Stephen S

Co-founder/co-owner/president of professional loudspeaker manufacturer www.fulcrum-acoustic.com

I use the Eventide Powermax for my pedalboard. Lightweight, high current and very flexible. A bit spendy but it powers my Key Largo and other stuff without issue.

Plywood is a much better choice for a portable speaker as it is stronger and lighter than MDF. Acoustical differences would depend on the grade of plywood used, thickness, etc.

Seems that the price has increased over the past few months. For whatever reason, some retailers were quoting the old price and some were quoting the new. Sweetwater had been honoring the approx. $2500 price until fairly recently.

I think its cool that there are still electro-mechanical instruments being made. Kudos to Vintage Vibe & Valente for proving that true craftsmanship isn't dead. Hopefully it will continue to be economically viable for them. VV seems to be making a go of it.

Great discussion and lots of good information here. I'll throw in one additional thought; borrow one (or two) and test drive it (them) in a gig environment to see how it REALLY works for you. Here's why: 1. Spec's don't always tell the whole story. Each manufacturer tends to measure or spin specs in different ways making hard to really compare products based on specs alone. 2. Your impression based on an in-store demo may not translate to on-stage. Sometimes products are voiced to demo well; these attributes may work against you on-stage. 3. The tweeter size is as important as the woofer, particularly for piano sounds. This will show up on stage and at gig volume but might not reveal itself listening to recorded music or at lower volumes in the store.

You are correct, Dave. We still make the "ac" versions of the FA Portable products upon request. As a general comment on this thread - the PA speaker game has changed quite a bit over the past 10 years or so. There are now a number of really great choices for powered PA speakers at (relatively) modest cost. This was certainly not the case 15+ years ago.

10% to 12% SGA may be true for a giant company like Sony, but is quite optimistic for a company developing and selling keyboards into a small/boutique market. There are several topics wrapped up here: 1. Price - the selling price of the product in the marketplace 2. Cost - the manufacturer's cost to develop and manufacture the product 3. Value - the utility that a product provides to a particular user, compared to the Price Keyboards that sell for $3k+ tend to provide a lot of performance and features. If a particular customer can take advantage of, say, 75% of those features then the product may represent a good value. If a particular user only requires a small fraction of the features then perhaps it is not such a good value. Flagship keyboards are costly to develop and appeal to a small segment of an already-small market. Since the audience is small, the cost to develop and manufacture is relatively high on a per-unit basis. Its not uncommon to see some of the technologies from flagship products flow down to less capable/less-costly products in an effort to balance the value equation for a wider range of users.

A DI Box is simply an interface device that goes between your keyboard and a PA system. It takes the signal from your keyboard (or other instrument) and provides a balanced, microphone-level signal that can be sent to a mixing console. A DI will also have "loop through" connectors that allow you to pass the signal from your keyboard to a local amp/powered speaker, while keeping everything electrically isolated from the main PA to avoid ground loops (hums and buzzes). It MAY have provision to combine the L & R outputs from your keyboard into a single, mono signal but that would depend on the exact model of DI. Some stereo DI's have this provision. There is no magic here to create a stereo result form a single speaker. If you want stereo, you need 2 loudspeakers. DI's have been around for quite a while and are essential gear for interfacing your stage rig to the main PA. They cannot create a mono output that "sounds just like stereo".

I used to completely agree with Outkaster. As I get older, my desire to schlep gear decreases accordingly. I've taken to covering many gigs with a NS3/88. Is it perfect? No. Does it do most things well enough to get by? Many times, yes. When needed, I use the Mojo for gigs that are organ heavy, and I've got several synths that I can pull from the bench when need be.

Roland DP10 https://www.roland.com/global/products/dp-10/

I agree that it is a bit confusing. The knob is labeled "sensitivity", which can be interpreted as "how much signal does it take to drive the speaker to the specified output level?" One would need to review the manual to know what level is specified as it relates to sensitivity. With the knob set all the way to the left, the speaker is off so you would (in theory), need an infinitely large signal to drive it to the specified output level. Turn the knob clockwise to the 3:00 position;the printing on the panel indicates that you would need a signal of +4 dB (presumably dBu) to drive the speaker to the specified output. With the knob all the way to the right, the sensitivity is at maximum and so a signal of -2 dB would drive the speaker to the specified output.

The TT08A does not have a full mixer section to it, and does not include a mic preamp. This is typical for pro products. I can't say for sure, but judging by the way the input control is labeled, I'm guessing that it probably has about 36 dB of gain or so through the electronics. Again - this is not uncommon. However, it does mean that it could be difficult to drive it to full output from a keyboard without having an intermediate mixer in the signal chain. Of course, this depends on the specific keyboard, how hot a signal it puts out and whether the output is balanced or unbalanced.

Unfortunately, you are correct.

FWIW - the FA28ac is a bit heavier than the 108P because the FA28 has both an 8" coaxial driver and a separate 8" woofer, whereas the the 108P has just a coax driver. Despite the fact the FA28 has 2 woofers in it, the two products are very close in size.

