In many situations, unless you absolutely have to have a mic’d up guitar amp sound, or use an amp modeller (yes you can connect a modeller to the L1 Pro 8) these sound quite acceptable even the high gain variants.

And with the intuitive L1 Mix app, you get complete wireless mixer control from your smartphone or tablet too. Bose equipment across the board is renowned for its sound quality and in the L1 Pro8 they’ve managed to successfully combine true portability with easy set up and excellent sonic performance. The app is a no brainer and pretty much indispensable. Remote control AND access to the ToneMatch library And there you go. Tap on Shure SM58 and you’ll access Bose’s optimal EQ settings for a Shure SM58 dynamic microphone. We’ll emphasise that these mixers are optional but they are designed to work with Bose PA systems. If you need extra functionality for your L1 Pro system, these are the way to go.At 300W, the L1 Pro8 is ideal for smaller venues like coffee shops, cafes, bars and restaurants but it also has enough juice in the tank for small halls and events – outdoors and inside.

In terms of carrying bags you get with the L1 Pro 8: well you DO get a travel bag to house the line array components; you DON’T get anything for the subwoofer/mixer base unit. There is a convenient carrying handle located on the top of the unit though.

Instead, line arrays are vertically oriented; you have just one single ‘tower’ comprising a woofer at the base and mid-range/high frequency speakers at the top of the array. Just make sure when you plug a mic in, that you select ‘mic’ for the ToneMatch option and ‘inst’ for a guitar or similar. You can turn this functionality off. Bluetooth

But unless you buy one of the optional (T4S/T8S) Bose mixers or hook up an external one however, you’re going to fall woefully short on enough channels for a full blown band.The Bose L1 Pro8 is ready whenever you are, enabling easier load-in and faster setup. It offers generous coverage with a C-shaped line array featuring 8 articulated 5.1 cm neodymium drivers. This array delivers 180-degree horizontal coverage with wide vertical dispersion, allowing your audience to hear clearly whether they are seated or standing, even off to the extreme sides in small to medium venues like coffee shops and cafés. Bose’s algorithms here are very usable and do a good job of enhancing your tone. There’s no rules here – experiment – and you can develop your own customized settings and save them as ‘scenes’ for instant recall. These can also be shared to different L1 systems. Moving down the panel, next up are mute buttons for all three channels. Pretty self-explanatory. Then, on channels 1&2 only, we have ToneMatch, which essentially is where you select the input source. Connectivity Bose really pushes the portability/performance factor of the L1 Pro8 and with good reason. Technically you could carry this with one arm/hand and leave the other free for instruments etc.