PORTABLE KEYBOARD AMPS

[DanL]

I find 15's too boomy. I had Mackie 15's, some Carvin passive 15's in the past. I used the pair of EV ELX 15's that we use for PA tops for one of my Floyd band shows and wasn't super happy with them. I imagine that if I used them for more than 1 gig I could tweak the EQ to get them to sound great, because they are a real nice powered speaker, but they are also pretty heavy and take up a lot of room. The 10's I have carry enough bottom to hear things well, while the PA carries the load for the thundering low end.

[Reezekeys]

If I were to upgrade these, I would hope for roughly the same inputs/driver/power configuration as the K8s with a more rigid (wooden?) build.

Apparently the issue isn't that a wood cabinet makes for the best speaker; it's that the best speakers happen to have cabinets made of wood. Plastic cabinets have mostly been used in cheaper, poorly designed, price point targeted products. Jay says that a properly designed plastic cabinet can perform equally as well as its wooden counterpart.

Something about this doesn't quite ring true to me. I guess if we take as a given that a) plastic is lighter than wood and b) plastic is cheaper than wood, it begs the question: why would makers of high quality cabinets still use wood unless it was for acoustic reasons?

I have no dog in this fight but apparently Jay Mitchell is someone a lot of people in the speaker world respect. I have to say though after owning my K8s for almost seven years, not one time did I ever think "nice speakers but I wish the cabinet was more rigid." JerryA, I'm really curious what is it about the cabs that say "not rigid enough" to you? I'm not even sure I understand what you mean by "more rigid" anyway. I know that plastic is lighter and possibly less dense than a wood cab but it certainly seems solid enough, and I've never heard of anyone taking points off the sound of the Ks because of the cabinet construction. As someone who has to carry these to most of my local gigs, I'm more than happy they're plastic if and when I get new powered speakers, anything with a wooden cabinet is probably not going to be on my list to look at.

[timwat]

With essentially a layman's understanding of physics, I believe one of the primary goals of speaker design is to mitigate or eliminate resonance in the cabinet within the intended range of the speaker. The lower the range goes and the higher the intended SPL goes, the more difficult this becomes. One answer is to build a cabinet so large that it would be unreasonable to move. Another is to pile on lead plates on top, also impractical. Another is to build a rigid cabinet with bracing and damping to negate the effects of resonance and absorption. This is one of the things that separates good cabinet design from compromised cabinet design. But it is hardly the only one...interesting design choices are executed throughout the speaker world, including the cabinet-less planar designs of electrostatic which sound absolutely stunning.

 

All to say, apart from measured physical evidence, it's difficult to reach the conclusion that X unit from Y manufacturer sounds crappy because the cabinet isn't rigid enough. All you can immediately conclude is that X unit sound crappy to me, for some cursory auditory reasons. From there you have to measure to determine likely suspects, possible causation, is the usage consistent with intended design, etc.

 

I don't believe Jay Mitchell is actually part of Fractal, he's described in some of their press as a renowned speaker designer and AXE early adopter. Jay describes himself as the owner of Frazier Loudspeaers and Mitchell Acoustics Research. It appears he has a long resume in audio engineering and speaker design (both huge fixed installations and studio monitors), apparently a Ph.D in physics, and co-designed the Atomic CLR with Tom King.

[AnotherScott]

so the big question to me is, how do you get sufficient low end, clarity, and headroom in an amp that weighs less that 50lbs without using a 15" and horn?

Back to my Roland SA300-based idea... two pieces. JBL passive 15" EON are only 33 lbs, so you have some leeway. But also...

 

I have found that you need a 15" in order to feel the lows- it just doesn"t happen with a 12"

I guess it depends on the music you're playing, but I've gotten tons of bass (at high volume) out of the lightweight Markbass Mini CMD 121P 600 watt compact 12" bass amp.

 

That said, my favorite speaker to play through is a JBL PRX625, a 60 lb powered box with two 15" speakers. I just don't typically want to deal with the size and weight.

 

But you know, getting back to the first question, if JBL can squeeze two 15" woofers and 1500 watts of amplification into a 60 lb box, you could probably do it in for under 50 lbs if you took out one of the woofers!

