Hello

I think it's great that a lot of the players are trying and liking the PAS. I am looking forward to trying one myself.

The PAS strikes me as being new old technology. Why? The first thing that struck me when I first saw it was it's resemblance to the pipe organ. The sound from those pipes has about the same effect, in that the sound is about the same anywhere you sit and really travels. Then I remembered around 1980 I believe, one of the major church organ companies (Rogders, Allen or Baldwin I think) made an electronic pipe organ with little speakers inside the pipes. So, it looks like Bose is in reality using a very old concept with all of it's updated technology.

Makes me wonder what ever happened to the concept of turning, would you believe, a wall into a speaker by attaching some gizmo and letting the wall do the job. You never know what'll come up in this great age of technology. I always had the thought of pictures rattling on the wall with this concept. haha

The other thing that has occured to me is that having speakers on the keyboard for vocalists has become a non-issue if what I am hearing is correct in that the player can hear as well as anyone in the room, and if there really is no issue regarding the stereo phasing of some instruments when played in mono on the PAS. This would open up the possibility, I would think then of having a Tyros, PA1X Pro, G70 or any other keyboard without onboard speakers to give that extra full sound plus all the other other onboard goodies that are available.

I'd be curious to hear some comments on these ideas.

Best
Scott Langholff

Bose' PAS is not the first application of a 'line array' of speakers. But they spent a lot of money on research to make it work. And they have! It's funny how the first group of people to almost universally embrace it were solo guitar acts. Now, keyboard solo acts! That's pretty cool! I wanted one just for a guitar act but now I really want one even worse!


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Bill
Yamaha PSR2000

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I am pretty sure that the PAS cannot be compared to an organ pipe. Each pipe is hollow and tuned to a single pitch. The PAS column is full of speaker hardware and does not resonate at any particular frequency as an organ pipe would do.

The electronic pipes you mention - made by Allen Organ - played only one note each. They were tuned to resonate like regular pipes. The speaker in each one enabled single pipes to produce flue, trumpet, reed and other voices, so only one rank would be needed.

Big ol' caveat here...I am not an expert on organs nor do I own a PAS. Y'all please let me know if I am off base here.

Douglas Wolfe

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I went to a rock show at Great America and noticed the backing vocalists each used a Bose PAS. However, the lead voices used conventional speakers. The leads moved around a lot, so using a PAS to provide localized sound would not have worked. However, the background vocalists had fixed positions, so it made sense to use the PAS.

Douglas Wolfe got it right. The principle of the pipe organ is the resonance of a column of air at one frequency. That is why there are so many different sized pipes. Each produces a different tone. The longer the pipe, the lower the frequency of the tone and visa versa.

The principle of the Bose PAS is using a line array (a column of speakers) to radiate sound in such a way as to approximate cylindrical pressure waves. That's in contrast to spherical waves which are typical for most speaker systems. With true cylindrical waves the sound intensity decreases as a linear function of the distance from the speaker. With spherical waves it decreases as the square of the distance. The result is that with the PAS cylindrcal radiator the sound intensity is much more uniform throughout the area surrounding the speaker, as has been reported by those who use the system. Since the very low frequencies are essentially non-directional, they use a sub-woofer to handle the low end of the frequency spectrum.

Line arrays are not new to the world of acoustics. They have been used in various types of sonar systems (underwater acoustics) for a number of years. Bose has taken a well known physical principle and successfully applied it to the audio spectrum.
Paul C.

Paul C., that's a great description of how the PAS does what it does!


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Bill
Yamaha PSR2000

Scott,

I was in the organ business back in the 70's. Conn made a box with a couple of speakers in it and put so called electronic metal pipes on top of the box. Supposedly the pipes were tuned to musicial notes. These pipes maybe made a sleight difference in sound. The major difference in sound was because the speakers in the boxes projected up.

In the early 80's Baldwin made their version of electronic pipes also. These were actually plastic sewer pipe with a speaker mounted at the base of each pipe. Supposedly the sewer pipes were also tuned to musicial notes. These really sucked just like Baldwin organs. They were also butt ugly.

I believe if you were to take apart the Bose tower you would find lots of small speakers pointed in all different directions. Instead of projecting up like Conn and Baldwin I'd be willing to bet that they project forward in a 180 degree pattern.

In the Conn (by the way these electronic pipes were a con) and Baldwin the actual pipe was supposed to resonate to a tuned frequency to enhance the sound. I believe in the Bose the tube is just a place to mount speakers. The tube on the Bose may be tuned to enhance mid range frequency response much like a bass reflex cabinet.

Tom

Scott...Have you been getting my e-mails????
Tony Rome

Hi Tony

I don't remember seeing any. Where have you sent them. What sender name or subject title have you used?

I just replied to your message to me on the
8th of this month...entitled Hello synthzone member....I sent some photos of the gig bags you asked for....I also asked for your SKYPE address or user name...
Tony Rome

Scotty....Have you been beamed up or are you still amoung us mortals here on the SnythZone.....E-mail me.....
Tony Rome