Bose L1 Compact - I now get it....
 

After a lot of input from you fine folks, plus there being a sale with Bose right now, I decided to purchase a Bose L1 Compact with wireless soundport instead of the S1 PRO.

I wanted a system where I can use acoustic and electric for my gigs.
It arrived on Friday and I was biting my nails in anticipation I was so excited.

All I can say is WOW!
I finally get what so many of you have said about it. it is so clear, so....totally awesome!
Just listening to music through it I cant believe the clarity.

Once I got to play some songs through it, I was blown away. My first gig with it is on July 6th and I am so excited!
My acoustic set consists of my Eastman E20D dread (JJB Prestige 330 passive pickup) into a TC Helicon Harmony Singer, then into LR Baggs Session DI and then into the unit. My guitar sounds ridiculous through it. Crystal clear highs, booming lows (in a good way). It is just awesome. And my vocals are spot on. I am even now going to do some Elvis as my confidence is higher.

With my electric, I will use a PRS SE Custom 24 with coil taps and plug that into the TC Helicon, and then into a Behringer Amp Simulator (which is amazing by the way at a cheap price, Behringer GDI21) and then into the unit. Playing some Buddy Holly tunes through there with the electric is outstanding.

Anyways, I am just so impressed and I finally understand what many of you have been saying over the years.
I am so excited for July 6th. Even if very few people show I am going to rock it! lol.

Cheers.

Nice! Glad you're happy with it... I love my L1 Model II, even though it's far "more" than I need for the gigs I've been doing.

The Bose Forum is a terrific resource for all things pertaining to the L1 line; all the moderators actually work for Bose, so you know the answers you get are spot-on. Takes a day for them to get back to you, but the wait is worth the accuracy of the information.

Among the many things I love about my L1 system is that, by positioning the unit off my left shoulder and maybe 6-10' away from me, I can hear myself perfectly... and it helps a lot to know that the folks in the audience are hearing what I'm hearing, and at pretty much the same volume level. If it sounds good to me, on stage, then I KNOW it sounds good "out there"!

I think a lot of "old-school" operators of these systems forget that - and they think they have to jack the volume up higher than it needs to be for everyone to hear, like we had to do with conventional PA systems.

I went to hear some folks Saturday night, great vocals and some good songs... and they were using a slew of QSC K-10's... two for the mains and three for monitors. The K-10's covered the room pretty well - I walked throughout and didn't hear any drop-off, but of course, there were some "hotspots" in the coverage and, the closer you got to the speakers, the louder those suckers were...

With my Bose, the dispersion and coverage is so good that the volume remains fairly constant throughout the 180+ degree dispersion field...

You're gonna have a blast at your upcoming gig!

thx jseth, I forgot about the Bose forum so I will definitely check it out.
Cheers.

Congrats on the purchase, sounds like a great setup! With confidence in your gear, you can now just get out there and rock the house without worrying about your sound. Nice and portable too for easy load in and out. Have a rockin' gig man!

For me, I like the fact that when setting it up, there is no need to carry both a powered speaker and a speaker stand. I have yet to run an electric guitar though mine. Gonna have to try that. I agree that vocals do sound pristine through it. I patch a small mixer into mine on the line in side most of the time. I have found the tonematch presets to be really good when plugging the guitar and a mic straight in, though.

My only two gripes are,
1) no XLR line-in -- it uses the mic tonematch preset which is intended for vocals.
2) the lack of that BIG oomph LOUD spl when needed

Enjoy the L1C!

Congrats! I have been using an L1C for about 8 years and have been very satisfied with all it can handle. It replaced a larger (and heavier) PA... and I don't miss that a bit.

For full disclosure, I did pick up an S1 for the occasions that smaller is enough. I consider that "about half of an L1C."

You will find that you don't have to "blast" your audience to get a full sound in the room. Enjoy! And let us know how that July 6th gig goes.

I too have both. I like using them together.

But, I'm weird...

Bose L1 Compact - I now get it....
 

Well my first gig with the L1 went amazing! The sound was wonderful and had many great comments regarding my vocals so that was nice. Did 2 sets of 9 songs with an electric and 1 set in between with an acoustic for 9 songs. A few people asked what the heck is that when looking at the Bose as they have never seen a system like that. Made me me smile even more because not only does it sound great it looks pretty cool. Anyways, great gig and super happy. Now next is July 20th for two separate gigs. One at a grand opening of a craft brewery and then a 3 hour set at a pub that night. That will be a long day!! Here are a few pics from Saturday. Cowboy gear because it is was a Calgary Stampede event.
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That’s great Kyle. Very nice setup. I see you are like me. A big fan of sunburst. Great looking guitars.

I agree with other comments about how great of a confidence boost it is when you know the sound is as you want it.

Congrats dude! Great looking setup and I love seeing those in photos, helps me a ton. Also very glad to hear that with proper treatment e.g. that Behringer simulator you get solid results on the electric.

Nice.....except you are wearing those guitars backwards......

Congrats man, great looking (and I'm sure sounding) compact setup! Are you happy with the Behringer amp sim?

thx! Appreciate the words!
Yeah I am pretty happy with the amp sim. I really just wanted a clean sound with maybe a little crunch if a song required it but that was pretty much it. It definitely works and works pretty well and for $50 I think it really is a no brainer. After using it for a while I then switched to my little Blackstar amp and used a clean channel for comparison and it matched up very closely. I use the Tweed amp setting, clean channel and the microphone setting to off and it is really quite nice. If I get a few videos off my girlfriend I will attach them to this post so you can check out the sound. In a live situation with people mulling about I think it's great. Cheers!

Vocals through it are really nice and you sure don't need reverb with those windows all around

Congrats on the Compact Mitcher, I've been loving mine for a couple years now. If you're like me, you will soon find yourself reluctant to sing through anything else, mostly because the monitors never sound as good.

In bigger clubs with house pa's, I generally send the line out from the back of the Compact to the house board. Then I dial in my sound on the Compact and raise the levels on the house board until I can hear boost in the room. Always makes a great combination.

I went through a couple small format mixers in the early days, but settled on a Bose T1 mixer which is excellent. However, I still enjoy just running my mic and guitar straight into the Compact.

A Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive adds a little bite of fatness and hair to my Archtop guitar sound which is my main axe for this rig.