 

But really, even a 50 lb box is too much to carry around. Again... having it "detach" to two neatly stacked pieces solves that problem.

[dsetto]

But really, even a 50 lb box is too much to carry around. Again... having it "detach" to two neatly stacked pieces solves that problem.

+1.

 

And, actual handles, makes carrying both pieces a breeze. ZXA1's missed that.

[Al Coda]

I prefer a pair of 10" powered monitors for my keys.

 

+1 when portability and sound of a 2-WAY system matters.

 

10"/ 1" seem to be the most linear combination.

With a 10" woofer, the crossoverpoint for the horn/tweeter can be choosen more musical.

With most 12" woofers, the x-over point is already lower, so much more sonic material goes to the horn.

The worst is a 2-way system w/ 15" woofer where in most cases the mids suffer somewhere and everything above 1.2Khz goes to the horn already.

 

When I used passive cabs w/ 15" woofers, they were 3-way (EV) and 4-way (Dynacord) and w/ the latter there was an amprack existing w/ 3 stereo-power amps for the lows, mids, highs& ultra-highs along w/ stereo x-overs and graphic EQs.

That system was large, heavy and made for the road,- all the 4 cabs already built into flightcase-type cabinets.

Not enough, there was also a programmable and MIDI controllable tube amp in the ballpark together w/ a 4x12 cab,- just only for one of my Minimoog Ds.

 

An fact, that was the very best sounding keyboard amplification I ever owned and used ...

But there were roadies and trucks !

 

With that experience I know:

All portable active Class-D 2-way systems are compromizes, period.

 

Today and in my age, I live w/ the compromizes.

One of the compromizes is,- I don´t need very low end when there is a drummer and bass player in the band.

"feelin´ the low end" is keyboardist´s ego and absolutely not essential in a band context.

Frank Zappa once said in an interview most keyboardplayers need a balls massage on stage and he hates that.

 

Only organ trio w/ left hand bass and kicking pedals is different.

 

I´d say CPS SSv3 IS the modern keyboard tri-amp system for small venues like weddings etc.

Need more bass add a small sub.

 

For the classic rig w/ 2 active speakers the NEW (!!!) Alto TS210 seem to be bang for the buck ...

 

Their noise-floor is much quieter than the new JBL 610 and the frequency range is wider as well and even @-3dB point !

 

There was a test somewhere at Amazona where the tester (independent sound engineer live & studio and studio owner as well) complained about the JBL´s hiss.

 

There´s also a compact Sub for this system which seems to match a SSv3 too.

The sub´s stereo outputs are high-pass filtered and the sub´s range is specified 42-100Hz.

 

Now my idea was, use 2 of the 210 as monitors close to the rig and SSv3 w/ sub in a distance in addition.

Gives better leslie sim projection in addition.

 

I doubt it´s all realizable in a single keyboard amp though.

 

A.C.

 

 

[AnotherScott]

And, actual handles, makes carrying both pieces a breeze. ZXA1's missed that.

Yes. Something I miss from my old Peavey PR10, they hand a handle molded into top rear of the plastic enclosure, better than the little slot EV put in the same space since you can get your hand around it.

http://thumbs.picclick.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxMDcx/z/E6AAAOSwYIxX89I1/$/Peavey-PR10-NEO-PA-Speaker-AS-IS-BLOWN-_1.jpg

 

Some JBL and Behringers have handles modeled into the sides, that works too. The two pieces of the SA300 have strap handles on the top of each piece. You're right, it's a little touch that means a lot.

 

 

[Al Quinn]

A lot of great input, thank you everyone! For myself, I obviously run my B3 thru Leslies, and my Marshalls, but for synths, I go into a mixer, then DIs to the monitor man and FOH. I use stereo wedges, with 15" and horn - I have found that you need a 15" in order to feel the lows- it just doesn"t happen with a 12"......so the big question to me is, how do you get sufficient low end, clarity, and headroom in an amp that weighs less that 50lbs without using a 15" and horn?

