High Quality Keyboard Amp

[Stokely]

These days, no amp nor speakers except at gigs where we don't run sound. I did play through a qsc k10.2 at band practice (normally they are our mains when we don't use our new line array thingie) and wow did that sound nice. Even for piano, which is usually an amp-killer.

 

 

Speaking of Line array thingies.... any love for the Bose L1 Model II or similar line arrays?

 

With so many people subbing QSC's for traditional keyboard amps, does anyone sub the Bose or similar line arrays in the same way?

 

I wonder how the line arrays compare sound-wise with the better keyboard amps or QSC's?

 

Interesting you mention those. We just did a birthday jam using ours, and one of the guys there was telling me they are supposed to go *behind* the band...I questioned him about feedback, he said the way the individual parts of the array work you shouldn't get any. We place ours just as you would a regular "stack". Anyway, the interesting part is that if he's right--and who knows, he's just a local guy playing gigs!--then you wouldn't need an amp at all if the band was using these for mains. We play pretty quietly at almost all our gigs so that wouldn't blast us...

 

As far as the KB-300 and limiting...I wouldn't know because I can't remember ever turning it up so loud that I hit a limiter. That thing could injure farm animals at 50 paces. It was incredibly loud. I'm sure not "100 watt tube guitar amp" loud but certainly I wouldn't want to or need to be in front of it when it turned up. Sounded good too on the synth sounds.

[Delaware Dave]

I can tell you that from a loudness point of view the PPA I have (one EV ELX112P) is quite louder and has far more clarity than either of my KB300's. So if your reason is to compete w/ the guitars players then you'll get more loudness out of a PPA than a KC500. In my band I compete with 2 guitar players with LOUD Marshall tube amps and with the KB300 I'd sometimes get lost; but can keep up with the 1000 watt PPA. I have used both the KC500 and a KC550 in backline situations and the KB300 was just as loud as them so a PPA will be louder than your KC500 (and clearer).

[Reezekeys]

Speaking of Line array thingies.... any love for the Bose L1 Model II or similar line arrays?

 

With so many people subbing QSC's for traditional keyboard amps, does anyone sub the Bose or similar line arrays in the same way?

 

I wonder how the line arrays compare sound-wise with the better keyboard amps or QSC's?

Interesting you mention those. We just did a birthday jam using ours, and one of the guys there was telling me they are supposed to go *behind* the band...I questioned him about feedback, he said the way the individual parts of the array work you shouldn't get any. We place ours just as you would a regular "stack". Anyway, the interesting part is that if he's right--and who knows, he's just a local guy playing gigs!--then you wouldn't need an amp at all if the band was using these for mains. We play pretty quietly at almost all our gigs so that wouldn't blast us...

Interesting you mention that your band plays "pretty quietly" through those Bose. I did some gigs with a wedding band where they used a Bose system as mains. Absolutely the worst sound I have ever experienced, not only bad but unhealthy. These are (or used to be) marketed as "personal" amps (one for each player) and I experienced them with a loud band that put kick drum, multiple vocalists and horn players through them. It was painful I mean actually physically painful to be near it. To top it off, it was very expensive and unwieldy to shlep and set up.

 

YMMV and this was years ago, I don't remember the exact model but there were two "bases", and each had at least two collumns of speakers that screwed together, then there was some kind of brain... IMO you would have to really love the sound of these to deal with that. And the sound, in the particular case of this band, sucked hard. Again, it's probable that they were not being used in their intended fashion but if they are really better suited for low-volume gigs, I would have to really love what they do to my sound to pay such a healthy premium in both cost and portability over a small & light PPA.

[cphollis]

I tried to push my Bose L1 Model II hard on one occasion. The phrase "sucked hard" is quite appropriate. Miserable sound. If you want to push a lot of air, these are not for you. Conversely, in quieter settings, they are very pleasant.

[sMatt]

I tried to push my Bose L1 Model II hard on one occasion. The phrase "sucked hard" is quite appropriate. Miserable sound. If you want to push a lot of air, these are not for you. Conversely, in quieter settings, they are very pleasant.

