My wife and I used our PAS for the first time yesterday and it was sweet!

We play a lot for elderly and played at an assisted living home.

The room was rectangular, approx 25' x 40', tile floors, brick and wood walls etc; a feedback haven for my P.A. system even using dynamic mic's. With the Bose, and condenser mic's, no feedback.

We set up at one of the ends of the room on the 25' side. The Bose was in the middle against the wall and we were approx 6' to the front and left of the system.

The residents were seated at tables through out the room and some right in front of the PAS.

We asked folks in front of the system if it was too loud and the answer was that it sounded fine. And these folks aren't hesitant to tell you if something sounds too loud.

We asked the folks at the opposite end of the room if they could hear(some wore hearing aids) and they told us it was easy to hear. So nice to have a system that sounds good at all distances. We got nice compliments on the sound.

Our equipment consisted of a six and 12 string acoustic guitar and two condenser mics; Shure SM86(my wife) and Shure BG5.1(me) plugged into a small Yamaha mixer(channels 3 & 4).

We had channels 3 & 4 and the main volume control on the midi controller on the PAS set at about 3 and that was more than enough volume for this room full of people.

Since we only needed four inputs, I wouldn't have even bothered with the Yamaha mixer except that we couldn't get a strong enough signal from the acoustic guitars to hear them plugged directly into channels 3 & 4.

Using DI's or something similar, I'm thinking we should be able to plug the guitars in directly, we'll see. We just didn't have enough time to play around with this yesterday. Since we had the mixer, we just went with that.

Observations:

In the months that I have had a chance to use the PAS, I always thought the lack of reverb was a problem. I've sure changed my mind on that.

We bought that Yamaha for additional inputs, but also for some reverb. The sound yesterday with those condenser mic's was so clear that there was absolutely zero need for reverb.

The PAS is so user friendly, that for the first time with a P.A., my wife got interested in setting the EQ for us and helping with the overall setup. This has made this part of the gig a lot more fun. Plus the fact that my wife has a better ear than me for sound.

The only problem we had, related to my wife's use of the SM86. She had the input set pretty hot so that she wouldn't have to be too close to the mic and had problems with 'plosives'. Since this was just our first use of the system, I think we can fix that problem.

For many gigs, we only use four inputs(two mikes, two guitars) I'm hoping to go
'pure' on the Bose and eliminate the need for a mixer. I think we'll have better control of and better sound from the PAS that way. We'll see.

All in all, our first experience with our system was definitely a success for us. And again, Bose, kudos to you.

- guitpic, June 1, 2005 -

full thread here