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Bose S1 Pro vs JBL Compact


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Hi,

 

I've had the Bose S1 Pro for about six months now. I used them for small senior center gigs for arranger KB and vocals. They sound great for that but since that type of work is gone for for the foreseeable future, I'm taking to the streets. Yes, I'm busking..... Anyways, I tired the S1 Pro outside, on a busy street, lots of noise, rowdy people, playing much louder and harder driving material than I was doing at the senior venues. The Bose could ALMOST keep up but not quite. The sound was beginning to distort. I was able to dial it down a bit and got it to sound OK, but it I felt it lacked a bit of volume and perhaps bass. I'm just wondering if the JBL Compacts with the slightly lager sub would give me more bass and volume? Again, the S1 Pro's are real nice, and maybe I'm expecting too much from a little battery speaker. Also I got to keep in mind that I shouldn't be playing all that loud out on the street anyways..... In other words,do I make peace with the tools I got or keep on looking?

 

Anyways, I thought I'd see if any fellow keyboardist have any experience with both units . Thanks!

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Playing outside versus inside a lot of difference for a sound system of any kind. Nothing for sound to bounce off so more volume necessary, bass needs to push a lot more air so it doesn't get lost. In general bass is non-directional that's why only need one subwoofer. All this only gets worse if you playing and nothing is behind you to reflect sound out to audience, especially low end. So if you going to be working outdoor in a larger space going to need more horsepower to get to where you were indoors.
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Outside music can be obnoxious if its too loud for the spot you are on.

For example, if you are set up in a movie house entrance area, there is natural structure that will echo your sound.

 

If you are playing on downtown Market St, by the Embarcadero, there are 100's of tourists, taxis, street cars, Muni busses, IOW, tons of street noise to compete with.

 

You are much braver than me, I wouldn't attempt it. Security/safety is a big problem.

 

You might have someone do a sound check from the audience perspective given where ever you are performing.

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True, The first night of busking was on a bridge and the sound was not the best sound. The second night I set up with a wall behind me, and that did help a lot. It would be unrealistic to expect to get the same the sound I got indoors in a loud urban outdoor setting. I guess I could get some generators and use standard 12 inch power speakers but that's a bit much to lug for a busker!
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Hey Montunoman,

I've played outside a lot, mostly in Golden Gate park in SF, playing with others who love to jam outdoors. I've gone thru quite a few different speakers, all with the aim of being a small, easily schleepable system that has enough oomph. It's a tall order to keep the weight down and still get good volume/bass.

 

I've done a lot of research on the JBL Eon One Compact (JEOC! at least it's not a bunch of numbers, but they do have other very similarly named speakers), before that I'd been considering the Bose S1 Pro, my main reservation being the volume/bass.

 

AFAIK, the sound output of the Bose is 108 db spl, the JBL clocks in at 112 db spl. You never know with these numbers how things have been tested, but from reading users who've tried both, it sounds about right. A substantial bump in volume and bass. I'm surprised the Bose is loud enough for outdoor use.

 

If you can swing it you might want to just go ahead and buy the JEOC. The Bose remains incredibly popular, so even if you did sell it I'd bet you'd get a good 80% of what you paid for it. And if you kept it, you'd have the possibility of getting stereo, however lopsided. And having a 2d speaker is not only about volume, it's also about the fullness of your volume, thick and full vs. thin and highly directional.

 

Do you use a speaker stand? Do you play seated? I find that putting a speaker on the ground and using it as a floor monitor can suck up a lot of its juice, esp the treble. If you're able to get it close to ear level, seated or standing, you get more volume for yourself and your audience. And of course, as you noted, putting the speaker up against a wall gives a good added punch to the sound, esp the bass.