 

 

Would you say for sheer niceness of playing (fidelity, audio quality, fullness of sound) while you're alone or playing with a few chums (no audience), the Bose L1 Model II is going to sound as good or better than any of these other options with the possible exception of the TT08's?

 

(better than the Motion Sound, better than the K8's?)

 

 

[J. Dan]

I've played through the Bose sticks in church settings. I don't care for the sound, personally. I think people are impressed because they sound good for what they are, but that doesn't mean they're great for keyboards. I find them best for vocals and maybe acoustic guitar, coffee house type stuff. Keyboards were ok through them depending on what sound I was playing. Bass sounded horrible through them. To me they sound like midrange and then a big messy sloppy boomy bass bump. I would take a PPA of decent quality over that. It is true you can place them behind you and they double as monitoring and FOH, but again, room size and volume play a big factor. Don't have experience with the motion sound.

[bfields]

Interesting you mention those. We just did a birthday jam using ours, and one of the guys there was telling me they are supposed to go *behind* the band...I questioned him about feedback, he said the way the individual parts of the array work you shouldn't get any.

 

We use an L1 compact set behind us at rehearsals, and it's true that it seems a little less likely to feed back. But there's still some level of gain where it will start to.

 

Every time I say "uh, maybe we should point the mics *away* from the speakers?" but somehow they always end up back that way. It's usually OK (we don't play loud), but it makes me nervous.

[cphollis]

I tried to push my Bose L1 Model II hard on one occasion. The phrase "sucked hard" is quite appropriate. Miserable sound. If you want to push a lot of air, these are not for you. Conversely, in quieter settings, they are very pleasant.

 

 

Would you say for sheer niceness of playing (fidelity, audio quality, fullness of sound) while you're alone or playing with a few chums (no audience), the Bose L1 Model II is going to sound as good or better than any of these other options with the possible exception of the TT08's?

 

(better than the Motion Sound, better than the K8's?)

 

 

Small untreated room, everyone playing at moderate volume, acoustic piano centric material, maybe mixing some vocals and acoustic guitars? Yep, I'd give the Bose L1 the theoretical advantage.

 

But something like a pair of QSC K8.2s is close enough, and can play so many more roles than the Bose L1. The QSCs are easier to schlep, much sturdier, can get a lot louder, etc.

 

I had a Bose L1 Model II for a while. Liked it, but sold it when I started playing out more. I don't miss it. If it were my money, I'd accept the small difference and go with the PPAs.

[Danny Linguini]

I've played through the Bose sticks in church settings. I don't care for the sound, personally. I think people are impressed because they sound good for what they are, but that doesn't mean they're great for keyboards. I find them best for vocals and maybe acoustic guitar, coffee house type stuff. Keyboards were ok through them depending on what sound I was playing. Bass sounded horrible through them. To me they sound like midrange and then a big messy sloppy boomy bass bump. I would take a PPA of decent quality over that. It is true you can place them behind you and they double as monitoring and FOH, but again, room size and volume play a big factor. Don't have experience with the motion sound.

Completely agree with this. When I started a duo some years ago, the other guy played acoustic guitar and sang through a Bose stick, and I was pretty impressed with how it sounded. Right up until I plugged my Kurz stage piano into it. The next day I started on my very long PA trek.

[Doc_T]

What do you think of the new Sequenz Sonicbar? I thought it might just add speakers to your keyboards and may be suited as a monitor as well as an amp for small gigs. Since it is mounted to the keyboard stand and stereo it may get as close as possible to the sound a real EP/AP/Organ may deliver.

[TomKittel]

 

"The only good keyboard amp is NO keyboard amp"

 

+1

 

A.C.

 

These statements are unrewarding and quite useless.

 

 

[Al Coda]

These statements are unrewarding and quite useless.

 

The whole thread is.

All is discussed several times before.

 

And for the home to play alone and when some guys come to jam occasionally and when room as also money is an issue too, I´d use some nearfield studio monitors and/or earphones and a budget system like the Behringer personal mixers etc..

