New Harbinger MLS800 vs Bose L1 Compact vs JBL Eon One Review

[TheShadowKnows]

Review of Harbinger MLS 800 vs Bose L1 Compact vs JBL Eon 1.

This review uses only an acoustic guitar plugged into each unit. I don't sing so how a mic sounds through them is not covered.

The playing field:

Harbinger MLS 800. 8" LF, 6x 2.5" HF array.
120 watts x 2. Array comes in 2 sections.
About 29 lbs LF unit, 22 lbs for HF units.

Bose L1 Compact. 8" LF, 6x 2" HF array.
65watts x 2 for each section (the rep said)
The array comes in 3 sections.
Around 25 lbs total.

JBL Eon One. 10" LF, 6x 2" HF array.
250watts LF, 120watts HF. Array comes
in 3 sections, fits inside unit. 40 lbs total.

The guitar: A mid-priced Martin cutaway with the Fishman Aura system built in. Room size was about 25'x25' with a 10' ceiling (the GC P.A. room) filled with boxed P.A. speakers & 3 aisles.

How do they sound?

The Harbinger.
Since I've tried the Bose and JBL before I was anxious to test the Harbinger since it comes in at a price point 30% less than the others. The array stack is longer than the Bose (2 sections) & about the same width as the JBL. It has 2.5" speakers so there should be a bit more mids when playing or so you might assume.

After I dialed in a good image on the Martin I proceeded to do 3 stock finger picking songs to test with & recorded them on my phone. The Harbinger has a Master Bass & Treble. I needed to dial down the bass to 3 o'clock because it was so full. Once that was balanced out, the sound was pleasant & the channel gain was set to mic & the volume to about 8 o'clock. There is no master volume like the JBL has. The Bose is also absent of a master volume.

Looking sideways through the array I noticed the speakers are angled slightly, not as drastic as the Bose though. What that means is that the Harbinger does not have the horizontal/vertical coverage / spread the Bose has. All 3 units had their respective arrays at the same height. With the Martin on a good image, the sound was even, the tone was balanced & it was a pleasant sound. Not a lot of mids, of course, with an array configuration even though I expected more from 2.5" speakers. I was surprised how much bass it put out since I had to dial down the bass, it only being an 8" speaker.

There's no reverb on the unit but even that wasn't missed. As I played & walked to the far side of the unit, there was a drastic fall off of high end. There's a definite zone where you seriously lose the treble crispness. Also, when I went to the other side right before the cutoff point, I got down on one knee & also lost the treble end. So of the 3 units, the Harbinger has the least coverage of crispness, so to speak. This may or may not be a problem depending on how you have yours set up.

I only had a 15' guitar cord & the unit sound fine that far away from the front & sides. Apart from the treble drop off, there was nothing noticable to cause complaint from this unit. There was plenty of volume available, enough to fill the size of a room mentioned & still sound clear & articulate. The bass & treble controls on the master was a boon, otherwise you'd need some sort of EQ to deal with it like you would on the Bose. The JBL has channel bass & treble. After testing all units, I decided to tweak the Harbinger more. I found an even better image on the Martin & the MLS800 really shined sound wise. It sounded really nice. So the first image didn't give it the best tone, but it still sounded fine / acceptable.

Over all, this could be called the poor man's array P.A. so to speak. Size wise, the base is about 20% larger than the Bose & shaped the same. I didn't play any canned music through it but I'm sure it'd sound fine. The unit sounded fine regarding tone / clarity but it also didn't do anything troublesome or annoying sound wise. As mentioned before, with a better image from the Martin it really sounded great so it has potential with the right EQ. It seems to be a good, all-round work unit if you don't want to pony up 300 more clams to get into a Bose or JBL. It does have 2 full channels (vol only) plus an aux channel & bluetooth connection. With the amount of power available in it I'm sure you could crank it up & get some loud sounds out of it. I wasn't able to do that at my local GC.

Pros: price, acceptable sound & can be get better, will do the job if you want an array system. 2 year warranty.
Cons: weight. 51 lbs total, 11 lbs more than the JBL. Not as wide of a dispersion field as the Bose or JBL.
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Bos L1 Compact

The base is smaller than the Harbinger but both share an 8" LF speaker. The array cap is much smaller than the other two, at maybe 15" long it seems. Easy to take apart & reassemble. 2 channels, 1 mic, 1 guitar. Volume only on the guitar channel (no EQ). No master.