 

I used a Roland Cube Street EX for about 5 years? Recently sold it. Was pretty surprising how well 8 AA batteries, rechargeables, did. With two 8" woofers and two tweeters, it has the semblance of stereo, and a surprising amount of bass, pushing 50 watts. Of course with keyboards you can use as much bass as a bass player, and in noisier settings it didn't cut it, but I'd bet $20 that it gets louder and has more bass than the Bose or the JBL. It's also an amazingly versatile mixer, with 2 channels that have 3 band eq each, a vocal channel with reverb, a guitar channel with reverb and chorus/delay as well as guitar amp settings, 2 more inputs with volume- very nice mixer. I thought vocals and guitar sounded good on it, and like I said, a surprising amount of bass all considered for the keys. Unlike the Bose and JEOC, you have to take the batteries out and charge. For $500 it's a worthy contender, you just have to invest another $50-70 for rechargeable batteries and an 8 slot charger.

 

These days I'm using my QSC K8.2 along with my lithium battery. Up till now i was carting around a 70 pound battery plus an inverter. With the lithium battery I have one small lunch pail sized battery that weighs 6 pounds that has an inverter built into it! Altogether the K8.2 is a wonderful sounding speaker, but it doesn't have much of a mixer, and it weighs 27 pounds. But as this example shows, you can choose a speaker with more power and just use a small lithium ion battery.

 

If I were in your position and wanted to go with a non-battery powered speaker, there's numerous 8" speakers, several under 20 pounds, that would be cost effective and a more robust speaker than the Bose or JEOC. You'd be pushing it and probably fail if you tried to use the Bose or JBL at an amplified rehearsal for example. One example, with the Alto TS208, you're getting 550 watts rms and probably twice the volume and bass of the above speakers, and it weighs under 18 pounds (about the same as the others) and goes for $150!!! So with a lithium battery going for $150-$250, that still gives you a lot of room in the budget if you were considering spending over $500 anyway.

 

For me it's a no-brainer, the JEOC is louder and deeper than the Bose, and has a ton of useful features:

- not only BT music streaming but BT control of the mixer with your smartphone, I absolutely love this feature

- much longer lasting battery

- extensive eq and fx options, ducking, phantom power, more channels,

- etc etc.

JBL Eon One Compact

 

It's a hell of a speaker with a pretty full blown mixer onboard. I want one!

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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Also keep in mind that the Bose has a 120 x 50 degree dispersion. 50 is quite narrow, so orientation and placement could make a big difference.

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Outside music can be obnoxious if its too loud for the spot you are on.

For example, if you are set up in a movie house entrance area, there is natural structure that will echo your sound.

 

If you are playing on downtown Market St, by the Embarcadero, there are 100's of tourists, taxis, street cars, Muni busses, IOW, tons of street noise to compete with.

 

You are much braver than me, I wouldn't attempt it. Security/safety is a big problem.

 

You might have someone do a sound check from the audience perspective given where ever you are performing.

 

You so right about loud music can obnoxious especially in a busking situation, so I'm totally keeping that in mind.

You have a very valid point about security/safety and let's not forget health too! It's a jungle out there!

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Hey Montunoman,

I've played outside a lot, mostly in Golden Gate park in SF, playing with others who love to jam outdoors. I've gone thru quite a few different speakers, all with the aim of being a small, easily schleepable system that has enough oomph. It's a tall order to keep the weight down and still get good volume/bass.

 

I've done a lot of research on the JBL Eon One Compact (JEOC! at least it's not a bunch of numbers, but they do have other very similarly named speakers), before that I'd been considering the Bose S1 Pro, my main reservation being the volume/bass.

 

AFAIK, the sound output of the Bose is 108 db spl, the JBL clocks in at 112 db spl. You never know with these numbers how things have been tested, but from reading users who've tried both, it sounds about right. A substantial bump in volume and bass. I'm surprised the Bose is loud enough for outdoor use.

 

If you can swing it you might want to just go ahead and buy the JEOC. The Bose remains incredibly popular, so even if you did sell it I'd bet you'd get a good 80% of what you paid for it. And if you kept it, you'd have the possibility of getting stereo, however lopsided. And having a 2d speaker is not only about volume, it's also about the fullness of your volume, thick and full vs. thin and highly directional.

