Hi Bernie,
Anywhere I place the Compact L1, i can hear myself clearly. That's what it's designed for, to eliminate extra monitoring gears. What you hear is what the audience hear.

While I agree with the premise of "I hear what they hear" ... many of you know that I am a huge fan of on board speakers to bring the experience right into my face. There's a big difference in hearing something from a few feet away as opposed to a few inches away. Personal monitors are very important to me, and I love being able to adjust the volume of the room, and leave MY volume where I like it. Just another viewpoint.
If I had to monitor the Compact alone, I think I'd find myself playing louder than normal.

Jimmy,

Under most circumstances I agree with you, but, in my described situation, I do not. I am at a banquet in the corner of a large room seating around 200 people, all talking. There is virtually no room to place the Bose far enough away from me to hear what is coming from mids and highs. The reason is, I had to use both extensions to reach the back of the room, which put the tower over my head and 18 inches in back of me. The bass, being in a corner, seemed to overwhelm the sound.

Actually, I have encountered this before, and understand the audience thinks it is great, and, it very well may be, but I have to hear it for myself, the way it is being received. Period.

Dave, the only drawback with using the onboard speakers as monitors is that we tend to have them turned up louder than the PA system, which can be a real problem when an output cable goes bad. Ask me how I know that.

I was playing at an upscale retirement community, big party, about 300 PPL in the audience, and had the onboard speakers turned on as a monitor. The audience just didn't seem to be reacting the way they normally did, and after about three songs a lady came up to me and asked if I could turn up the music a bit because the folks at her table, which was only about 15 feet away, could hardly hear what I was playing or singing. I plugged in my dead plug, which kills the onboard speakers and realized that nothing was coming out of the Bose L1 Compact - nothing! The damned output cable from the keyboard was broken and I had no idea it was because I could hear everything just fine from the onboard speakers. I never used the onboard speakers as monitors again after that. Now, if you think this is not a problem, try turning off the Bose L1 Compact and just listen to the keyboard's onboard sound system while you play. If you're like most folks, you won't notice the difference.

With my setup, the Bose L1 Compact was always just a foot or two away from me on the right side of the keyboard, and I never had a problem monitoring myself or getting the volume levels right where they needed to be.



All the best,

Gary

Who Dat? Gary Diamond and the Zirconias?

Gary and a group of kind hearted saleswomen making Gary's day ...

BTW, that's a great line ...

I have an mp3 of George Benson's "Breezin'" that I use for a sound check on gigs ... I like it because it has a great range of 'highs' to 'bass' ... once I have the on-boards where I want them, I walk out and listen through the PA speakers ... I will also check my mic volume at the same time and adjust the PA accordingly ...

Oh, I'm pretty sure I'd know it if my mains went off!
My hearing is still 100% - bugged the crap out of my high school students that I could hear all those annoying high frequency tones they tried to torture us with on their phones.
I attribute my stellar audio health to never being in front of loud mains all these years. Monitors were always a priority for me.

Bernie if you need to hear your set up better buy a small monitor. Plug the monitor into the output of your Bose. (I think it’s LINE OUT)

Then before the people come play a recorded song on your keyboard and go out and check the volume. Then adjust the volume on your monitor.

Hope this helps, John C.

Thank you John. I had forgotten it even had an output. It makes sense to me.