I do not have any first-hand experience with the TT08a. However, there is an extremely discerning user on this forum who has auditioned many speakers and really likes the TT08a. I would trust his experience more than my opinion. I know the RCF folks quite well. They make very good drivers and speaker systems, so I would imagine that this product is likely to be a top performer. I use one of our(Fulcrum) 8" models on many gigs. It has some similar attributes to the TT08, and some important differences. Generally speaking, I prefer a larger woofer and compression driver for loud gigs or large stages (particularly for piano sounds), but the 8" system can work quite well for a fairly wide variety of needs.

I was (poorly) trying to suggest that its best not to infer a speaker's strengths/weaknesses or sound character by reading subtle differences in axial frequency response curves. These are not necessarily a good indicator of its suitability for a specific purpose.

When moving slightly off axis (but still well within the nominal dispersion pattern of the horn), you will find that dips and peaks move around. What appears as a slight dip in response in a particular frequency range on axis may not look the same slightly off axis. The "color" of the sound can vary due to inconsistencies in FR within the coverage pattern. Its common. The effects i'm referring to in the vertical plane are common to all speakers with offset horns and woofers. The QSC's are no exception. Its related to the interference between the woofer and horn in the crossover overlap region and cannot be avoided.

I would take those FR charts with a grain of salt. Its possible/likely that the FR changes even slightly off axis, even by only a few degrees. These impacts are typically more noticeable in the vertical plane than horizontal, due to the interaction of the woofer and HF horn near crossover. If you were to look at FR curves measured at, say, 5 degrees off axis, you might be surprised at how different they look.

If using the Key Largo, you should run the XLR outputs to the house PA. These outputs are isolated with transformers to help reduce hum, ground loops, etc.

Frequency response in a PA/Live sound speaker is not a terribly useful metric, as cited above. If the frequency response looks particularly bad, then that might be telling. More important, and harder to quantify on a spec sheet is CONSISTENCY: 1. Does the frequency response stay consistent within the nominal coverage area of the speaker, or are there dramatic tonal shifts as you move from on- to off-axis. 2. Does the sound character change from low level to medium to high level? Does the speaker sound pleasant at low levels but become edgy/shrill at higher levels? 3. Is the system well balanced such that no section (woofer/tweeter/midrange) runs out of gas dramatically sooner than the other section(s), thereby limiting usable output? 4. Is the speaker system natural sounding, or does it color the sound? Unlike an instrument amplifier, a live sound/PA speaker should reproduce its input as accurately as possible. 5. Does it get loud enough? This is something else that can't be judged from a spec sheet (even though maximum output may be specified). Typically, a maximum output spec represents the loudest sound that the speaker can (theoretically) make before it breaks. What is not specified is, "how loud can I turn this up before it sounds bad?" This can be variable based on program type.

A few years ago, I was shopping for a dual-manual organ clone. I presently have a Hammond B3, and had another chopped Hammond at the time. I've also owned (or still own) Nord Electro 2/3/5, Piano 2 and Stage 3. At the time I was shopping, i was able to borrow a C2D for a gig. While I've generally had good luck with Nord products, I did not love the C2D primarily because of the action. It was just a bit stiffer than I liked; more like the action on the Electro than a real Hammond action. I don't know if the Electro and C2D have the same action, but from what I could tell they seemed quite similar. I ended up buying a dual-manual Mojo and really like its action. I've not tried any of the Hammond Clones so I can't comment as to how those would stack up.

Here's my experience with multiple Nord products and the "mono" button. I have a Piano 2 and Electro 5D. I previously had an Electro 3 which also had the "mono" button. The mono button achieves its goal of creating a mono output. Just like any stereo to mono conversion, results are highly variable depending on which (stereo) sample you are starting with. I don't know what this button does beyond simply mixing the L&R signals. Its reported to do something else to improve the mono result, but I've never seen any detail as to what that might be. I've found a specific piano sample or two from the Nord library that seem to work better than others in Mono. Regardless of how mono is achieved (via a mixer mixer, via the "mono" button, etc) I always use the same sample or two when I need good mono compatibility.

Nice try, Dave I think that the contribution of the exposed back side of the side woofer is overestimated. The rear radiation of the woofer has a natural low pass filter due to the shadowing by the basket and magnet. Small woofers have naturally wide/omnidirectional response (at lower frequencies) regardless of the fact that the back side is contained within the enclosure. As stated previously, I don't have an SS3 on hand to compare, but my guess is that the result is quite similar. Of course, it won't be identical for a multiplicity of reasons, but there are some interesting pros/cons to each approach.

I think that the SS has one front-firing speaker system and one side firing speaker, so the results should be representative. I happened to use Fulcrum Acoustic FA28ac's, but I think that the effect is somewhat independent of the speakers that you would use, up to a point. Smaller cone sizes may work a bit better as they are less directional than larger speakers so they should spread the sound a bit better. I positioned the speakers directly adjacent to each other (almost touching) and aimed them at 90 degrees relative to each other. You can use the master L/R mixer outputs to balance the mid and side signals to taste. I just did this as a quick mock up to get a feeling for the result. There are lots of refinements that you could make; adjust the EQ controls on the side speaker relative to the main speaker, etc. The SS3 wraps all of this stuff into one package which avoids having to tinker with all of this stuff. But, if you wanted to get a similar effect with much higher output speakers, you could do it in this fashion. Of course, it requires fiddling and tweaking....