Bose S1 Pro gain staging issues with T1 and direct Sennheiser e935

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by DavidE

I asked about this and they clarified their wiki for me. The xlr is mic level the 1/4" trs input is line level, so I should use a regular stereo cable between the T1 and the S1. It's the 1 combo I hadn't tried yet. I was able to get decent enough sound indoors last night running vocal mics through the T1 and my guitar direct into the S1. I'll use it next on Tuesday for a low volume solo gig at The James Cancer Hospital so I'll plug everything in directly and volume has to be very low so it will be a different kind of test.

That’s the way Mackie does it on their “Wide-Z” inputs. So going from a mixer XLR output to an S1, you would just need a female XLR to 1/4 TRS cable. Interesting since, unlike the Mackie design, the same input works really well with guitar levels.

[martingitdave]

David, I’m hypothesizing that the stereo cable won’t make a huge difference. The issue is that the S1 has really high (fixed) input gain on each of the channels. You would need to use the mixer with the gain set lower than you are used to. The balanced cable will give you an extra 6 dB of gain. So, that could help. But, based on your previous reviews of PAs, I am not sure a single S1 will get the job done for you.

[Davis Webb]

Originally Posted by DavidE

1) It did distort at that level. I'm going to retest over the weekend.

2) I disabled the tonematch on the S1 when plugging in the T1.

3) This wasn't an issue either night.

Something wrong,, just so you know..it will not distort at any level in my rig, even playing drum machine, strat with full overdrive metal sounds through it.

Got some pre S1 issue there or a bad S1.

[DavidE]

Originally Posted by martingitdave

David, I’m hypothesizing that the stereo cable won’t make a huge difference. The issue is that the S1 has really high (fixed) input gain on each of the channels. You would need to use the mixer with the gain set lower than you are used to. The balanced cable will give you an extra 6 dB of gain. So, that could help. But, based on your previous reviews of PAs, I am not sure a single S1 will get the job done for you.

It will for some gigs. Not many.

[leew3]

If I'm understanding your setup correctly it seems like you've got two mic level gains in the tonematch pream to a tonematch setting on the S1. It seems that if you tried the S1 channel with the tonematch on the speaker turned off, that might solve the overdrive problem. However, perhaps I've misunderstood your setup. when I've used a mixer with my S1 this is what I've done and it has worked well. I hope you find a solution.

[DavidE]

Originally Posted by leew3

If I'm understanding your setup correctly it seems like you've got two mic level gains in the tonematch pream to a tonematch setting on the S1. It seems that if you tried the S1 channel with the tonematch on the speaker turned off, that might solve the overdrive problem. However, perhaps I've misunderstood your setup. when I've used a mixer with my S1 this is what I've done and it has worked well. I hope you find a solution.

When I used the T1 with the S1, tonematch on the S1 is off.

[DavidE]

I tested the 1/4" stereo TRS cable from the T1 mixer to the S1 (with tonematch off) and got much better results than using an XLR cable.

If I use a different mixer with an XLR output at line level, I'll use an XLR to 1/4" trs adapter at the S1 end.