For jazz organ gigs where I'm playing left hand bass I use a SpaceStation V3 and Markbass CMD 121P bass amp (26 lbs.). The bottom end sounds great. I used to use a pair of JBL EON 15 G2's and the bottom end was really nice but they were too heavy and bulky for me.

[Doerfler]

I´d say CPS SSv3 IS the modern keyboard tri-amp system for small venues like weddings etc.

Need more bass add a small sub.

A wile back I saw an organ trio called Organissimo (some of you may be familiar with them ). The organist, kicking pedals, used a CPS SS3 with a Yamaha DXS 12 subwoofer. It filled a very large vemue quite nicely.

 

For the classic rig w/ 2 active speakers the NEW (!!!) Alto TS210 seem to be bang for the buck ...

Their noise-floor is much quieter than the new JBL 610 and the frequency range is wider as well and even @-3dB point !

A.C.

I never thought there would come a day where Alto is superior to JBL.

SMDH

[Daniel Wade]

Hi, I am doing some research on portable keyboard amps that you would use on a club or wedding style gig. What features would your ultimate amp have? And are your complaints about current amps out on the market? Thank you for your time!

 

Derek, the Carvin KB1015's that you used to use ( http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/news/1683/ ) have the spec's that I think I would like to have, (I never heard them personally) but by the time I discovered them, they were no longer being made. Did you like them? Do you know why they quit making them?

 

I ended up with a pair of Behringer KX1200's. I had to put some internal bracing in the cabinet to make the bass sound deeper, and I have been using them for many years, and because they are a three way (1-15", 1-5", and a horn tweeter) they sound very good, but they could have used more power, as they were only 120 watts. http://www.guitarcenter.com/Behringer/KX1200-Keyboard-Amp-PA-System.gc

[dsetto]

With that experience I know: All portable active Class-D 2-way systems are compromizes, period.

What do you see as those compromises?

[Doerfler]

I ended up with a pair of Behringer KX1200's.

I have a pair of these also, I use them for electronic drums. I find them to be a bit noisy, never really liked them for keyboards.

Glad for you your experience was different from mine.

[mate stubb]

Best speaker I ever had was a monitor I built. I like 3 way and cone midrange, so this one had a JBL K145 woofer, a 6" JBL midrange speaker inside its own box, a JBL 1" titanium driver on a horn, and a tuned port.

 

Mid to high was passively crossed over, and low to mid was active. It was biamped with Crown power, and you should have heard the low end from my modular synth thru it.

 

http://hotrodmotm.com/images/misc/mixx_rig.jpg

[Al Coda]

I never thought there would come a day where Alto is superior to JBL.

SMDH

 

Well, JBL from the past is not JBL today.

It´s HarmanAudio who bought the brandname.

Now it´s "JBL by HarmanAudio".

 

I became very irritated when they bought SM Pro Audio studio monitor controllers, something like the Nano+ p.ex.,- a former EUR 50,- piece of gear they now sell for about EUR 80,- street just because they put a JBL sticker on it.

They do the same w/ the other SM Pro Audio studio monitor controllers.

 

The cheaper speaker series is also not the holy grail of JBL though.

 

Now in case of the JBL600 series speakers, the hiss is coming from the class-d amps.

The hiss is significantly louder in comparison to other speakers and w/ gain fully closed and no cable being plugged in,- so it IS the amp!

 

A.C.

 

[cphollis]

One portable keyboard amp design that intrigued me for a while was the Bose L1 Model II. I played one for a while, and thought it brought something special to the table.

 

I liked the crystal clear radiant sound in all directions, thanks to a line array type design. Didn't like the fact it was multiple pieces and very tall (think low ceilings), nor the fact it was underpowered for electric live gigs, and required a sub.

 

But they were on to something, I think.

 

If I could get the line array radiant sound, with more power and integrated sub, we'd be on to something ...

[Al Coda]

What do you see as those compromises?

 

Sacrifice sonic quality and reliability of larger component systems for portability.

 

I´m also not a big fan of class-d.

It´s throw away gear when it fails.

All surface mount, no repair on component level.