 

Do you use a speaker stand? Do you play seated? I find that putting a speaker on the ground and using it as a floor monitor can suck up a lot of its juice, esp the treble. If you're able to get it close to ear level, seated or standing, you get more volume for yourself and your audience. And of course, as you noted, putting the speaker up against a wall gives a good added punch to the sound, esp the bass.

 

I used a Roland Cube Street EX for about 5 years? Recently sold it. Was pretty surprising how well 8 AA batteries, rechargeables, did. With two 8" woofers and two tweeters, it has the semblance of stereo, and a surprising amount of bass, pushing 50 watts. Of course with keyboards you can use as much bass as a bass player, and in noisier settings it didn't cut it, but I'd bet $20 that it gets louder and has more bass than the Bose or the JBL. It's also an amazingly versatile mixer, with 2 channels that have 3 band eq each, a vocal channel with reverb, a guitar channel with reverb and chorus/delay as well as guitar amp settings, 2 more inputs with volume- very nice mixer. I thought vocals and guitar sounded good on it, and like I said, a surprising amount of bass all considered for the keys. Unlike the Bose and JEOC, you have to take the batteries out and charge. For $500 it's a worthy contender, you just have to invest another $50-70 for rechargeable batteries and an 8 slot charger.

 

These days I'm using my QSC K8.2 along with my lithium battery. Up till now i was carting around a 70 pound battery plus an inverter. With the lithium battery I have one small lunch pail sized battery that weighs 6 pounds that has an inverter built into it! Altogether the K8.2 is a wonderful sounding speaker, but it doesn't have much of a mixer, and it weighs 27 pounds. But as this example shows, you can choose a speaker with more power and just use a small lithium ion battery.

 

If I were in your position and wanted to go with a non-battery powered speaker, there's numerous 8" speakers, several under 20 pounds, that would be cost effective and a more robust speaker than the Bose or JEOC. You'd be pushing it and probably fail if you tried to use the Bose or JBL at an amplified rehearsal for example. One example, with the Alto TS208, you're getting 550 watts rms and probably twice the volume and bass of the above speakers, and it weighs under 18 pounds (about the same as the others) and goes for $150!!! So with a lithium battery going for $150-$250, that still gives you a lot of room in the budget if you were considering spending over $500 anyway.

 

For me it's a no-brainer, the JEOC is louder and deeper than the Bose, and has a ton of useful features:

- not only BT music streaming but BT control of the mixer with your smartphone, I absolutely love this feature

- much longer lasting battery

- extensive eq and fx options, ducking, phantom power, more channels,

- etc etc.

JBL Eon One Compact

 

It's a hell of a speaker with a pretty full blown mixer onboard. I want one!

 

Thank Randy for your very thoughtful answer. Lot's to consider, and it sounds like you have lots of experience playing out in the street of San Francisco. Wasn't there a TV by the same name? :)

Anyways, I love SF, and my favorite part about the city is checking out the buskers. During my last visit to SF I actually saw a really great arranger KB player busking . He did very nice Carlos Santana inspired guitar simulations

that really inspired me. You're lucky Randy to live in such an awesome place!

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Another option might be to buy a second S1, and daisy-chain the two together. It might give you better coverage too, if you can spread them out a bit?

 

Hi Anderton, I always run two speakers in stereo. I put a lot of work into using stereo effects on the drums and other sounds on my keyboards, and use lots of EP too, and to my ears stereo sounds better!

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Also keep in mind that the Bose has a 120 x 50 degree dispersion. 50 is quite narrow, so orientation and placement could make a big difference.

 

True! I did another busking session yesterday and moved speakers much closser together and about six feet behind against a wall, and the sound was way better!

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So last nigh I went to my local Sam Ash, and compared the JBL Compact to the Bose S1 Pro. I really couldn't hear a big enough difference to justify the purchase. In fact I liked the Bose sound a bit better. Truthfully it's hard to tell in the store using recorded music- you really have to test them out in the "field" live with you instrument. Maybe I'll buy them anyways to get a better idea, but I am not too inspired to do so... Thanks for the replies, and feel free to add anything related to your experience busking too.
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Montunoman,

So what city do you live in?

