Our l1 systems have brought our guys back to the place where it's about the music - where we get lost in the moment with the song, with the performance. Maybe you know what I'm talking about - that moment when it's about the vibe, the feel, that "other place" the music can take you to and you just get swept up in it, uplifted, lost in the moment. I'd almost forgotten what that felt like! When I was a kid starting to play guitar, I remember picking it up at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, with the sun shining through my window, and then getting lost playing for hours and then reaching the end of the epic song or solo or soundscape I'd been caught up in and realizing "Hey, the sun went down!" I remember sitting on sand dunes at the beach, playing guitar and watching the sun go down, or riding in the car listening to that particular song that could just take you somewhere!

Well I just had to say this - I recently realized that the very reason I started playing music - that wonderful feeling of "going there" - had been absent for years. Oh, occasionally the "planets would align" (or some other silly saying we use to explain exceedingly rare moments) and I might get a glimpse of that wonderful feeling but then the mix would change, or feedback might sneak in, or I'd realize that I was the only one who could hear what was happening

But the last couple weeks, I have caught myself grinning ear to ear, only to look at the drummer and see the same expression! I can look at the rest of the team - same thing - not only am I experiencing the uninhibited joy of music again, but I'm experiencing it together with the entire band, and even more - the entire audience! What a tremendous change! This is why I loved music in the first place and finally after years - decades even of struggling to recall why I started doing this - it's become the NEW NORM!

Thanks to the BOSE team for helping me come full circle! At last we've gotten past the mechanics and machinery - all the gear - It's finally about the music again!

Yippee!!! You're there!



Pete

bdotson,

Yours is one of the best posts I've ever read. This transcendent state is the whole point of our work. To hear that it is happening to you is the most wonderful thing we could have ever hoped for.

With best regards,

Ken

Around the same time I got my set-up, I started playing with a fresh team of cats as a house band for a blues jam I run. I'm not sure if it was the new players or the system, but there is SO MUCH interplay going on between us on stage. I mean, ridiculous amounts of listening and adjusting what we're playing.

I'm completely with you on your statement. How amazing and transcendent!

Hey Ken -
I still remember the day I first visited the L1 site at Bose, and I sat there and watched all the videos. I remember thinking - "that's pretty audacious - they are claiming to almost reinvent live sound here...hmmm"

I found a way to download the vids and then proceeded to show them to some friends - and we all sat there going "...hmmm...."

Later I took the same group of guys to a local Guitar Center, my 65lb pedalboard with us too. We were impressed - think I posted about it here a while back. In fact, I remember my earlier posts - one of which was entitled "Shot Down Again".

It's really been a remarkable journey. I don't usually refer to the process of researching and purchasing music gear as a "journey" but this one really has been - I've gone (back) to someplace new (ouch - my head hurts thinking about that) but all the usual consumer adjectives and adverbs don't apply here - it has been so much more than a "purchase/buying experience/test drive/reading reviews", etc. And I DID do that part - I had downloaded over 65 pages of reviews from various forums, mags, etc. And I had them spiral bound into booklets and gave them to those who'd be a part of the decision process. I don't think I have ever gone through such a rigorous process in buying anything before.

But at the end of the day, I've returned to the forum not posting about bank for the buck or excellent service or ease of transport/use etc - it's about the music. The way we USED to do it is rapidly becoming something of a foggy memory!

It's neat that we'd be talking together online about this now - since your voice was the first one I heard regarding the L1 - "Hello, I'm Ken Jacob, chief engineer..." Well "Chief" - for me, you certainly achieved your goal - and to think I was changing my son's diapers when you at-Bose fellas were starting this whole wonderful project! Thanks - to all of you. What a difference to finally have the music back!

Hello again "b",

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

When I get impatient, when I think "why isn't this going faster?" a message like your last has such a calming effect on me.

This will take time. But it's so so worth it. Nothing short of a rekindling of live music as the pre-eminent art form it once was is at stake. Clear, comfortable, high impact live music. An art form more likely to send us all -- musicians and audiences alike -- into the kind of ecstatic, spiritual, and trancendental experience that make life so incredibly interesting and rewarding.

Thanks so much for putting your thoughts into words.

Ken

b,

I wish I could express it as well as you do.
If only everyone would experience it the way you and we have.

I have read three posts just today that need to see what you said...
only they probably couldn't really understand until they have sat where you have.
That's why we always tell the curious, "Just try it, you can always send it back".