 

I have a nitemare w/ a Ashly 4-channel class-d amp I don´t get repaired local.

Sending it to the distributor and exchange class-d amp modules is so expensive you better buy new something else.

That will never happen w/ my Bryston 3B Pro from the past p.ex.,- and it works like on day one and has never seen a service in about 25 years except a negative bias correction.

 

When I googled for Focal Alpha series studio monitors after Sven´s recommendation in another thread,- I recognized they use class A/B amps instead of class-d.

Might have a reason ...

 

When you look for the latest KRK Rokit G3 series p.ex., they do the same now.

 

IMO, class-d is not about sonic quality, it´s about lightweight, somewhat lower power consumption and less heat and easy exchange in case of failure.

 

A.C.

[Al Coda]

Best speaker I ever had was a monitor I built. I like 3 way and cone midrange, so this one had a JBL K145 woofer, a 6" JBL midrange speaker inside its own box, a JBL 1" titanium driver on a horn, and a tuned port.

 

I also liked the JBL D130F together w/ the 075 tweeter.

JBL made a PA cab w/ 2 woofers and 2 tweeters and they sounded amazing for everything.

Crown were the amps at that time, typically D150 IIRC ...

 

A.C.

[DanL]

I never thought there would come a day where Alto is superior to JBL.

SMDH

 

Well, JBL from the past is not JBL today.

It´s HarmanAudio who bought the brandname.

Now it´s "JBL by HarmanAudio".

 

I became very irritated when they bought SM Pro Audio studio monitor controllers, something like the Nano+ p.ex.,- a former EUR 50,- piece of gear they now sell for about EUR 80,- street just because they put a JBL sticker on it.

They do the same w/ the other SM Pro Audio studio monitor controllers.

 

The cheaper speaker series is also not the holy grail of JBL though.

 

Now in case of the JBL600 series speakers, the hiss is coming from the class-d amps.

The hiss is significantly louder in comparison to other speakers and w/ gain fully closed and no cable being plugged in,- so it IS the amp!

 

A.C.

 

I have the 610's. I haven't noticed any hiss, I'll have to give a listen next time I power them up.

 

I was a huge SS3 fan- still am- but it's purpose was limited for me. It didn't have the low end to cover the Floyd stuff, or the synth bass I need in my other band. I didn't want to carry a sub, as I still had to carry my K10 as a vocal monitor ans the SS3 wasn't directional enough for that. So I sold it and the K10 and bought the JBL's after hearing them at a blues jam where they were covering vocals in a decent sized room. I like the different EQ curves, and I use the monitor one pretty much exclusively as it gives a bit of a midrange boost.

[Delaware Dave]

I have found that you need a 15" in order to feel the lows- it just doesn"t happen with a 12"

Not according to my bass player. I use one EV ELX112P and my bass player (who uses a 1200 watt bass amp and an 8x10 ampeg cabinet) is always asking me to turn the bass down. I can walk hammond bass no problem with my cabinet; and being a 12" it's not boomy. What I'd like to do is shed the mixer; which is why I'd prefer a powered speaker with a "built in" mixer; i.e. 4 channel inputs with independent EQ'ing per channel. It would significantly speed up the setup/teardown process.

[Tusker]

I use a combination of two K8s and a K12 in different stereo/mono combinations depending on FOH/Room etc. If I were to upgrade these, I would hope for roughly the same inputs/driver/power configuration as the K8s with a more rigid (wooden?) build.

I'm a little curious about your line of thought here. What about the K8s' build makes you want something "more rigid"?

 

Have you seen the recent thread here quoting Jay Mitchell of Fractal Audio?:

 

Myth 2: Wood Cabinet Is Better Than Plastic

I have been told this by every speaker person I have ever met (except Jay). I believed it because all the good sounding cabinets I have owned and/or tested have been made of wood. Well, the K10 has a plastic cabinet and with Jays adjustments I like it better than my wooden Turbosounds.

 

Apparently the issue isn't that a wood cabinet makes for the best speaker; it's that the best speakers happen to have cabinets made of wood. Plastic cabinets have mostly been used in cheaper, poorly designed, price point targeted products. Jay says that a properly designed plastic cabinet can perform equally as well as its wooden counterpart.