 

Yeah, when I play in Golden Gate park in SF it's just playing in the park, no busking. On the weekends, at Hippie Hill / Robin Williams Meadows it's a big drum circle. I usually have a bass player or a guitar player, and the full power of the QSC K8.2 is needed to cut thru! During the week it's at the Conservatory of Flowers, which ends up being 2-3 conga players instead of 15-20 like on the weekends, and it's me again with a guitar and or bass player.

 

If you're a montuno player you'd enjoy having so many congas to play with. Many of them are trained in the afro-cuban drum styles and to some extent have their own playing circles. I used to play djembes as well as congas, but I eventually realized how much sweeter congas are, melodic, and the way afro-cuban players work they orchestrate up to 4-5 different parts with the 3 different sizes and various percussion. I LOVE having such rich rhythmic back-up and to me rock often seems like a hillbilly cousin, overly simplified with way too much emphasis on the kick drum, keeping things square.

 

I'm moving! Have been in SF for 22 years, am moving to southern California, San Diego area. By far the biggest thing I'll miss is having the chance to jam outdoors with so many good conga players and other musicians- playing outdoors is simply wonderful with a beautiful park to do it in on a sunny day!

 

Guitar Center already has a generous 45 day return policy, and if you check out their website they've extended that to 6 months! So if you have the cash flow, it's a risk free purchase. I like buying from stores that have a local store so that if I decide to return it there's no shipping involved.

 

How do you manage? It sounds like you're a solo act, so when it's time to use the bathroom you've got a problem of your equipment being where you're not.

 

Am still curious about some of the questions I asked you. Do you play seated or standing, etc.

 

What arranger do you use? I've been using the Pa1000, which is very similar to the Pa700, which is more affordable. The speakers on these boards sounds great and can get pretty damn loud, which means I get AWESOME stereo sound in my ears that also projects out pretty well. Then I use just one speaker to add to it for more bass and fill out the sound. This is a lighter weight and less equipment than setting up two speakers for stereo.

 

By the way, the Pa700/1000 BLOWS ME AWAY with the quality of the sounds and the utterly surprising quality of the Styles- it's like having a back-up band of top-notch studio players. I've had many arrangers in the past, mostly for the on-board speakers, this is the first one where I actually use the arranger part of the board.

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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Montunoman,

So what city do you live in?

 

Yeah, when I play in Golden Gate park in SF it's just playing in the park, no busking. On the weekends, at Hippie Hill / Robin Williams Meadows it's a big drum circle. I usually have a bass player or a guitar player, and the full power of the QSC K8.2 is needed to cut thru! During the week it's at the Conservatory of Flowers, which ends up being 2-3 conga players instead of 15-20 like on the weekends, and it's me again with a guitar and or bass player.

 

If you're a montuno player you'd enjoy having so many congas to play with. Many of them are trained in the afro-cuban drum styles and to some extent have their own playing circles. I used to play djembes as well as congas, but I eventually realized how much sweeter congas are, melodic, and the way afro-cuban players work they orchestrate up to 4-5 different parts with the 3 different sizes and various percussion. I LOVE having such rich rhythmic back-up and to me rock often seems like a hillbilly cousin, overly simplified with way too much emphasis on the kick drum, keeping things square.

 

I'm moving! Have been in SF for 22 years, am moving to southern California, San Diego area. By far the biggest thing I'll miss is having the chance to jam outdoors with so many good conga players and other musicians- playing outdoors is simply wonderful with a beautiful park to do it in on a sunny day!

 

Guitar Center already has a generous 45 day return policy, and if you check out their website they've extended that to 6 months! So if you have the cash flow, it's a risk free purchase. I like buying from stores that have a local store so that if I decide to return it there's no shipping involved.

