surprised, though I had hoped that one or the other of them would equal the Mackies. However, the differences in sound quality, while definitely discernible between all of them, were not great.

Third objective: I brought them indoors to a vacant 20x30' room I have, one with 11' ceilings and a very lively nature. “Aha, I'll learn something now”, I thought. What I learned was essentially more of the same. I got feedback far faster, as expected, and the Bose was slightly better at rejecting it. The Bose sound was still warm and inviting and the Fishman sound clear and clean. But the differences in sound quality were far greater than they were outdoors. I think the Bose sounded stunning here.

I did learn that the clip lights on the Fishman do indeed work, but only after your hearing is damaged by the hideous screech and squawk of excessive feedback. Not much use. The Bose lights anticipate when the feedback will come and I learned that I could have them barely lit and be fine. That's useful. You will never see the Fishman clip lights come on until you are torture yourself. Lights only a masochist will like. Still, the Fishman sounded louder before feedback. Like in previous tests, I set all sound-shaping controls of the Fishman at 12:00 and turned off all feedback rejection controls (the Bose lacks many of these controls). At equal volume, I felt there was less feedback indoors with the Bose system.

A couple little odds and ends. The Bose takes up a bit less total storage space. Better yet, the long part of it is considerably shorter than the Fishman unit and fits easily in behind the seats of my Honda Fit. The Fishman will not fit my Fit and lie flat across the back. How's that for alliteration? Am I a total alilterate? For fun, I timed getting each unit out and putting it back in the case, which means taking it apart, taking the power cord off and storing it, and fitting everything inside their respective cases. There wasn't much difference. With just one trial each and at “normal” speed, the Bose set up in 39 seconds and broke down in 40 seconds. The Fishman was 51 and 66 seconds respectively. This is a case of a clear winner where winning clearly means little. They're both great. Lastly, I noticed that both units are louder when not used with the mixer, but because I always use at least 2 mikes for myself and more often 4, as we usually perform as a duo, the mixer is going to be used. It adds a mere 3.5 lbs to what I have to carry, more with its carrying case.

Conclusion. OK, you've got my 2 cents worth now. Draw your own conclusions, do your own test, and exercise your own subjectivity. My ear may not be educated the way yours is, nor may I share your own likes and dislikes. What I found was little substantive difference. Neither is as loud as I hoped they'd be and neither works perfectly as a monitor. But they are not bad. The sound is decent too, not all one could hope for, but pretty good. Very good, considering the size and weight of these units. At 66 and with physical ailments raining down on me, I am buying one mostly to cut down on what I have to carry and to set up. The Bose has more bass and is warmer, the Fishman adequate bass and is cleaner. Indoors, I definitely preferred the sound of the Bose. Both transport quickly and easily. The Fishman may be found cheaper, though they both share the same nominal price, and it has far more bells and whistles as well as that important (to me) second XLR input. But I am going to go with the sound I prefer, the Bose.
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