 

 

Sorry I missed this one Reeze. Yes I don't know that wood makes a difference, per se, which is why I put that question mark. As to whether the k8s would benefit from more rigidity ... at very high volumes when you are playing say a b3 sound with all drawbars out ... they get a bit shrill in a way that I associate with a plastic vibration. I have cloth ears so people should judge for themselves. In my experience the K8s are very clean at low, medium all the way up to medium-high volumes however.

[Reezekeys]

I think things happen with our ears at very high volumes. As I've gotten older, I notice certain high frequencies can cause physical pain when the dbs get up there shrill is an understatement. The Ks also have DSP that kicks in a limiting function at those times, though I think it's mostly rolling off low end. AFAIK a rigid wooden cabinet is preferred mostly because it has less resonances that might create frequency peaks I may be corrected soon on that of course. I find my Ks do have a bit of a boxy peak around 200Hz though it could be the program material I feed them. Luckily, using a laptop rig means I can throw an EQ on any of my plugins that need it.

[Dave Bryce]

I use stereo wedges, with 15" and horn - I have found that you need a 15" in order to feel the lows- it just doesn"t happen with a 12"......so the big question to me is, how do you get sufficient low end, clarity, and headroom in an amp that weighs less that 50lbs without using a 15" and horn?

As I understand it, bigger woofers are about more volume - not reaching lower frequencies. I believe you can get better definition and control of low frequencies using multiple small drivers (like a bass player with an 8 x 10 "Fridge" cab) than you would with a single 15, or even 18 for that matter.

 

Also, a well tuned and carefully designed enclosure is obviously key. The studio monitor company I work with (Amphion) makes a pair of bass extenders that go down to about 20Hz using two 10" woofers and two 10" passive radiators, and all their flagship models use multiple small woofers to produce deep bass (either double 5.25" or double 6.5").

 

dB

 

[Al Quinn]

I had a pair of K8s and a pair of K10s. They sounded very good up to medium volume but as volume increase past medium the sound changed to boxey and unpleasant. I read some stuff about plastic vs wood enclosures that caused me to check out the QSC KW122, which has a wood cabinet and I believe the same electronics as the K series. I was surprised and disappointed that I still heard the unpleasant change in tone as volume increased. So in this case wood didn't provide an improvement over plastic.

 

The RCF TT08As I currently have maintain an excellent, clear, pleasing tone at all volumes and they're loud. The enclosure is wood, but they're still light. They're as full sounding as 10" speakers I've heard but not as full as 12" speakers. I've used them as a PA a few times and singers always comment on how stickingly better they sound than other small PA's they've used. Downsides are they're expensive, have no handle, and only have one input (which is XLR). To be fair, it's not intended to be a keyboard amp but rather a high-end monitor. TT stands for Touring and Theater.

[dsetto]

What do you see as those compromises?

Sacrifice sonic quality

Can you elaborate on this?

 

(Sacrifice) ... reliability of larger component systems for portability.

I wasn't aware of this. Thanks.

 

When I googled for Focal Alpha series studio monitors after Sven´s recommendation in another thread,- I recognized they use class A/B amps instead of class-d.

Might have a reason

When I briefly & superficially tried to get a sense between class D & A/B, I noticed many studio monitors today are A/B; most PPA's and PA amplifiers are class D.

[Jazzmammal]

I find 15's too boomy. I had Mackie 15's, some Carvin passive 15's in the past. I used the pair of EV ELX 15's that we use for PA tops for one of my Floyd band shows and wasn't super happy with them.

 

We're talking high end stuff here Dan. My JBL K145 driver had a list price of about $350 in 1983 or something. This is just the speaker driver itself. A high end box for it with all the proper baffles and acoustic dampening material was probably $500 back in the day. Add in the horn with crossover (which listed at about $750)and amp and mixer and my rig would probably have a new street price of $3,000 today. The mid range Mackies, Carvins, EV's and Eon's are cheap crap compared to that. If you want to move up to the big JBL pro series, that's a different story.