 

How do you manage? It sounds like you're a solo act, so when it's time to use the bathroom you've got a problem of your equipment being where you're not.

 

Am still curious about some of the questions I asked you. Do you play seated or standing, etc.

 

What arranger do you use? I've been using the Pa1000, which is very similar to the Pa700, which is more affordable. The speakers on these boards sounds great and can get pretty damn loud, which means I get AWESOME stereo sound in my ears that also projects out pretty well. Then I use just one speaker to add to it for more bass and fill out the sound. This is a lighter weight and less equipment than setting up two speakers for stereo.

 

By the way, the Pa700/1000 BLOWS ME AWAY with the quality of the sounds and the utterly surprising quality of the Styles- it's like having a back-up band of top-notch studio players. I've had many arrangers in the past, mostly for the on-board speakers, this is the first one where I actually use the arranger part of the board.

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Hi again Randy,

 

I live in Dallas, but grew up in Los Angeles. I wish I could go back to CA, , but I'm very comfortable here with my wife and she has lots of family here in Texas and Mexico..... Anyways good luck in San Diego, another great city for sure!

 

Yes, I love playing with good percussionist too and actually drums set and Latin percussion are my first instrument. I even studied with Luis Conte and Poncho Sanchez among others years ago. I still play drums and teach lessons too.

 

I did think about taking advantage of the stores return policy, maybe I will just to at least try the JBL's out. I really bought the Bose in the first place because I got a really good deal on them as the Bose Stores were going out of bussinesss, so I could probably break even if I sell them. We'll see.... I actually really hate selling stuff and buying new gear, and trying to get to it sound to my liking, learning new operating procedures,.,,,, Kind of a PITA for me.....

 

Regarding the bathroom breaks, my wife is singing with me and we're just doing 2 hours so far so we've been OK. The Texas heat is the biggest obstacle so far, but we start when the sun goes down. It can sometimes get a bit cold in the winter so we'll probably not busk much after November. Who knows, we just stating out with this busking so we have a lot to learn....

 

I prefer to sit when I play but I'm trying to keep this busking set minimal so I'm now standing and trying to incorporate dance moves and stuff to be a bit more entertaining.

 

I love the PA1000 too! I am using either my Yamaha psr 950 or Ketron Audya ( not very well known in the states) I do have a Korg Micro Arranger as well as a Korg Havian 30, so yes I am a Korg fan too, but I feel most conformable with the Yamaha OS at least in a performance situation..I thought I was the only arranger KB player here and there is a bit of a negative stigma to the instrument among some American players, so I'm glad to meet you! I'm sure between our interest in Latin percussion and arranger KB we would have lots to talk about!

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Hey Montunoman,

These days I'm using my QSC K8.2 along with my lithium battery. Up till now i was carting around a 70 pound battery plus an inverter. With the lithium battery I have one small lunch pail sized battery that weighs 6 pounds that has an inverter built into it! Altogether the K8.2 is a wonderful sounding speaker, but it doesn't have much of a mixer, and it weighs 27 pounds. But as this example shows, you can choose a speaker with more power and just use a small lithium ion battery.

Do you have links to the Lithium Ion battery pack you use? thanks.
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Hello MPN21,

 

I know you're asking Randy, and I too am interested in what battery he uses too.

 

I got the" Flash Fish" It's supper light weight and powers up my keyboards, mixer and vocal processor for at least four hours. It couldn't power up my 12'" power speakers though, which would be over kill for what I'm trying to do now, anyways.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Portable-FlashFish-Generator-Adventure-Emergency/dp/B07T48L6CF/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3UCCBGR1AJ2L2&dchild=1&keywords=flashfish+portable+generator&qid=1592310635

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Yeah guys, that's the model. I was surprised as well that it could power the K8.2, and for that long.

 

The thing to look for, comparing apples to apples, is how many watt hours each battery provides. There's also how many watts, steady and peak, the onboard inverter handles.