 

For the purpose the OP posted, not any 250 - 2000W active speaker is necessary.

No TT08, no QSC, no MotionSound,- nothing, not even a crappy Roland KC.

 

thx for reading !

 

A.C.

[jimkost2002]

I had K10's and K8's. Note that the K8's have wider dispersion which can be desirable. K10's sound fuller but, of course, are heavier. As I mentioned earlier I have TT08As now. It's actually more expensive to buy K8's, sell K8's, buy K10's, sell K10's, buy TT08As then it is to just buy TT08As right off the bat (if you can afford them that is). This was my experience and, in retrospect, was more expensive than it needed to be.

 

This is the wisest. most astute post Ive seen in quite some time on this forum.

We should all follow Als advice here. I know I havent in the past.

All these factors should be taken into account when figuring out the TRUE COST TO OWN ANY PIECE OF GEAR.(... or to conside before using the phrase too expensive)

[Reezekeys]

True, but as with most things hindsight is always 20/20. I guess I was just lucky when I got my K8s they sounded so much better than my Mackies I wasn't interested in checking out anything else regardless if they were "better" or not. I'm as happy using them now as I was when I got them nine years ago. Maybe someday I'll hear my rig through those TT08As and if they blow me away I'll have to change my tune but I have zero motivation to look for other speakers right now. "Ignorance is bliss", lol.

 

And, some of us here (cough cough) who do this music-making full-time might have a problem with the admission price of those champagne-budget speakers. I just had to come up with $4000 as a 50% down payment for a new oil-fired boiler for our house ours died suddenly and was condemned as unsafe. Surprise! It might have been a very cold winter if I had just splurged on those multi-$K speakers or other gear.

 

My philosophy is to research the shit out of new purchases, ask questions, try to audition, etc. Then make a decision and start making music and not keep obsessing about that piece of gear that gives you 2db better bass response or one extra sample layer or a marginally nicer Leslie sim. If something's not happening with the music now, it's not my gear, it's me.

[drawback]

True, but as with most things hindsight is always 20/20. I guess I was just lucky when I got my K8s they sounded so much better than my Mackies I wasn't interested in checking out anything else regardless if they were "better" or not. I'm as happy using them now as I was when I got them nine years ago. Maybe someday I'll hear my rig through those TT08As and if they blow me away I'll have to change my tune but I have zero motivation to look for other speakers right now. "Ignorance is bliss", lol.

 

And, some of us here (cough cough) who do this music-making full-time might have a problem with the admission price of those champagne-budget speakers. I just had to come up with $4000 as a 50% down payment for a new oil-fired boiler for our house ours died suddenly and was condemned as unsafe. Surprise! It might have been a very cold winter if I had just splurged on those multi-$K speakers or other gear.

 

My philosophy is to research the shit out of new purchases, ask questions, try to audition, etc. Then make a decision and start making music and not keep obsessing about that piece of gear that gives you 2db better bass response or one extra sample layer or a marginally nicer Leslie sim. If something's not happening with the music now, it's not my gear, it's me.

 

Absolutely this. And you can cross-post this in the Anti-GAS thread too.

 

 

[jimkost2002]

If something's not happening with the music now, it's not my gear, it's me.

 

Amen, Reezekeys

[Al Quinn]

If something's not happening with the music now, it's not my gear, it's me.

Amen, Reezekeys

Truth

[BigJPatton]

The right tool for the right job, a good powered speaker can cover many needs, but once you get into a full band with some volume and play clubs without decent stage monitoring there is only one "amp" that will do for me- the Motion Sound KP-500S, it's heavy but you can't beat it's full sound and 360 degree volume, even for acoustic pianos.

[timwat]

If something's not happening with the music now, it's not my gear, it's me.

Amen, Reezekeys

Truth

 

QFT

[Stokely]

Speaking of Line array thingies.... any love for the Bose L1 Model II or similar line arrays?

 

With so many people subbing QSC's for traditional keyboard amps, does anyone sub the Bose or similar line arrays in the same way?

 

I wonder how the line arrays compare sound-wise with the better keyboard amps or QSC's?

