About a month ago I sold:
1 Yamaha EMX5000
2 Yamaha SW118 Subwoofers
2 Yamaha SW115 Club Speakers
1 DBX Drive Pa (crossover/EQ etc)
1 Crown CE1000 power amp
1 QSC power amp
2 Speaker Poles (tripod)
2 Speaker Poles that fit into the sub
I bought a pair of Bose PAS and 4 subs.
I guess the first comment I have is that when dealing with Bose -it's not about the economics but the sound, and in this case ease of set up. The above was alot to carry around (although not necessarily always used at the same time)
I'm a bit of an impulse buyer and when I came upon or shall I say learned of the Bose PAS I said self, "I got to get me couple of these". I'll be honest, I was tired of hauling all my PA gear from the basement, loading it into my pickup, then unloading it all for the gig, setting it up, sound checking, tweaking, worrying about monitor mixing with the front of house mix etc. It was mostly the haulin' up and down the basement stairs (and not pissin' off my wife when I scratches the wood floor in the kitchen).
The first pole and 4 subs arrived a couple of days prior to the second pole. Of course I could only plug the two subs in. I run all my keyboards through an Alesis 12R rack mixer when I'm gigging. I also use the TC Helicon Voiceworks as opposed to the poorly executed vocal harmonization in the Tyros. In the past this was a stereo feed to the front of house speakers and a mono mix to the monitors.
I ran the monitor "mix" into channel 1 of the PAS and ran the TC Helicon directly to the PAS and not out of the Alesis. I set everything flat on the PAS. This of course all being in my basement. Then I played a couple of midi files, followed by a few Tyros styles (to hear the megavoicing). I will agree the piano wasn't quite as good as I would have hoped, but overall this speaker rocked. It was as loud 12 inches away from it as it was 12 feet. Very very crisp. The vocals were the best I've ever heard and I thought they sounded pretty good coming from the Yamaha club speakers.
I'm in two bands. The first one is a classic rock band with "real" musicians. Typically I would run a stereo feed to the main board and then run a keyboard monitor mix to a speaker behind me and then one sitting between the drummer and lead guitar player. As far as I know the sound was fine both through the main pa and the monitor -although the monitor (being mono) never really allowed for the full sound many of the Tyros panel voices can give. The Roland VR-760 performance keyboard actually tending to sound better mono than stereo. If the front of house speakers are too far apart the "rotor" effect can sound a little weird going back and forth across the mains. I then tend to run that keyboard mono. It sounds fine (going stereo) when it's set up in my small studio and I'm listening to all the boards through a pair of Yamaha active monitors.
The speakers are so tall (or my basement is so short) that I had to cut a hole in the ceiling dry wall to allow enough space to pull the top portion of the L1 off of the bottom portion. (kind of funny)
When gigging with the rock band my intent is to only use 1 PAS and 1 sub. This will take the place of two speakers and either the EMX5000 (which wasn't light) or a separate MG10 and power amp, two speaker stands. Plus, I'm using 2 channels on the main and I'm tired of fighting with the lead singer on volumn issues. So, when I gig now what I and the rest of band hear on stage I hope will be enough for the audience. We do not have the funds necessary to elimintate the band's pa, bass amp and of course my guitarist is a bit of a purest and as threatened death to us all if we eliminate is Marshal stacks. I think the Bose PAS and 1 sub will be quite fine for this band.
The second "band" I'm in will present a number of issues that have been discussed in this thread. This band is actually a duo. All of our material is based on midi files played by the Tyros. I add additional instrumentation and solo work and then my partner plays acoustic guitar. He sings 80% of the material with myself adding harmony based upon the TC Helicon.
I purchased the second PAS being concerned about stereo. Most of the midi files we use are professional grade and most I have tweaked substantionally to make use of Tyros panel voices, to eliminate redundant tracks or to add tracks where appropriate based on what I'm going to play. In my basment, with two PAS and 4 subs the Tyros sounded....simply awesome. My voice never sounded so good - and belive me that's saying something. (we ran the Tyros in Stereo) Tom's acoustic guitar was right in the mix. It was very clean. You could hear him hit the strings etc. A very very crisp sound, yet there was plenty of bottom end. I could not really crank it up because I was afraid that glassware on a bar shelf might vibrate off.
Then I plugged in my stereo and listend to some old "Floyd". WOW!!!
We are making arrangements to set up our new gear and try it out before actually using it. I agree that some of the Tyros sampled sounds may in fact sound better in stereo, on the other hand if one is sitting to the extreme left or right, one is not going to hear the correct sound. The bottom line too, is I wonder just how many people in the audience would really know if it's stereo or mono.
At any rate, these are truely awesome speakers and will save my back countless future surgeries. I have never heard a speaker system that sounds this good and believe you me, I have gone through quite a few. It's going to be a little strange for the both of us having everything behind us. By design my vocals will come out of one side and his will come out of the other. We are very interested in understanding just what that will sound like "out front". We both have wireless mics so of course will try it out. I think we'll send the Tyros out in stereo and the other two keyboards (Fantom X8 and Vk-740) mono to the PAS behind me. Tom's guitar will more than likely be just behind him. It's going to be a wild ride.
If you're just starting to think about amps, and speakers and compressors and all the "gearhead" stuff I would highly recommend trying out the PAS.
....by the way.....they look pretty cool too.
Well, that's my 5cents.
[This message has been edited by smythrocks (edited 11-09-2004).]
I auditioned the Bose PAS(both on a gig & in a studio environment), and when used in conjunction with my Yamaha Tyros keyboard playing a stereo sampled instrument, was UNDER impressed. Then again, Uncle Dave utilizes it and claims it sounds terrific 
with his Yamaha PSR3000, so I suppose it's: different strokes (ears) for different folks. The only way the Bose would work for me is if I had TWO, but that would cost: $4,000. 
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