 

This Picowe was by far the best deal I found among the 50+ that I looked at. Most inverters at 250wh are normally around $200-$250, I got this one for $129. They've been unavailable for awhile now.

 

Buying again, and for this usage, I would definitely step it up to 400-500 watt hours, which comes with a correspondingly larger capacity inverter. At 250 watt hours, and an 250w inverter that peaks at 350w, I suspect that the reason it would shut down occasionally when I was playing patches with a lot of bass is that the inverter was overloaded. But I don't really know, it could be it was asking too much of the lithium ion battery itself.

 

Just using common sense, it seems like it's better to have a margin of over-capacity, not to tax the battery to its limits for hours at a time. But yeah, very surprised that this little 6 pound battery with inverter could start, let alone run the K8.2. And it did just as well with my k10 and IP300.

 

Unfortunately, these battery/inverters tend to run around $1 per watt hour, which is still low compared to how pricey they have been. Depending on size and how good of a deal you could find, you're more likely to spend $350-500 for a 400-500 wh battery, and the weight will be more like 9-12 pounds. These are more realistic numbers. For the K8.2 or K10, I would not buy this battery again, it's a bit on the small side.

 

And I wish someone would explain to me the REAL math of figuring these things out. You're supposed be able to look at the amount of power drawn, as stated on the back of the speaker, and buy the corresponding number of watt hours. I'm sure 250wh is way low for powering a 1000w rms speaker like the K8.2. And as I said in an earlier post, I got the same run time with the Turbosound IP300, which I assume is 300 watts rms (it's listed at 600 watts, which I assume is peak).

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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I tried the speakers at the same outdoor venue again, and plugged the keyboards directly to the speakers (Bose S1 Pro) instead of the mixer, and they keyboards sounded much better, really great actually! I'm not sure why running the keyboard into the mixer was causing a slight distortion though. Ideas?
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And I wish someone would explain to me the REAL math of figuring these things out. You're supposed be able to look at the amount of power drawn, as stated on the back of the speaker, and buy the corresponding number of watt hours. I'm sure 250wh is way low for powering a 1000w rms speaker like the K8.2. And as I said in an earlier post, I got the same run time with the Turbosound IP300, which I assume is 300 watts rms (it's listed at 600 watts, which I assume is peak).

 

"1000w rms" refers to the electrical power going into the speaker and is not necessarily correlated with the amount of power the amplifier draws from the mains (and isn't the 8.2 sold as a 2000 watt speaker?). The mains current draw is the figure you need to know when you're shopping for a battery/inverter. I looked up the 8.2 manual and this is what the specs say:

 

AC Power Consumption, 1/8th power: 100 VAC, 2.1 A / 120 VAC, 1.9 A / 240 VAC, 1.1 A

 

I believe a Class-D amp like what's in the QSC and other speakers of this type doesn't draw a steady amount of current â it varies with the input signal. "1/8 power" must be QSC's determination of a workable "average" real-world usage figure. Now even an electronics doofus like me knows that wattage is voltage * current. So, in the USA's 120VAC environment 120 volts times 1.9 amps gives you 228 watts of power drawn from the mains â at "1/8 power." 228 watts is a little over 90% of the way to your battery's rating of 250 watt/hour which in my estimation is not enough of a safety margin and would explain what happens when you play bass patches â those will get the QSC amp to draw more than 1.9 amps of current.

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And I wish someone would explain to me the REAL math of figuring these things out. You're supposed be able to look at the amount of power drawn, as stated on the back of the speaker, and buy the corresponding number of watt hours. I'm sure 250wh is way low for powering a 1000w rms speaker like the K8.2. And as I said in an earlier post, I got the same run time with the Turbosound IP300, which I assume is 300 watts rms (it's listed at 600 watts, which I assume is peak).

