Busking amp

Sorry, I thought this was an auction thread

You should trust me Keith!

These have been subject to a lot of discussion over on The Acoustic Guitar Forum. A couple of members have bought them already.

If I summarise (or summarise) their findings are these. The sound is pretty decent but offering not much advantage over the LC1 Compact (which they prefer). Everyone has commented on the plastic nature of the build and have suggested this is not a professional piece of gear, in that it can be moved around a lot.

Accord to the discussion this is aimed at the home/enthusiast market — whatever that is. Actually, it seems that a lot of people have an acoustic amp at home to play through. It must be a USA thing!  My acoustic doesn't need amplification!

You should be OK if you use it very carefully. Not only is build a bit fragile but there is no heavy duty case as there is with the L systems.

Finally, they think that this is expensive for what you are paying, I'm not quite sure about that myself but the build would put me off. My AER Compact is built like a tank and although not used massively does get lugged about a bit.

There is a battery but it is expensive!

andyhowell - Excellent, thanks Andy - of course I trust you, but I may well not trust your sources!

Oh, it's AGF - that's alright then.

I had one of my v infrequent visits to AGF and found a very lengthy thread on the S1 comprised mostly of speculation and some personal sniping.

The thing is so hot from the factory yet amazingly there have been "early adopters" the couple of folk that have bought and evaluated the S1 at home and seem to have found it fine in that situation. Speculative opinions as to how robust it will prove to be (and they all seemed to be parroting the opinion of the first reviewer)are precisely that - some proper gig reviews will obviously take a bit longer to appear and I doubt I'll have the patience to trawl through another threads like the one I've just been through for so little hard info.

If you could let us know when a decent practical review under proper (not at home)conditions appears on AGF then it would be great if you could let us know Andy! It could be a product of genuine use in the right situation - hope there might be a UK review at some stage!

Keith

Just for ocarolan (Ido try to keep him happy) the first reviews of the S1 being used for gigs are arriving, both on the AGF and the Bose user forum.

Users are very complimentary about the sound in live settings. They report it sounds not dissimilar to the L1s. Placement seems quite important. they work well wit the Tonematch system. The weight and size is also praised.

It will be interesting to see them in the flesh.

I met up with Iain at Richtone today, we had a nice time trying out guitars and found a very nice J-15, it was beautiful and sounded lovely. After Iain left, I went back in and tried out the Bose S1 Pro. We had seen it on the stand in the room with the Taylors, it seemed really heavy but that was because it was attached firmly to a speaker stand. The unit on its own is extremely light and has a convenient built in handle, for a minute there I thought it might be a good substitute for the AER Compact 60.

I was disappointed with the Bose. It had none of the smoothness of the L1 - to me it sounded very crisp and harsh, especially at louder levels. We were trying it out with a Taylor and the harshness of the system combined with the tinny sound from the Taylor pickup gave me a headache. I suppose these things might be ironed out with a mixer but by that point I knew it wasn't for me. While it did seem well designed, it was very light weight and I could see it being easily damaged or broken, so maybe Andy's comments hold some merit.

I'm still looking for a Laney 4x4 to try out just for fun, it looks like a nice unit. As soon as I have the money from the second SA220 sale, I will be buying Phil's Roland AC-33. I really liked the one I had, it suited my voice/style and seemed to still sound great at high levels. I've missed it, especially at smaller gigs when the SA220 was overkill.

The only thing I know about that Laney amp is that is always sounds great when I hear a busker play through it!  Most people seem to be still using Roland amps (though in Bath I notice AER are common — such  posh place!) The Laney has always sounded good to me!