Using the same setting on the Martin, the Bose was noticably brighter / crisper. Plus the bass was about 2x louder. Not that it was feeding back by any means, but the sound was very bass heavy & not balanced at all. So I found a better image on the Martin & got the bass balanced out.

The Bose had that crispness, as mentioned plus it had a much wider coverage of treble. I could walk directly to each side & not lose any treble. I also did the on one knee thing & there was no treble loss. Bose speakers on the array are angled drastically so there's much greater high end dispersion. The guitar sounded bright, clear & crisp. The test recordings on my phone had the Bose as very trebly, whereas the Harbinger & JBL were well balanced. It did sound very crisp to my ears but not excessively or annoyingly so.

One note on the overall sound blend between the bass & treble. There was a strong distinction between the bass & treble on both the Bose & Harbinger, like the crossover was not smooth. You could hear bass at the bottom & then treble at the top. Only the JBL could blend these two into one smooth unit & not be noticed. The Harbinger had this distinction but to a lesser degree than the Bose.

With only a volume control on the input channel, the Bose will seriously need external EQ to make it shine. But what I put into it that the Martin provided sounded great. The coverage was great & other than the extra high end crispness more than the other units, it all sounded nice.

Pros: weight: 25 lbs total, most portable of the 3 units. Overall horizontal / vertical coverage / best of all 3.
Cons: overly crisp on the treble, no EQ on the guitar channel (has EQ on the mic/XLR channel), can be overly bassy depending on what you run through it.
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JBL Eon One

The biggest of the 3 units, but it's designed to store the array stick in the back of the unit so that's why. I like 1 stop shopping. Has 2 real channels with dual XLR / 1/4" inputs, bass, treble & reverb for each channel. Has an aux in plus bluetooth connectivity. Has a master volume.

I needed to have the channel setting on mic with the Martin plugged straigh in. I had the master at 12 o'clock & the channel gain at 9 o'clock. At those setting it was as loud as the others, so we're good to go. The channel EQ was set flat/12 o'clock & I used the same pickup image that the Bose had.

The first thing I noticed right off the bat was how smooth the JBL was sound/tone wise. It blended the bass & treble with a smooth crossover which really made it stand out from the others. With that 10" LF speaker I'm sure it would've had bass to spare, but unlike the Bose, it didn't have excessive bass to begin with.

JBL angles their arrays in a vertical arc, which is quite different than how Bose does it. But the JBL didn't suffer from any side drop off in treble like the Harbinger did. From the front 15' away, it sounded great. From the sides it sounded great with no treble drop off. I didn't do the kneeling test but I'm sure with its angled array it would've been fine. The JBL seemed to have more mids than the other 2 units. Why? I don't know. It actually has 2" speakers like the Bose whereas the Harbinger has 2.5" speakers. Overall the blend coming out of it was great. It had that sprinkle of mids that the other 2 units were missing & I think that was the secret sauce needed to make the tone tasty. I also tested the reverb. It was ok if you needed something in a pinch. I did have to crank the control though to about 3/4's to get it to sound half way good. An effects pedal or rack reverb would do you much better.

There really wasn't anything that stood out as a complaint sound wise with the JBL. All 3 units were right next to each other so that leveled the playing field. The JBL is a bit ugly, in my opinion as far as the sub is shaped. Just a big square box, unlike the elegent lines of the Bose & Harbinger. But I'm guessing you're buying if for the sounds & not the looks. Yet that might matter to someone in their buying decision.

Pros: best sound/tone of the bunch. The added mids put it ahead of the rest. 2 channels with bass, treble & reverb. Master volume. Most power output for the money. The 3 array sticks fit in the back of the sub.
Cons: 40 lbs heavy. Square, boxy looking sub. Not as elegantly shaped as the Bose or Harbinger.
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So there you have it. Hope this helps you in your buying decision.

[Cuki79]

Thanks a lot for the reviews!

[martingitdave]

Shadow,

Excellent job. I just made a post yesterday about the same unit. I'd have to agree with everything you've noted here. One thing I did NOT check was the individual weight of the Harbinger components. Given that, I think I'd probably go with the JBL. My suspicion is the MLS800 would be a steal during the annual 20% off sale.

I'm still testing my new Carvin S600. Frankly when I saw this MSL800 unit for the same price I paid for the Carvin, I wondered if I'd made a mistake.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[TheShadowKnows]

Hey MartinGitDave,
it's so funny while right in the middle of writing my review I went to the forum & saw you put something up about the MLS800. G.M.T.A. (great minds think alike).