 

"1000w rms" refers to the electrical power going into the speaker and is not necessarily correlated with the amount of power the amplifier draws from the mains (and isn't the 8.2 sold as a 2000 watt speaker?). The mains current draw is the figure you need to know when you're shopping for a battery/inverter. I looked up the 8.2 manual and this is what the specs say:

 

AC Power Consumption, 1/8th power: 100 VAC, 2.1 A / 120 VAC, 1.9 A / 240 VAC, 1.1 A

 

I believe a Class-D amp like what's in the QSC and other speakers of this type doesn't draw a steady amount of current â it varies with the input signal. "1/8 power" must be QSC's determination of a workable "average" real-world usage figure. Now even an electronics doofus like me knows that wattage is voltage * current. So, in the USA's 120VAC environment 120 volts times 1.9 amps gives you 228 watts of power drawn from the mains â at "1/8 power." 228 watts is a little over 90% of the way to your battery's rating of 250 watt/hour which in my estimation is not enough of a safety margin and would explain what happens when you play bass patches â those will get the QSC amp to draw more than 1.9 amps of current.

Thanks for the explanation! Had never notice the 1/8th power designation. That makes a lot of sense. It's advertised as 2000 watts, but that's peak. It's 1000 watts rms

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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I tried the speakers at the same outdoor venue again, and plugged the keyboards directly to the speakers (Bose S1 Pro) instead of the mixer, and they keyboards sounded much better, really great actually! I'm not sure why running the keyboard into the mixer was causing a slight distortion though. Ideas?

If you know how to gain stage a mixer that helps. But otherwise, I typically like going thru a mixer from the keyboard to the speakers, esp if the mixer is already in place needed for other things. Many keyboards don't put out that strong of a line level signal, so the speaker doesn't reach its full potential volume.

 

But if you don't need the mixer, 1 less piece to carry and setup, eh?

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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The stated AC power consumption spec' is a safety rating requirement used to calculate branch circuit loads and heating/cooling for building industry purposes.

 

That said, here is what QSC says about the 1/8 power rating (emphasis mine):

Current draw at 1/8 of full power is measured with pink noise as a signal. It approximates operating with music or voice with light clipping and represents the amplifier's typical "clean" maximum level, without audible clipping. Use these figures for typical maximum level operation.

 

Also:

Current draw at full power is measured with a 1 kHz sine wave. However, it does not represent any real-world operating condition.

 

So Reezekeys conclusion, " '1/8 power' must be QSC's determination of a workable 'average' real-world usage figure." appears to be on the money.

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  • 1 year later...
I was wondering whether anyone had experience comparing either the Bose or the JBL to the Behringer MPA40BT or MPA100BT...?

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Comparing for volume and sound quality are the only things they have in common. The Behringer is all about the price, 1/2 as much as the others, and includes a wireless mic. Gets good reviews on Sweetwater for its volume and sound quality.

 

Over a year into owning the JBL Eon One Compact, I love it everytime I use it. The knock out features has been the fx and the ability to mix from your smartphone. I still marvel, after years of longing for these features in a lightweight, powerful and good sounding battery-powered speaker, that it's got 5 band EQ per channel, reverb/chorus/delay fx, BT, phantom power, etc.

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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Comparing for volume and sound quality are the only things they have in common.
Yes, that's really what I'm asking about... how the Berhingers compare to the Bose and JBL in volume and in sound quality. I understand the feature differences.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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  • 3 months later...

A new, impressive looking entry in this field... the Yorkville EXM-Mobile-8. Compared to the JBL Compact:

 

... about the same size and weight. (Yorkville is a half pound less.)

 

... louder. Yorkville is 117dB continuous, 123dB peak; JBL max SPL is 112... that should be a very noticeable difference in max volume/headroom.

 

... not sure about bass response, but I suspect the Yorkville will do better here. Yorkville freq response spec is 60 Hz to 20 kHz +/- 3dB. JBL says 37.5 Hz â 20 kHz but no tolerance is given. Based on the chart by someone at acousticguitarforum, though, even at 60 Hz, the JBL is already down by a lot more than the Yorkville's 3 dB

 

... dispersion is 90 x 90, compared to 100 x 60 on the JBL. The 60 is more useful in some personal monitoring situations, to minimize spread to other players and/or to minimize mic feedback. Of course, you have to be aware of orienting the speaker appropriately, if you want the narrow 60 degree spread to be vertical (for personal monitor use,"for your ears only") or horizontal (leaving the 100 for wide audience spread). If you don't need the narrow beam for your application, I'd prefer the 90 x 90 because you can set it up either horizontally or vertically depending on the particular logistics, without worrying about different dispersion. (It's one of the things people have liked about the QSC K-series.)