Interesting you mention those. We just did a birthday jam using ours, and one of the guys there was telling me they are supposed to go *behind* the band...I questioned him about feedback, he said the way the individual parts of the array work you shouldn't get any. We place ours just as you would a regular "stack". Anyway, the interesting part is that if he's right--and who knows, he's just a local guy playing gigs!--then you wouldn't need an amp at all if the band was using these for mains. We play pretty quietly at almost all our gigs so that wouldn't blast us...

Interesting you mention that your band plays "pretty quietly" through those Bose. I did some gigs with a wedding band where they used a Bose system as mains. Absolutely the worst sound I have ever experienced, not only bad but unhealthy. These are (or used to be) marketed as "personal" amps (one for each player) and I experienced them with a loud band that put kick drum, multiple vocalists and horn players through them. It was painful I mean actually physically painful to be near it. To top it off, it was very expensive and unwieldy to shlep and set up.

 

YMMV and this was years ago, I don't remember the exact model but there were two "bases", and each had at least two collumns of speakers that screwed together, then there was some kind of brain... IMO you would have to really love the sound of these to deal with that. And the sound, in the particular case of this band, sucked hard. Again, it's probable that they were not being used in their intended fashion but if they are really better suited for low-volume gigs, I would have to really love what they do to my sound to pay such a healthy premium in both cost and portability over a small & light PPA.

 

Our's isn't Bose, they are EV iirc. I wasn't on stage for most of the birthday jam, and they sounded great to me. Our sound guy is old-school and he went in extremely skeptical about using it/them. Ours is a smallish sub and a "stick" that comprises the line array, sets up in no time. For larger rooms he brings a bigger sub but just one of those things can cover a fairly large room.

 

Reading all these responses, I'm so happy everyone goes direct in our band (other than drums). I don't miss marshall stacks on stage with me IN THE SLIGHTEST. No doubt they can sound glorious though!

[MikeT156]

 

"The only good keyboard amp is NO keyboard amp"

 

+1

 

A.C.

 

These statements are unrewarding and quite useless.

 

 

Based on what the OP wants to amplify, a KB amp is not the solution.

 

 

 

Mike T.

[ITGITC]

 

"The only good keyboard amp is NO keyboard amp"

 

 

+1

 

A.C.

 

 

These statements are unrewarding and quite useless.

 

 

Based on what the OP wants to amplify, a KB amp is not the solution.

 

 

 

Mike T.

 

 

 

It would be best if no keyboard amp was required.

 

Most speakers color the sound, and piano sounds are the hardest to get right. My electronic keyboards sound best in stereo through a good pair of headphones or studio monitors.

 

But not as good as my acoustic piano. I ALWAYS sound my best when I play my acoustic piano.

 

Although incredibly impractical, I've often thought how great it could be if everyone in the audience was wearing headphones. Once my piano sounds go through most any PA speaker, the sound changes. And compared with monitors or headphones, it's usually for the worst.

 

It would be wonderful if every PA speaker could present the sound quality of studio monitors, at the volumes required for a live show.

 

I hold onto my pair of EAW FR153 speakers. They don't have a horn, and they sound very, very good. But, they're a 3-way design with a 15" woofer. They need to play at a certain minimum volume in order to sound as they were designed to.

 

So what's the answer? The answer is the same as it ever was: If you want your piano sounds to be the best, you need great monitors. Unfortunately, I haven't found any good-sounding PA speakers that are inexpensive. My EAWs sound great, but they're pro-level speakers. They're discontinued now, but I found a used pair on eBay for $1,000.

 

I haven't heard the RCF TT 08-A , but reading how much Dave Ferris and Chuck Hollis enjoy them, they must sound great. Their MSRP is $2,000 each.

 

I'm not playing out with the frequency that I was when I was younger, so I've settled with a pair of QSC K10.

 

Maybe I can talk Dave or Chuck into selling their RCF TT 08-A pair one day.

 

Best wishes to my KC brothers & sisters for the upcoming holiday season.

