S1 Pro dialed in to perfection - finally

[Chriscom]

Just a shout-out to everyone on this thread, and most certainly Methos with such detail on his VE-8/S1 settings. But thanks to all.

[lkingston]

I have a set of 2 Bose S1 Pros. I use them (either one or both) to augment either my Elite Acoustics D6-8 or Schertler Roy (depending on room size) when I need more dispersion.

It is amazing how well the Bose S1 works for augmenting an acoustic guitar amp.

One thing I will say is that the Roy mixer sounds noticeably better than the S1 mixer. Maybe it is the class A preamps. I don't know, but the S1 sounds fantastic when fed from the Roy mixer! Far better than when using the mic and guitar inputs.

[Shredmaster007]

Originally Posted by Cuki79

I agree Bose S1 is not really flat sounding. Here are measurement made by the French magazine sonomag for different angles.


There is clearly a bump around 300-700Hz. They also made the measurements for different positions and tonematch presets... none gives a flat response.

However the reviewer like the product very much given the size and design.

No wonder i have to cut alot on the 350hz knob and notch at 300hz using my baggs align eq! I haven't tried it along with tone matches which maybe will help.

[Cuki79]

Originally Posted by dcopper

- I just don't hear any midrange honk, but then again my ears have had decades of abuse!

Hi, everybody hears differently. Not being a native english speaker I always have to refer to the Bose spectral identification listening test to find the proper english word for a given frequency range...

https://toonz.ca/bose/wiki/index.php...Identification

The male voice lets you hear a 12dB boost for a bunch of frequencies.
http://bose.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/...2._Track_2.mp3

From what I remember from the Bose S1pro, I think Aaron spotted the right term. Note that the French magazine said that using a SM58 that has a bump around 200 Hz when singing close was not the best mic for the Bose S1 pro. They chose to test the Bose with an EV80PLc to compensate for that and it sounded stellar.

[The Kid!]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

Those that follow my posts know I'm a pretty big fan of the Bose S1. Since acquiring this little wonder several months ago I have been using it almost exclusively for gigs. I started initially with a pretty comprehensive setup that included a small mixer and a few carefully selected pedals to give me the ballpark tone I wanted. Our acoustic duo act is quite simple: Me on guitar and my wife on vocals. I sing a little bit, mostly a little backup and some harmonies.

The small size and light weight of the S1, along with the battery capacity, led me to slowly prune my rig farther and farther down until we were just using the S1, the Boss VE-8 just the mics, guitar and cords/wireless. We run everything on battery - no external power even when external power is available. I've spent a long time learning, tweaking a dialing in the S1 and VE-8 to get just the perfect tone and I'm finally there.

This past week I made a few more minor tweaks and now I've got everything dialed in perfectly. I can plan any size gig that my size acoustic duo act plays with just this simple set up. All the programming is set in the VE-8 and venue to venue volume and tone adjustments are done mostly on the S1 with minor adjustments on the VE-8, mostly notch and some volume.

Generally speaking, the Bose's volume output is set to 50% which is the detent position. If I need louder, I increase on the S1. Anything past the 50% detent and the volume gets REALLY loud, REALLY fast. If I need less volume I leave the S1 at the mid detent and turn down on the guitar/vocal output on the VE-8 as needed.

I'm so satisfied with what I can get out of the S1 that I'm selling my QSC k8.2 to fund a second S1 which will come in much handier. It's been a fun ride finding what works best for us but like my hunt for the perfect guitars, I think I'm there with the amplification choices I've made. The gigs are piling up and each and every time the customers and venue owners are ecstatic with the sound we give them.

It's great when a rig comes together like that, isn't it? Congratulations!

[Peter Z]

I don´t think the frequency response curve of the S1 is too bad.

1. Consider the scale of the plot. It´s going from -10 to +10 db. Other plots show -60 what makes the look of the ups and downs much smaller.

2. The S1 is not a studio monitor and will rarely be used in an acoustically treated environment. If you look at the frequency responses of the rooms, we are playing in live, the deviations are 30 db and more. The 7 db of the S1 will not matter too much. Also frequency responses of picked up acoustic guitars are not flat at all – no matter what pickup or microphone you use.

3. I think the valley at around 180 hz is quite clever since this is a frequency I often turn down in most venues. That area creates mud.

4. The bump at 600 hz seems to be too much but maybe the problem is more the balance of frequencies above and below that area – too much on the low side or too less on the higher side of 600 hz that would compensate the bump.
AND: The plots probably show the responses of the “mounted on a stand” position. 600 Hz means a wavelength of around 0,56 meters. You can now play with the speaker stand height to cancel the 600 hz bump (use the floor or side wall reflexions).
To me it looks that this is Boses idea when they created this bump.

It would be interesting to see a frequency plot of the S1 in a tilt back position that sounds much more balanced to me in most cases.

5. A -3 db point at 60 hz is quite impressing for such a small speaker

6. A parametric EQ in the chain is ALWAYS a very good idea since there is always a need to adapt to different rooms.

All of this might explain why some of us hear a problem with the S1 and some don´t. It´s so much depending on the rooms we are in, the input signals and the placement of the speaker.
Of course a speaker with a flat responce together with a good EQ and a good engineer is alway preferably. But you don´t get all of this in that small package (the engineer alone would be a problem here) and that price. Also it´s not easy to setup a PA speaker in a certain room correctly.

[Shredmaster007]

I put my S1 guitar input on the Microphone tone match and without changing anything else, I think I found the plugged in sound I've had - ever! With the tone match set to off there was definitely something plastic about the sound in the 300-700hz range, I was about to buy a parametric EQ.

J45 -> M80 (pole pieces adjusted, passive mode) -> Align EQ -> S1 Pro

Sounds and responds better than I remember my 000-15 with K&K -> red eye -> mxr 6 band -> wampler ego compressor -> AER 60/3.

[TNO]

"I put my S1 guitar input on the Microphone tone match and without changing anything else, I think I found the plugged in sound I've had - ever!"

That's because it's making your pickup match the tone of a Microphone. They be geniuses at Bose.