 

... although the JBL includes a 4 channel mixer instead of the Yorkville's 3, I like that the Yorkville has 3 separate volume knobs for these 3 channels. In a performance situation, you shouldn't have to "tinker" with anything, I want to be able to just grab a knob to adjust a volume. Though JBL does have bass and treble controls for the channels, which the Yorkville does not. Both support various combinations including up to three 1/4" inputs, bluetooth input, 1/8" input... though Yorkville supports up to three microphones compared to JBL's two.

 

But the JBL sells for $575, and the Yorkville is going for $719.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Great post, thanks for the heads up on the new Yorkville unit.

 

In my estimation, it's a bit of an apples to oranges comparison. I've had the JBL unit for awhile now, and in general, I'd say the Yorkville is an old-school pa that has everything spelled out on the pa itself, all relevant controls are there to be tweaked, including the volume for each channel as you pointed out. And of course, there's the question of how good each sounds, esp for piano and handling bass. -3 at 60hz is impressive for an 8" battery-powered box. It also has a considerable advantage, apparently, of louder volume, as well as a battery-operated sub that is meant to go with the system (another $669).

 

Impressive and desirable, but at those prices, esp for the unit and its sub, you can start looking for a lightweight battery/inverter for use with non-battery-powered equipment. Probably about $500 of battery/inverter (about 500+ watt-hours, weighs about 15 pounds and the size of 2 bread boxes?). I had 2-4 hours of battery power for my QSC K8.2 with 256wh for outdoor amplification at medium to loud volumes, and if I was to do it again, I'd go with at least twice that, starting at 500whs, I was clearly overtaxing the battery/inverter with trying to run such a powerful speaker a high volumes, it'd shut off sometimes and I would have to lower the bass/overall volume and start again.

 

---------

 

The JBL EON ONE COMPACT vs the YORKVILLE EXM-MOBILE-8 is MUCH more modern/latest tech for this price point:

- Though it doesn't have individual volume pots for instant adjustment, changing from one channel to the next is easy, hit the channel button to cycle thru them, very quick and easy, have done it many times with no stress

 

- You can adjust the parameters using the JBL app!!!! What a boon! I can fine-tune the extensive eq and fx from my listening position, as well as the volume. I just love NOT having to adjust the parameters, then go back to listening position, find it's still not right, and then having to go back to the mixer. I HATE that my otherwise wonderful QSC K8.2 doesn't have this BT remote mixing capability, the end result is not using most of the many EQ options it has on offer.

 

- AFAI can tell, the Yorkville has no real EQ, just a shape knob that I guess is their one-knob-eq, and a notch on some channels. On the JBL there's 5 bands of EQ per channel, adjustable easily from my listening position, AND, bass/treble/reverb adjustable from the actual mixer, per channel.

 

- AFAI can tell, there's only reverb on the Yorkville, don't even see an adjustment for the kind, just a send knob? The JBL has reverb, delay, chorus, all with some adjustability. The JBL has limits on its fx, can't dial each channel completely independently, but I usually dial in the fx for the most important channel and limit the send for the others. Also the JBL has a ducking function for fitness instructors,etc.

 

- Also the JBL: 2 USB ports / 48v phantom power / ducking

 

-------

 

I've found the JBL to be a joy to use, a portable, reasonably priced mixer/speaker combo that has the features I've always wanted. While the extra volume capability is a big plus for the Yorkkville, for most of my uses the volume of the JBL has worked well. For loud band use, you'd need higher than a 117db SPL anyways.

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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