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Just wondering if anyone has tried the BOSE line of speakers as external speakers for a digital piano.

I am about ready to take a leap in this direction so I could benefit by other experiences.

Anyone ?

Bose is a great marketing company that makes mediocre (at best) speakers. First of all, I believe that most would agree that they start their design from a flawed premise. They've always said that 7/8 of the sound we hear is reflected, as apposed to direct sound. This is why most of the drivers in a 901 face in odd directions. Ask anyone from Bose where this number comes from and they can't tell you. This is creating false space as apposed to recreating the space that is actually captured on the recording. Then you have their active equalizer that is there to compensate electronically by forcing drivers past their physical limits to get a "big" sound out of a small box. This MUST create distortion. This is only one of the products, the others are equally flawed.

Then you look at their tendency to sue people for the most goofy reasons. They sued CEDIA (Consumer Electronics Design and Installation Association), a trade association of which they are a member for the use of the word "Lifestyle" with respect to audio. Years ago they sued Thiel because they used that same model number. Which is just stupid because the whole idea copyrights is to avoid confusion in the market place. Who in the world is going to confuse Bose and Thiel? Especially when the speakers looked completely different and were designed from a completely different technical point of view?

The following is from Wikipedia, "In 1981 Bose unsuccessfully sued the magazine Consumer Reports for libel. Consumer Reports reported in a review that the sound from the system that they reviewed "tended to wander about the room." The District Court found that Consumer Reports "had published the false statement with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of its truth or falsity" when it changed what the original reviewer wrote about the speakers in his pre-publication draft. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's ruling on liability, and the United States Supreme Court affirmed in a 6-3 vote in the case Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., finding that the statement was made without actual malice, and therefore there was no liability for libel." I can't believe that they sued someone for a bad review!

Then you look at their draconian approaches in retail such as insisting that their products MUST NOT be set up where they can be actively demoed against other brands and their Secret Police tactics of demanding that managers fire sales people that say anything remotely negative about their brand ON THE SPOT or risk being cut off as a dealer.

#10 Old 08-03-2010, 10:54 AM
LelandCrooks LelandCrooks is offline
Member Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Kansas
Posts: 37

Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidE View Post
Work great for solo or duo acoustic gigs. A pair didn't fare as well for my three piece electric band.

Which is what they were designed for, and work pretty well for that in small club settings. Way overpriced for what they are and what they do. Typical Bose product.

speakerjones;8804445
I have spent significant time with the Bose L1 and Compact in a controlled setting, and have done shootouts vs. various other speakers, including QSC K-series. I (and 6 other professional audio engineers) came to the same conclusion as others here. The L1 would be a good PA for a soloist or duo in a coffeehouse setting (assuming said artist(s) had the budget to spend). The compact sounded anemic, maybe OK for little girls singing karaoke in their bedroom. QSC K-series FTW. The K's are far more versatile, as easy to set up, and better sounding. I'm not a Bose basher by any means. I have some of their other pro-audio speakers (402's, 802's) that I like and that have made me lots of money.

I've also heard the L1's with full bands in a small theater, and a bar, and with an acoustic duo in a coffeehouse. The coffeehouse situation is the only one, where IMO, they didn't fall flat on their face.

The bar gig was my best friend's party rock band. They had a guy bring in a pair of the L1's and used them like conventional main speakers. They're a fairly loud band anyway. The Boses failed miserably.

The theater gig may have been an unfair trial, but it was telling enough. I was called in to do sound for a folk series at a 250 seat university theater. The first night, the band shows up, a four-piece folk rock act. They each have a Bose L1, the bassist and drummer each with a couple of bass bins, and say they won't be needing the house PA. Now the house PA was a nice Meyer Sound rig that had been donated to the theater specifically for this series. I knew that there was a good chance that the people who donated it would show up to the show, and probably want to hear their donation in action. I explained this situation to the band. Since we had some time, we decided to do a shootout - the Meyer PA (with some passive JBL wedges) vs. the L1's. We tried their way first. The L1's sounded OK close up to the stage. You could hear yourself well enough on stage, though having your voice come from behind you was a little disconcerting for me, having always used wedges or IEM's. But, as you got into the house, it sounded rather thin. They definitely DO NOT perform like a true line array. The little bass speakers (they're not really subs, they're car stereo bass speakers) kinda just went thunk, thunk without much conviction. Then we turned the Meyers on. Suddenly the guitars sounded like guitars, the vocals were up front and intelligible, the bass and kick sounded rich and full. I invited them to come out one at a time and listen to the difference. They decided to use their L1's for backline amps, and let me mix the show on the Meyers.

I think Bose is still offering a full no-questions 30 day warranty, so you could always try it out for yourself.

The Kid;8805252
For the price of a Bose L1, you can get two QSC K10's and a small mixer (with money to spare) which will blow the Bose system out of the water. I one of my K10's up against my friends L1 and it crushed his setup.

He even went and elevated the L1 so it would throw better, but (as another poster stated) it just doesn't move enough air. He even commented that two K10's and a mixer would be just as easy a setup as his Bose.

I've even done solo acoustic & vocals gigs with one K10 and no mixer. I have volume and eq on my acoustic, so it was easy to get a great sound. I even played my ipod through it on set breaks.

Not to mention that the K10 / mixer route is far more flexible. You can build onto that system for a whole band as your needs progress.

Why do you need 2? I never will understand this seemingly universal need to turn a mono instrument into a stereo one.

Did you take your piano to the stereo store? I've been wondering if home stereo speakers (good ones and probably floor standing) might be more effective than monitors at distributing sound for purposes of playing DPs in a home. I also have wondered if the L1 might distribute sound effectively, though I have no idea if it would have sufficient detail/accuracy.

Why do you need 2? I never will understand this seemingly universal need to turn a mono instrument into a stereo one.

For playing the piano in your home, you 100% definitely need stereo. The piano is certainly not a mono instrument (from player perspective) and you will lose a lot of depth by listening in mono.