And yes, the Harbinger would be a steal at the 20% off sale. I just wish it'd come around sooner. Sometimes GC has a coupon like that, or MF might have it on the Stupid Deal of the Day. But that's a crap shoot 'cuz you never know what will be on there from day to day. I did see the Harbinger single speaker + sub array on there for something crazy like 299 clams.

Just from looking at it, your Carvin Stagemate S600 seems it'd perform great. It's like they're competing with Bose' new array + sub components although the Carvin has larger array speakers & is not vertically bendable like the Bose is. The Carvin still looks like it'd perform well. Please post a review after you've put some hours on it in playing / gigging time. That's be great.

One caveat about the 2.5" speakers in the Harbinger: I have a pair of Kustom / Powerwerks PA50's. They're 50 watt 2x4.5" speakers with a piezo horn. I reread my testing notes & it had BETTER side dispersion than the Harbinger when I was testing the two against each other. I was very surprised to read that, even with the MLS800 having the slightly angled speakers which you'd think would help with the dispersion. I'm no audio engineer but what my ears told me was that when I went to the far left & right side of the Kustom, there was hardly any drop off of treble. That coming from a 'cheap' little portable P.A. was surprising.

Your Carvin has 3.5" speakers x4 in its array so I'm guessing there's some good horizontal spread to them.

[martingitdave]

Yes, GMTA!

I think you did a nice service to everyone by posting your review. Most of us interested in compact PAs are looking in the sub $1,000 range. Basically, I was trying to find the best features/price point.

These sub/line array tower units, including others by LD Systems, Fishman and TurboSound really fit the bill for most individual performers.

Today, the added functionality that comes from the new singer/songwriter pedals like the BOSS VE-8 or TC Play Acoustic (which act as a small 2 channel sub-mixer and DI) allow you to package the tone you like and broadcast it through one XLR to the most cost effective speaker system for your application. And, if your compact PA system has additional channels and features, you can add more people and usually daisy chain reinforcement speaker.

If one has more to money spend, they likely already own the higher end Bose L1 system, or a more sophisticated board and speaker combo.

If one has less than $1,000 to spend, you're really in luck with the number of affordable, feature rich, lightweight, good sounding choices today. You couldn't say that 5 years ago.

[Paultergeist]

Shadow,

Thanks very much for taking the time to post such a detailed review for the benefit of other forum members. I really appreciate it.

One other "column-type" unit (not covered in your review) in which I am interested is the Fishman SA330, but as that is a very different design, I can see why it may not be a good fit for this comparison.

Thanks again for the review.

[SpruceTop]

My local guitar shop just got in a Fishman SA330, I'll have to take it for a spin.

[DavidE]

I went to hear a friend play through his Turbosound i1000. It was ok, but no high end. I'm guessing that was the way he set the eq because it really didn't sound very good. I played a gig last weekend with a friend who brought his Turbosound i2000. He's very particular about sound and loves the Turbosound. Plenty of high end. Actually, too much and it was weird. There was this digital sheen around both guitars and both vocals that I found awful. Perhaps it was the way he set it but I didn't like it. If he could get rid of that it would be a great sounding unit with huge bang for the buck.

now that I'm thinking about it, I ran some music using bluetooth on our break (he never used the bluetooth before) and I don't remember it having that sheen. Maybe it was his settings on his mixer?

[TheShadowKnows]

@ Paultergeist,
You're welcome. I did try the Fishman SA220 since GC didn't have the 330. And even though it sounded pretty good the design wasn't in the array ballpark, so just those 3 were covered since GC had them all in store. It'd be nice if GC had more online gear in store, but then there'd be no room for the customers.

@ DavidE,
I noticed the Bose L1 Compact had 'extra' high end when running that Martin through it & there was no EQ controls for that channel. It wasn't ear grating, but not smooth like the JBL, so it 'might' be in the guy's EQ from the mixer like you said. Hard to say. That particular Turbosound has 16x 2.75" speakers! Yes, 16. I think your top end is gonna throw some fire with that many speakers. The specs say: Horn loaded super-tweeter extends high frequency range and throw. Maybe that was it?

You mentioned 'digital sheen'. The specs also says: KLARK TEKNIK's revolutionary SST (Spatial Sound Technology) for creating 3D acoustic environments. Another possibility.

[NotValid]

Originally Posted by martingitdave

Shadow,

Excellent job. I just made a post yesterday about the same unit. I'd have to agree with everything you've noted here. One thing I did NOT check was the individual weight of the Harbinger components. Given that, I think I'd probably go with the JBL. My suspicion is the MLS800 would be a steal during the annual 20% off sale.