 

Quality costs money. Most of us here (Derek is an exception I think) are talking about low money gigs, no roadies, we schlep everything ourselves and we're talking some 30 years past our primes. That's not what I described. Back when I was young, strong and eager, me and our guitarist literally picked up my full console B3 by ourselves and just put it were it needed to be. Another hundred pounds or so for that JBL rig was no biggie. In those days I didn't have the JBL horn just the 15" bass cab with a chopped leslie horn sitting on top powered by a Fender Dual Showman. I was surprised to read a few years ago that this was called the Memphis leslie organ sound. Never heard of that at the time.

 

Anyway, no booming because of the way the cabinet and driver was designed. There is no substitute for a properly designed and damped 15" dedicated bass cabinet with four cubic feet of space for the speaker to breath. These cheapo little new ones you can buy for $500-1,000 don't even compare.

 

I say this as yet another old guy who's never using that big rig again and I also use these smaller lighter ones. They sound ok, I can live with them but man, I remember what that big rig sounded like. Even at moderate volume you can tell it really wants to roar and you're holding it back. Sort of like driving a new 400HP Mustang around town. The bass is crystal clear along with everything else.

 

Maybe 15 years ago I had it in the van already and went to a 8 piece horn band rehearsal in a standard two car garage. I would normally use my Barbetta for a rehearsal. At one point somebody wanted to really hear it so I cranked it a bit and just about blew everybody out the door. The bass player plugged into it and said it was the best bass sound he'd ever gotten and wrote down all the specs for it.

 

At the time the JBL K145 was the absolute best pro bass speaker you could get and it weighs like 40 pounds by itself. I'm not talking about modern 18" subs rappers use, I'm talking about a musical instrument speaker with the emphasis on the word music where you actually care about the bass tone.

 

Bob

[Delaware Dave]

".. Myth 2: Wood Cabinet Is Better Than Plastic. I have been told this by every speaker person I have ever met.."

Maybe you've been told this because it's true? I don't believe this to be a myth either. When I demo'd the ZLX12P (ABS); K10 and K12 (ABS) and the ELX112P (wood) the ELX was noticeably warmer in tone than the other three, especially at high volume. This sounds like what many of us are looking for (at least it is for me) and the reason I purchased the ELX.

[MotiDave]

".. Myth 2: Wood Cabinet Is Better Than Plastic. I have been told this by every speaker person I have ever met.."

Maybe you've been told this because it's true? I don't believe this to be a myth either. When I demo'd the ZLX12P (ABS); K10 and K12 (ABS) and the ELX112P (wood) the ELX was noticeably warmer in tone than the other three, especially at high volume. This sounds like what many of us are looking for (at least it is for me) and the reason I purchased the ELX.

 

I'm not expert on the A/B question and don't compare to the others - but +1 i really like the warmth and full freq range sound from my ELX112P. it has some "balls". I wish it had a handle on one end, and it is bulkier than other options discussed. no qualms with sound though, i like it

[Al Coda]

What do you see as those compromises?

Sacrifice sonic quality

Can you elaborate on this?

 

(Sacrifice) ... reliability of larger component systems for portability.

I wasn't aware of this. Thanks.

 

When I googled for Focal Alpha series studio monitors after Sven´s recommendation in another thread,- I recognized they use class A/B amps instead of class-d.

Might have a reason

When I briefly & superficially tried to get a sense between class D & A/B, I noticed many studio monitors today are A/B; most PPA's and PA amplifiers are class D.

 

Well, finally and according to all my posts above:

 

I´didn´t say the Alto 210 is the best,- I said "it seems to be bang for the buck" (when looking at all these 10" and 12" woofer/ 1" Mid/Hi horn, CLASS-D powered and plastic case speakers).

 

You might have recognized not every active 2-way CLASS-D powered speaker is bi-amped, especially not the cheap ones.

You can find some being much more expensive than the ALTO 210/ 212 & 215 which aren´t.

The ALTOs have handles at the right place, not every box has.

