Stopped at the local Schmitt music store yesterday(about 50 miles away) to hook up with my cousin, a full time musician. We both do business there and he's always buying some gear...worse than me, the gearhead, if that's possible.

They carry Fender and had the Fender Expo there. From what I can tell, the Fender Expo looks like a rebranded Maui 11. They were asking $999.

The store hooked up an electric piano to the Expo for us and my cousin demo'd the unit.

I was pleasantly surprised. I thought the sound was similar to my Bose Compact but with a lot more low end and it the Expo seemed to have a lot more power...hard to tell without A/B..ing.

The tower, that sits on the sub unit seemed a bit wobbly, but not too bad, with just the two pins holding it on to the sub unit.

The strange thing is that apparently there are no carrying cases made by Maui for these units? Or at least that was what I was told.

My cousin, who has the Bose L1 Model S with two sub units, was visibly impressed. I wonder if he will buy one of these?

Take care.

RogL

Fender has a cover set available for the Expo system.

Looks like it's about the same price as the Bose L1 Compact, very similar configuration, doesn't provide the wattage information, but claims it can handle audiences to 300 PPL, but the big drawback, at least for me, would be the weight - 45 pounds! OUCH!

Gary

Two for stereo ...just sayin

I see that there are bags. Interesting that they didn't know that at the store.

Weight wise, the Maui 11 is definitely heavier than a Bose compact..with the sub unit at 39 lbs and the column at 12 lbs. This weight would be in the range of weight for the Bose L1 Model S with sub woofer.

The Maui 11 seemed to me to pack quite a bit more punch(low end) than the Bose compact, so I wonder if it isn't more in line with the capabilities of the Bose L1 Model S?

Also, on the LD site, LD shows a Maui 11 Mix system, actually has more inputs than the Fender Expo.

http://www.ld-systems.com/en/series/maui...-channel-mixer/

if you play a Acoustic Guitar the Expo is great if you Play a arranger Keyboard you will miss the left and right effect of your keyboard I am a 2 speaker kind of guy exp with Arranger Keyboards .

Ditto Ditto DITTO!!

I fully agree with this...most of the time.

For us, though, often we are playing in situations where it's small enough that one speaker suffices...then it's the Nano 300 or Bose Compact.

When it comes to PA systems, I always like to look and try out. I doubt we will be buying an LD Maui 11 anytime soon...if at all.

The thing that caught my attention about the Maui 11 is that I think it could be a competitor to the Bose L1 Model 1S. It does seem to have the power for that and it's about $600 less. The weight of the two(LD and Bose L1 Model 1S) would be comparable.

Interesting.

Good comments all.

RogL

I've been selling the LD Maui 11 systems for over 2 years, the added weight compared to the Bose is a definite, since the Bose is plastic and thats why it's bass response isn't close to the LD, since the LD is made of wood for the bottom