I'm still testing my new Carvin S600. Frankly when I saw this MSL800 unit for the same price I paid for the Carvin, I wondered if I'd made a mistake.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I'm stalking you and waiting for your S600 review. Looks perfect for me but maybe a bit too powerful. I would love to hear how an acoustic guitar sounds on one in a low volume (small room) setting. According to a few reviews from DJ's the unit by itself is loud enough for outdoor parties with a few hundred people. They say the bass is quite natural but for dance music you'll need the sub. I wont need the sub as it will mostly be used for acoustic applications either solo or with three others.

[martingitdave]

Originally Posted by NotValid

I'm stalking you and waiting for your S600 review. Looks perfect for me but maybe a bit too powerful. I would love to hear how an acoustic guitar sounds on one in a low volume (small room) setting. According to a few reviews from DJ's the unit by itself is loud enough for outdoor parties with a few hundred people. They say the bass is quite natural but for dance music you'll need the sub. I wont need the sub as it will mostly be used for acoustic applications either solo or with three others.

Thanks. I hope to find some time to do a video. In the meantime, I would challenge the idea that it would be too powerful. I would suggest you just see If the dimensions and weight are appropriate for you. If so, the extra watts will just keep the amplification cleaner. It's not much bigger than an acoustic amp and more feature filled.


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[NotValid]

Originally Posted by martingitdave

Thanks. I hope to find some time to do a video. In the meantime, I would challenge the idea that it would be too powerful. I would suggest you just see If the dimensions and weight are appropriate for you. If so, the extra watts will just keep the amplification cleaner. It's not much bigger than an acoustic amp and more feature filled.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Well its roughly the same size as a Cube Street Ex which I was considering. Maybe a tiny bit bigger but the size/weight is perfect. But the sound that comes out of those Cubes.....no thanks. I'm sure this is miles ahead of the Cube. I should just buy it already....patience goes right out the window once GAS kicks in. But still, GAS can burn though I doubt this will be the case with the Carvin.

[martingitdave]

Originally Posted by NotValid

Well its roughly the same size as a Cube Street Ex which I was considering. Maybe a tiny bit bigger but the size/weight is perfect. But the sound that comes out of those Cubes.....no thanks. I'm sure this is miles ahead of the Cube. I should just buy it already....patience goes right out the window once GAS kicks in. But still, GAS can burn though I doubt this will be the case with the Carvin.

I wouldn't encourage anyone to be rash. But, I can safely say this unit sounds way better than the Fishman loud box I had. It sounds a little more sterile, to me, compared to my L2t. That, I think is due to the extra tweeters and 8" vs 10" speaker. That's all EQ solvable.


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[SteveA]

I will buy this unit no problem based on the Harbinger products I have bought...I really didn't need a review to know I would buy it as I am so pleased with all their products....But thanks for your review, it solidifies my thought process

I bought the Harbinger M350 & here is my online review below...

"I am using the Harbinger M350 differently than it's intended purpose, & not as a stand alone PA... But with amazing results.

I am a solo musician & lead worship at a small/medium sized venue. I go right out of my Harbinger L1402FX-USB 14 Channel mixer to the Harbinger M350 Portable PA System with Subwoofer. I then go left out to 2 daisy chained Harbinger Vari 2115's. So I have 2 conventional speakers AND a line array system w/ a subwoofer. The best of both worlds..... VOX are crystal clear. My Korg PA4X sound incredible, & it handles the bass & drums from the keyboard with ease....I think the sub in the M350 enhances the super crisp Vari 2115's & lends a dimension to the overall sound that is quite unique.

I also I use my Fishman Artist Performer to direct out into the system, so my Taylor & Breedlove acoustic guitars sound out of this world with 4 speakers....

I methodically waited for all these Harbinger products listed to go on sale @ MF & have pieced together an awesome PA system for less than Six hundred & fifty.

Harbinger M350 PA stand alone
Harbinger L1402 FX 14 channel mixer
Harbinger Var 2115 Speakers set of 2

An absolute rockin' system".........

[NotValid]

Originally Posted by martingitdave

I wouldn't encourage anyone to be rash. But, I can safely say this unit sounds way better than the Fishman loud box I had. It sounds a little more sterile, to me, compared to my L2t. That, I think is due to the extra tweeters and 8" vs 10" speaker. That's all EQ solvable.


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I actually like that it sounds more sterile than colored but I wonder how much of that sterile sound is due to new speakers that havnt broken in yet. (Hint-Hint) lol.
As you said, EQ or pedal can add some warmth if needed.