First of all, PA is expensive, you get what you pay for. No shortcuts.
Second of all, unless you play only for groups of 250-300 people and often (25 times a year or more), it does not make much business sense to buy. Renting and getting a kickback or discount from the rental company is a better bet. If you play 250-300 people max, but your real gigs vary between 100 and 300, you will end up paying for, storing and transporting a PA that is too big for most smaller gigs (and too expensive, can’t charge a 100 people party for a 300 people PA) and will only be truly useful for the big parties.
So, I would usually advise buying a good portable setup for 100-150 or 200 people, depending on what you play most and moving to a rented PA when you reach 150 or more. This gives you the flexibility you need combined with a small footprint portable solution for the majority of your gigs (if they are below 150-200).
Bose L1’s. While Bose claims up to 500 pax with one of these, at 500W RMS and the regular ratio of 5W RMS per person, I think 500/5 = 100 is much more realistic. And that is without wanting to play VERY loud. In that case you are looking at about 10W RMS a person (same as for outdoor functions), making it a max of 50 people. Assuming you buy 2 (which you should) you are looking at 100-200 people. Add to that the fact that the subs are double-10’s and I don’t think you’ll get the mobile oomph you might need, certainly not for up to 300 people.
F1 series. If you were to get the subs as well, the total RMS level would be sufficient. Again, I am not that big a fan of double smaller speaker subs. At the end of the day it’s about the amount of air you can displace. I might be old school, but bigger is better. I use a single 18 sub with my two 12 tops (total 2000W rms) and it’s nice and balanced with plenty of low end. If I need to do a bigger area, I will add two 12″ tops and set them up on the corners of the “dancefloor” facing inward.
L’Acoustics. Moving into a totally different realm of high-end, venue/festival level gear. Very nice, but I would never consider buying such a setup, unless I was in the rental business for real.
Now, on a personal level, I have never been a Bose fan. While great for speech, I never liked them for DJ work. Have worked with several setups but was ultimately always disappointed by the end-results.
If budget isn’t (too much) of an issue. For an array-based (that is something I DO like) system, the relatively new RCF Evox are a good choice. The Evox 12 offering a 15″ sub that is still pretty compact and an 8x 4″ top array. 750W RMS puts them at 50% over the L1s. This should carry you to 250-300 people if need be (while renting a more appropriate setup would still be my choice) and would comfortably run anything up to 150 people (loud) with enough sub low.
Hope that helps some. Just my three cents as usual.
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