Ought to be fairly easy to explain...

Use half the stick, you have to hit it with twice the power to get the same volume. Twice the power, twice the distortion, twice the chance of blowing something up (the built in limiters will be calibrated to a full stick) and half the ability to throw out a linear sound wave (it's all those speakers stacked on top of each other that determines the wave shape) so half the coverage.

That make sense?

OOPS...! My bad...

Strike all the above, then...

Hey, but I did notice one thing... finally, some RCA ins and outs. Guess they need to bring out an L1MkIII with those on, now they understand the need for them.

For those of you that have stereo outs on your keyboards, why not use these ins for it instead of the mono 1/4" in, with the Tone Match preset already applied (does that mean that it is pre-EQ'd for a guitar?). That way, you don't need to bring an external mixer JUST to sum your stereo outs to mono if you are not confident about how well the arranger does it internally?

Diki,
The only thing I can think of is that possibly with both estentions in place the impedance is matched to the speaker array. I can't see any other reason to use both if you don't need to have the speakers up high. The Tech at Bose was not about to stick his neck out and say it was ok to use just one.

Hammer

Diki, the 1/4-inch input is switchable between TRS line input and guitar input. If switched to guitar, then a Tonematch preset for acoustic guitar is working.
The mic input has a built-in mic preset also, plus e.q.
The RCA and 1/8-inch inputs, plus the guitar/line 1/4-inch input are all controlled by the same volume knob, so if you are using more than one set of inputs, you must control the volumes individually from their sources.
Or, do as I do and use a mixer.
Hammer, there was discussion earlier on the Bose forum about using just one extension and it was reported than it did no harm.
I tried it and it seemed to work fine.
I suppose there could be some sort of resistance factor built in though.
It will be interesting to see if they answer officially.
DonM

Don,
I have used the Compact on about 4 or 5 gigs now and one thing I have noticed that is different from my Standard L1 is the Compact seems to be super sensitive to acoustics of the room. I'am not sure what to make of that until I use it more. I figure about 20 gigs should give me a good feel for it. I also have not noticed the extreme stereo effect that Ian talks about when I used two of them. Perhaps I am just doing something wrong. But as you would expect, the sound is fuller with two. I'll try using only one extention and see what happens.

Hammer

Hammer,

I'm not sure if it is because I am using two L1's rather than Compacts, but the stereo effect is not what I would say "extreme", but more like the "sweet spot" is very much more pronounced than if I was using conventional speakers, rather than Bose.

Ian

[This message has been edited by ianmcnll (edited 05-16-2009).]

Are you playing an S900, too, Hammer?

I've got a nasty feeling that the 'sum to mono' problem that so many describe for the S900 (but no-one seems willing to quantify) may not be as big a problem for other arrangers. Kingfrog reports the T3 sums to mono internally acceptably, my G70 does, no-one has reported this on the Ketron's or Korg's...

Yamaha may simply have cut corners here, I don't know (but I SURE wish some S900 owner cared enough about the issue to test it properly)...

Donny,
I have used only my Tyros 3 with the new compacts so far. I am going to try the PSR3000 sometime this week too and I will have a report on how that combo performs.

Hammer

I find the Tyros2/3 also sum to mono less than satisfactory...actually, no different than the S900.

I believe the PSR-3000 will have the same issue.

When we used the Roland G-1000 through one Bose, it didn't sound a lot thinner like the Yamaha did...but, it did sound quite a bit better with two Bose...my buddy and I both noticed the difference, altough it wasn't as dramatic a change going from mono to stereo as with the Yamaha.

I have heard about the poor summed to mono from several other Yamaha users that use one amp/speaker...so, they are obviously designed for use in stereo.

If one Bose system will do the job for your keyboard, and you are very satisfied, then you certainly don't need two of them.

Ian

Whether they have cut corners or not is debatable, it may have been inherent in the design all along...I simply think 99% of the users play them through stereo speakers and don't notice it.

We must remember that most of the users are home players, and any extra speakers they use will more than likely be a home stereo or something similar.

I seem to remember the PSR-8000 I took over a buddy's place one time, and played through his Traynor KB-100 combo keyboard amp, which was mono, sounding a bit less than the way it did at my home through my stereo setup.

Another thing I've noticed in recent years, is that keyboard amplifiers are going stereo...the mono Traynor KB-100. for instance, was replaced by the stereo K4, the Roland KC-350/550 offer stereo expansion, and the KC-880 is stereo, so they must be doing this for a reason...someone is noticing that a lot of keyboards sound better in stereo...hence the demand for these amps.

Ian



[This message has been edited by ianmcnll (edited 05-17-2009).]