Henni, Believe me, nothing you said was offensive. I'm proud to have lived this long, and to still be an active, full-time entertainer. Now, I can tell you that getting this old was not nearly as much fun as it was cracked up to be, but I just returned from a 3-day, 150-voyage on my sailboat, and when I got back to the dock I had a call on my cellular telephone from a lady in Marathon Key, Florida who wanted to know if I could do a large, outdoor, private party for her in early February. I asked how many people and she said probably about 100 to 125, which I can easily do with the L1 Compact. Last winter that system worked very well for audiences to 170 at Marathon City Marina's Tiki Hut.

The largest outdoor job I've done was approximately 1,200 people at the Ocean City Maryland Tuna Tournament. I had performed this particular event the first time using a pair of Peavey SP5Gs mounted on poles and the system was driven with a Peavey 600FX Stereo powered mixer. The following year I added another pair of Yamaha 12-inch powered speakers, which really made everything boom! The next year I used a pair of Barbetta Sona 32-SCs on poles, which were a lot cleaner sounding than the Peaveys. Three years of Barbetta and the Bose L1 with the B1 bass cab went on stage with me.

Keep in mind that the audiences here were a bunch of party-hearty big-boat owners that spent thousands on these tournaments in hopes of winning a million or more by bringing in the largest tuna. They loved to party and they were extremely loud - always. This had been a concern using the prior sound systems, mainly because when I fired up some MP3s and walked to the back of the venue I thought the volume was much lower than I anticipated.

When I set up the Bose system the Ocean City Fishing Center owners came to me and said "Where are your speakers?" When I pointed to the tower and the sub it was plain to see they were a bit skeptical to say the least. At the time, the place was mobbed, everyone had been drinking heavily for at least an hour or more and they were ready to party. I fired up the keyboard and played "Flip, Flop And Fly", the crowd loved it, the people who in prior years that were at the back of the venue were up dancing, and the owners looked at me, smiled and gave me two thumbs up.

I sincerely believe that for your usage, a pair of Bose L1s with a pair of B1 subs would be more effective for a number of reasons. First and foremost, as you well know, you would be dealing with a much lighter sound system, the heaviest component tipping the scales at just over 30 pounds. Assembly time is less than three minutes for each system, which I demonstrated a few years ago with a YouTube video.

Bose excels when it comes to clarity, which I consider an integral component of any sound system. One of my major gripes with the Peavey system was that it never sound clear, especially the vocals, and this is coming from someone that lives and dies by the quality of his vocals. The Barbetta system was good, and so was the first Yamaha sound system I owned, but not even remotely close to the vocal quality provided by the Bose L1.

Falloff, especially in outdoor performances, is always a major obstacle that every outdoor entertainer has to deal with. I watched in awe at the Merriweather Post Pavilion when three tractor trailers pulled up to set up the stage for a Jimmy Buffett concert. There was a crew of at least 30 or more that spent six hours putting the stage together, a structure that placed speakers in both a massive horizontal and vertical array. There was probably 100 speakers involved in their setup. I got to talk with one of the sound guys who said they needed every one of them to reach the audience at the back end of the crowd with the volume they wanted.

Falloff with vertical array systems is minimal at best, averaging less than 10-percent at 100-feet. In contrast, the fall-off is substantially higher with conventional sound systems is considerably higher, as much as 25 or more percent at 100 feet. Additionally, with the Bose L1 vertical array, the horizontal coverage is at least 180-degrees, and I believe that has been increased to 210 degrees with the newer systems. This means that audience members off to the side, even those at great distances, hear the same clarity and volume as those situated directly in front of the speakers. To my knowledge, there is no other sound system that provides this amount of horizontal coverage.

I suspect that a pair of L1s with a pair of B1 subs will do everything you wish and more. However, I also suspect that in SA the import taxes will be brutal unless Bose has a manufacturing plant in SA. Bose provides some of the highest quality sound systems in the world, but they come at a premium price.

I hope the above information is beneficial and you are able to lighten the load and continue to do the great work you do for many years to come.

Good Luck,

Gary