 

Tom

 

 

 

 

[vortmaxx]

"When it comes to gigs, everything is a compromise."

 

"Stereo is for amateurs."

 

I've been following this thread for a week now. I'm surprised it's made it this far.

 

I just traded my K12 for a K10.2 and I can't believe I didn't do it sooner- what a difference!

 

Well, not really. But it is lighter. And I feel a lot better about it knowing that there is enough gas in the car to get to the gig.

[Doerfler]

"When it comes to gigs, everything is a compromise."

I'll buy that.

"Stereo is for amateurs."

Really? That's all you got? SMDH

[MikeT156]

Many of the players on this site favor running mono. I don't. I've run stereo for years. One PA system with either 2 way or 3 way speakers. I don't know that I am sacrificing anything by running stereo for everything. For years I have done a 1 man band gig, and stereo provides stereo panning for my Suitcase Rhodes Piano, as well as the L/R panning of my Oberheim's back in the day. So my application for sound is different than most other players that are in a band, I AM the band.

 

I run vocals, harmonies (using a Digitech Vocalist Pro) Bass, drums. guitar. strings, horns, EVERYTHING through one system. So acoustic piano is a low priority. My PA incorporates HORNS, and it covers larger rooms without breaking a sweat. I don't play very loud, but people in the back of the room want to hear the music too, so........horns it is.

 

I always wanted a set of EAW speakers that our good buddy TOM owns, but after shelling out all the $$$ I could earn borrow or STEAL, it wasn't going to happen. Out of money, and no job these days. Tom's EAW's would be perfect for smaller rooms where horns might be too much.

 

 

Happy Holidays to Tom and everyone else on this Forum whether we agree or not!

 

 

 

Mike T.

[3rdAct]

I typically take my K8.2 to practices. While playing with this one band, one day I couldnt bring the 8.2 to practice and had to play through an extra guitar amp. As you can imagine, everything sounded awful - especially AP. I almost couldnt finish practice. After one song with lots of AP, the guitar player, decent guy, says Joe, the piano sounds great through that amp. Why dont you use it all the time. I was so shocked I couldnt respond. I can only guess that his assessment was based on his familiarity with the type of sound he gets for his guitar, ignoring that this should sound like a piano! Quite disheartening...

[MikeT156]

Hey Joe

 

Once again this illustrates that ALL guitar players are DEAF.

 

 

Cheers!

 

 

Mike T.

[El Lobo]

After one song with lots of AP, the guitar player, decent guy, says Joe, the piano sounds great through that amp. Why dont you use it all the time. I was so shocked I couldnt respond. I can only guess that his assessment was based on his familiarity with the type of sound he gets for his guitar, ignoring that this should sound like a piano! Quite disheartening...

I think that's exactly correct. Guitar players want a distorted sound that emphasizes the fundamental and maybe some close harmonics (maybe not), and none of the subtle other harmonics. They want a very electric sound and think that all amplified instruments should sound like that. The closer your AP sound is to an electric sound, the more the guitar player likes it. You, on the other hand, want it to sound like a real piano and are horrified at the crappy sound coming out of the amp.

[sMatt]

I typically take my K8.2 to practices. While playing with this one band, one day I couldnt bring the 8.2 to practice and had to play through an extra guitar amp. As you can imagine, everything sounded awful - especially AP. I almost couldnt finish practice. After one song with lots of AP, the guitar player, decent guy, says Joe, the piano sounds great through that amp. Why dont you use it all the time. I was so shocked I couldnt respond. I can only guess that his assessment was based on his familiarity with the type of sound he gets for his guitar, ignoring that this should sound like a piano! Quite disheartening...

 

Just to picture the logistics of this...

 

Do you just bring a speaker and put it on the ground next to you and run a cable from your keyboard into the speaker or...

 

Do you set up 2 speakers on tripods and run your keyboard to a mixer to the stereo pair?

 

TIA!

[vortmaxx]

"Stereo is for amateurs."

Really? That's all you got? SMDH

 

Well, no not really. But that was one of my favorite sig lines from brother Kanker, who doesn't seem to come around here anymore.