. . . unless you like clear, clean sound with power to spare. Gotcha!
Seriously, I played for an awards ceremony, cook-out and swap meet at a large auto race track today.
I was on the second deck facing the infield. The swap meet was on the ground outside, behind me. Hundreds of people were scattered through the grandstands.
They could ALL hear perfectly. As I was told, the system is even better outside.
SemiLive (Bill) went with me so I got him to walk all around the premises and listen. Then he played and sang while I listened.
People couldn't believe what they were hearing and seeing.
We even took some pictures before it got too crowded. I will post them later.
DonM

[This message has been edited by DonM (edited 11-02-2005).]

Hey Don,

great to hear about your positive experience.
Do you use currently one cylinder and one sub or two subs?

Looking foreward to your pictures.

Eric

Yep, I've been wanting one for 2 yrs. Even more so now.

A very large woman pestered me to dance. She had no front teefus. The type of woman who'd whip your you-know. I was concerned.

Don told her I am gay. Which is untrue. Plus, she said gay guys like to dance.

Don sounded great. That Bose sound even goes backwards. Somehow.

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Bill
Yamaha PSR2000

So Bill....how was your dance?

Don,

I've only performed two outdoor jobs with mine and had similar comments from the audiences. Very large area, lots of people and everyone raved about how great the music sounded. Most wanted to know where the speakers were. When I pointed to the black post, they usually said "No! Where are the speakers?" From my standpoint, the PAS makes all conventional sound systems obsolete. The only thing I wish Bose would have done is come up with the PAS 20 years ago.

Good Luck,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

I'm using one pole and one sub. The only drawback I can see is that there ARE some stereo issues that I haven't resolved.
The organ leslie effect isn't coming through right. My Pedal Steel sound bounces from left to right through conventional stereo, but doesn't on the Bose.
Even if these problems can't be solved short of buying two systems, they are significant enough to bother me.
Now back to my Midjay experiment, which will be under the other thread. I'm making significant progress, but not ready to make a final judgement on the MJ.
DonM

I'm guessing if you get two of them for stereo output from a keyboard you will have other problems due to phase cancellation. You may lose the uniform audio distribution of the single speaker. Does Bose have anything to say about what to do for stereo?

While I initially thought there would be a problem with stereo sampling with the Live Grand Piano and some of the guitars, it is no longer an issue. First and foremost, the only people that usually benefit from stereo are those who are positioned directly in center of the a pyramid created by the position of the left and right speakers. Anyone outside this area does not benefit from stereo effects. Therefore, while those wonderful stereo effects sound great to the person playing the keyboard, most everyone else in the room does not benefit. And, as someone on the Bose PAS site said "Mono--Everyone in the entire room hears the same thing--what a concept."

I believe one of the greatest aspects of the PAS system is that people sitting at tables to the side of the speakers are no longer seated in a "Dead Zone." With conventional speaker systems, even stereo systems, the sound is projected forward via the speaker's cone angle and the encasement's angle. Everything to the side and behind the speakers was in a dead zone, an area outside the normal wave pattern. With the PAS this is no longer the case.

The other issue addressed by the PAS is near equal distrubtion of volume throughout the venue. When I was using a pair of Peavey monsters, the folks sitting directly in front of the speakers were blasted, while those sitting at the extreme ends of the room strained to hear the music. This is no longer an issue--everyone gets the same volume regardless of where they're seated in the venue.

As for the ping-pong effect of the steel guitar, you can tune the voice, add some echo and reverb, then save it as a custom voice and everyone in the audience can hear the effects. That's why I went to the GM grand piano, added some effects and the sound coming from the PAS is even more realistic than the Live Grand Piano.

Good Luck,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

I meant to say the probems AREN'T significant enough to bother me! Typo.
DonM

Hi Don,

One suggestion that was made on the Bose forum is to use a small keyboard amp sitting beside you for the right channel along with the PAS. Click HERE to go to that thread.

One thing that could be a potential downside of this idea is if you do have some heavy stereo imaging going on in a patch, i.e. stereo echo, rotary speaker sim., etc. the audience is only going to hear half of the effect at half the rate if you know what I mean.

All in all as you said, the only person who really benefits from stereo on a gig is the person playing the keyboard.

Best Regards,

Dave


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Wm. David McMahan
Nat'l Product and Support Manager
Generalmusic USA
GEM Community Forums

Mono. Do you really want the drums, bass, lead, and whatnot to sound like they are in the same position, or do you want them to sound like they are spread out, like in a real band?

First of all the most important person is the player[Stereo is so nice, one of us should enjoy it].

There are places I play[with the band],that stereo will not work as well..primarily because we have to fill the large room up with coverage.

Most of the time Stereo works fine, especially on the dance floor[the second most important people]..as Clif mentioned, there is no substitute for spreading the "Band" instruments..
Usually I place the speakers[on poles] about 15-20 feet apart in stereo, even with 200 people[dancers] on the floor in front of the band..
The lone situation that comes to mind, We play a club that is wide[all dance floor], and I have to angle the speakers outward slightly for even coverage[mono is the only way to work this room..].

With the PAS, the sound is spread through the entire room--just like a real band. When you're using the Bose those sound do not seem to be coming from a single speaker, or pair of speakers. You must try the system in order to believe the difference you'll hear between the PAS and conventional PA systems.