The ALTOs are lightweight w/ neodym speakers inside and the build quality seems to be good except they don´t have ratchetet volume pots.

With some, when used as monitors like a wedge on the floor, you have to take care for the cables going in, others do that better.

But the best is the price ...

So, when I have to choose from the cheapest EV, JBL by Harman or RCF series of active plastic PA speakers,- or the Behringers,- I´d probably choose the ALTO TS2-series.

 

All or most come w/ DSPs ... well

I´d never needed a DSP in a speaker cab when we used the highest quality speaker and amp components in large component systems.

It is well known the DSP opened the doors for the industry using lower quality components and compensating w/ digital electronics.

We all know, electronics add hiss, especially when there is programmable EQ in the ballpark and the components inside require more correction that a different brand speaker,- just only an example though.

 

How comes you can buy an active bi-amped speaker cab advertised w/ 1000 Watts for about 300 - 400 bucks ????????

The answer is, it could be crap inside making it cheap or the specs are pure fairytales and so on.

Location of manufacturing and the option buying very large quantity of components also matters to make ´em cheaper.

 

But there´s a reason why a single coax B&C speaker costs about 300-500 dollars itself and the x-over comes in addition and then you have to cleverly design and construct a cab and realize it from wood, damping materials and quality wireing, cover w/ tolex or paint it and need some quality Neutrik parts for connectivity.

Now build such single cab yourself and see what it will cost and what 2 items will cost,- and it´s still a passive design you need a quality amplification for.

Going bi-amped means 2 stereo (or double mono) amps for 2 cabs and now you need active stereo x-over.

Now also count the time yoú invested to get a final and fine DIY product ...

And you need to own all the tools to do it as also some knowledge and experience to do it as quick as possible.

 

Yes, the better product lines for touring and theater are expensive and all the major brands offer these,- but they are overkill for wedding and bar gigs.

 

So, when I have to schlep my gear myself and the gigs don´t pay well,- why in the world do these gigs need the best sound quality ?

I´d never buy a RCF TT08 for such gigs or any expensive amplification, may it be active-bi-amped-2way-DSP-plastic or the same in wood or a touring component system.

I´d go w/ the bang for the buck, use it until it fails and buy new because repairs on component levels are impossible or too expensive anyway.

I´d probably buy 2 sytems new to have one as a spare.

 

As a formerly touring pro keyboardplayer, dedicated keyboardamps are no option for me.

I´ve never found any I had been used for longer than it needed testing it.

I used all the hi-end keyboards and modules for studio and touring and when you can buy that gear, you can also buy real quality amplification component systems.

Portable Keyboard Combo amps are no option then.

 

For the home the SSv3 is cool w/o a sub, for the very small gigs too, but not for every small gig because you need the reflective surfaces and some space to set it up right.

But it´s the coolest portable system for an organ clone w/ leslie sim and when used w/ a small sub for the organ bass.

 

For rehearsals and the quick & dirty gig, something like the new ALTO TS2 is good enough and saves money.

It´s EUR 530,- incl. VAT for a pair of active speakers I can do every rehearsal and small club gig with and even if I buy 2 original protective covers for that pair it´s cheaper than a single SSv3,- at least in europe.

 

Just my opinon ...

 

A.C.

[Al Quinn]

".. Myth 2: Wood Cabinet Is Better Than Plastic. I have been told this by every speaker person I have ever met.."

Maybe you've been told this because it's true? I don't believe this to be a myth either. When I demo'd the ZLX12P (ABS); K10 and K12 (ABS) and the ELX112P (wood) the ELX was noticeably warmer in tone than the other three, especially at high volume. This sounds like what many of us are looking for (at least it is for me) and the reason I purchased the ELX.

I reached the same conclusion when I tested these same speakers. But was surprised that the QSC KW112 wood enclosure didn't warm up the sound compared to a K10.

[Al Quinn]

 

So, when I have to schlep my gear myself and the gigs don´t pay well,- why in the world do these gigs need the best sound quality ?

For what it's worth, I like to have the best sound quality on any gig (or even at home playing just for myself) because it inspires me to play better and makes the playing experience more enjoyable.