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Old 12-04-2017, 01:30 PM
JohnDWilliams JohnDWilliams is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Pacific Northwest, USA
Posts: 250
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The 608i is a great system. Could not find one for sale locally (Seattle area) so I got one from Amazon for easy return if it didn't work out. I don't plan on returning it.

I've only had it a couple week and haven't gigged with it but I have rehearsed several times. Sounds amazing, especially in stereo, very easy to move around, and very easy to set up. I've tried small and large rooms both with the satellites stacked on top of the sub and with them spread out on mic stands.

You can get these adapters from Amazon and use regular mic stands for the satellite speakers. I also use these compact mic stands so there is not much to move around. I do it all with a small luggage cart now vs. using a Rock-n-Roller cart for the old setup.

My old setup started with one Carvin AG300 which does sound great. For bigger places I added the matching extension cab and then grew that to add a 1400 watt sub. The 608i won't match this but I don't play larger places that often. Need further testing though.

Setup time with the AG300, extension cab, and sub was 20 minutes at best. It also required carrying speaker stands and several AC cords and speaker cables. Setup time with the 608i is 10 minutes at most which would include a sound check.

The music I play is all instrumental jazz with piano, bass, and drum tracks or a real bass player along with piano and drum tracks. Some of the bass tracks I use are very deep stand-up bass and the 608i reproduces these very well.

For bigger gigs I often use a real bass player. He likes the low-end from the 608i but we haven't tried it in a larger place. Will be gigging with it this weekend in a 100 seat wine tasting room.

The only question so far is reliability. Once I have done several gigs with the 608i I will likely sell the Carvin system. The 608i is more flexible, sounds good, maybe better, and easier to transport.

Only downside so far is that I use an iPad to play tracks when I'm doing the solo gig. Switching between OneTrack (the track player) and the 608i remote control app causes the remote control app to disconnect. They are both Bluletooth. It's a known issue but I don't know the plans to fix it.

It's not a deal breaker because the mixer itself without the remote app is perfectly adequate for the solo gigs. I use a hardwired laptop for the tracks when playing with a bass player so the remote app can run undisturbed on the iPad.

Also the Carvin had no Bluetooth so being able to do the solo gigs without connecting a cable to the iPad is even better. I use a Bluetooth pedal (Airturn Duo) to control OneTrack and that works fine combined with streaming the tracks.

So my rig for small solo jazz is the 608i on a luggage cart along with a small bag for stands, cables, and accessories, and my guitar in a gig bag. I could replace the small bag with a Mono "Tick" so I might lighten the load even more.
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