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

Fran, there may be a better way for large venues. Actually, Bose recommends that each member of a band have a PAS behind him so that audience members can localize the sounds and experience some spread. I have attended a rock concern where this approach was used with PASs, and it works. This suggests that using multi-mono instead of stereo might provide spread even for large venues. For an arranger player, this might mean panning all instruments far right or far left. (If the keyboard has additional outputs, each can drive a different speaker in mono. Expensive, but should work.) As long as there is no common signal between speakers, there should be no phase cancellation. Also, it might be satisfactory to use weak (e.g., internal) stereo speakers with a PAS so that at least some people get a stereo effect.

Basically, if you are an arranger player contemplating the purchase of a PAS for mono use, just realize there is a significant compromise in spatiality involved.

Thanks for the info Dave. I don't mind it enough to tote another amp around. In fact, it's probably just different, not bad.
Don

With all due respect, the biggest issue with stereo vs. mono is not being discussed at all here: phase cancellation. In several forums I have been reading about people trying to figure out why their keyboards sound so good in headphones but then they sound thin and terrible when amplified. It turns out that when summed to mono some keyboards literally phase themselves to death.

This is no longer a matter of theory to me: one place I play has a stereo house PA and recently when I set up there I failed to notice that someone had switched it so that it was set for mono - immediately I thought my Yamaha 9000 Pro keyboard had a hardware failure... the piano sound was thin and missing a lot of midrange with some notes almost dropping out altogether. No amount of EQ could solve the problem. Once I discovered the switch my normal keyboard sound returned instantly.

This probably isn't an issue for people with mono instruments in the first place, like the singing guitarists I see using the Bose PAS in many venues here... in fact, I think the Bose system is ideal for them. But for stereo keyboards it isn't just a matter of whether half of the Leslie effect is missing or whether the audience is hearing you in stereo but whether your sound is cancelling itself out. It's a more serious issue than you might think.

The fact that an audience can't hear stereo samples is hoowey. I can hear it behind me, my band mates can hear it on the right of me, the crowd all over the room can hear my leslie effects. We are talking about a room full of 200 people, not a stadium gig. In small rooms the left and right channels bounce all over the place off the ceiling, walls, back wall, left wall, right wall. Anyone in the room will hear stereo.

I just don't buy this argument that stereo is useless live!!!! I'm living proof that it does make a HUGE difference.

Al

In small rooms the left and right channels bounce all over the place off the ceiling, walls, back wall, left wall, right wall. Anyone in the room will hear stereo.

Think about this. If the sound is bouncing off the walls, ceiling, floor, then it is all combined into a single sound--MONO! The sounds are traveling at 5,280 feet per second. If those speakers are facing forward, which is the usual position, draw an equalateral triangle from the speakers and that is the area in front of the speakers that hears stereo. If you are to the left or right of a stereo speaker system, you cannot hear balanced stereophonic sounds. The band members are standing between the speakers, therefore they can hear stereo sounds, especially if the speakers are positioned a short distance to the rear of the performers. However, the only person that will hear a perfectly balanced stereophonic sound is the person standing directly in middle of the triangle. The best advice I have for anyone that has any doubts about the Bose PAS system is to take advantage of the 45-day Bose PAS trial, set it up, try it out, and be objective. Let your ears, and the ears of your audiences be the judge. If you don't like what you hear, send it back to Bose--they'll even pay the freight both ways--no questions asked.

Esh was talking about phase cancelation, which can be a problem with a few, stereo sampled voices. Putting a bit of common sense logic to this, wouldn't phase cancellation be a problem with any amp that combines the keyboard's stereo output channels? Hmmmmmm! This means that most of the mono PA systems would reproduce the problem if the keyboard's output were routed into two inputs of a mono PA system. Something to think about.....

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

Phase cancellation is the reason Bose does not recommend using a pair of PAS with a stereo keyboard. Apart from the problem described by Esh, the half-stereo signals emanating from a stereo PA will interfere causing some relative dead spots in the audience, depending on room acoustics, e.g., the bouncing described by Al. Perhaps, the stereo PA system that Esh dealt with was set to mono to avoid these dead spots with the unfortunate side-effect of causing phase cancellation as stereo signals were mixed to mono.

Pick your poison:
Mono--No spatiality and no stereo effects, but no phase cancellation ("everyone hears the same thing.
Stereo--Spatiality and stereo effects, but phase cancellation (people hear different things, dead spots).
Multi-mono--Spatiality, no phase cancellation, but limmited stereo effects.

Hey Gary,

FYI, sound travels at around 1130 feet per second, 342 meters per second (for our European friends) , and/or 760 miles an hour.

And while I agree with your equilateral triangle analogy (can be isosceles too) to describe the 'sweet spot', I think it's fair to say that this area is not as small or precise as the apex of a triangle...it's much broader (unless the speakers we're talking about are incredibly directional). The wave launch from a conical shaped speaker/driver broadens exponentially as it leaves the source. When two well-designed speakers are properly placed in a room, the steering information (left and right) provided by a stereo signal can be experienced by many. Sure the optimum position is in the middle, but the leeway to one side or another can be quite far before we lose the ability to sense position accurately. (this doesn't apply if you've only got one working ear)

I also agree with Esh, phase cancellations (and don't forget additions), both electronic and acoustic can be a huge can of worms. And you're right too; they can play havoc on any system.

And I agree with the folks that use the Bose system and say it's wonderful. The best acoustical guitar / vocal amp system I've heard yet is the Bose PAS.

-mike

Al,

You are right about the speed of sound in air. I was thinking back to the old days when I worked with sonar systems, which was about one mile per second in salt water. I stand corrected.

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy