Review of Schertler David piano amp

[fisheye]

I've had my new little amp for a while now, so time for a serious review.

 

Copy pasted specs

Schertler acoustic amp, named David. Biamped, 30 watts to 1" dome tweeter and 50 watts to 6" speaker. 180 watt peak. Weighs 9kg (19lbs). Plywood. Max spl 106db. Groundlift. Spring reverb.

Input 1: unbalanced jack, sensitivity switchable -16db/-28db, 10v phantom power, 3 band eq, reverb, low-pass filter switch.

Input 2: balanced neutrik (jack/xlr): sensitivity switchable -28db/-35db, 48v phantom power. 3 band eq, resonance filter at 180Hz.

Further connections: Balanced DI-out (xlr), Line-out (jack), Aux-out (jack w/volume knob), effect-loop.

Price paid: 750 euros.

 

Background

I have this amp mainly for my jazz trio/quartet (piano/guitar/bas/[drums]), where it amplifies an acoustic piano or a digital rhodes (customized Scarbee samples)/piano if an acoustic is not available. I've also used it for big-band rehearsals, where it amplifies an acoustic piano as well.

I'm very picky where it comes to sound. I don't necessarily seek some kind of hifi-perfection, but I do seek intense and complex warm sound. Digital piano's don't tend to give me that. Typical keyboard amps and plastic PA speakers also don't do it for me. Good PA systems do exists, but they are too big/heavy for my purposes. That's why I went looking for other solutions and found this one in a nice guitar shop.

 

In practice

If one amp proves it's better to amplify a small acoustic piano than switching to digital when you need to play at ease with a jazz drummer (volume-wise), it is this little amp. It got me a very open sound that mixed very well with the other instruments (very good Gibson jazz guitar with an all tube 4x10 Marble amp and a Hofner bass over a Gallien-Krueger minicombo; just to give you an idea of our sound). Nothing got muffled, nothing sounded ugly or painful, no matter how hard I tried. This piano isn't a very good piano, but with this setup I got an intense piano sound that I hadn't heard coming from this piano before. Not sophisticated like a fine grand, but charismatic nonetheless. Especially when I taped a Crown pressure zone mic to the bottom-right of the piano. A very 'free-ing' experience.

 

For the digital rhodes, I use the preamp of my old Roland guitar cube for a little edge over the sweet Rhodes sound and the David opens the sound again like wonders. I lurve the mid and high of the David. It also has a picture of a catapult on the back and indeed this thing shoots at you, but you'll die with a smile. I'm tempted to turn the high-knob up, just because it sounds so good. With other amps I'm usually more tempted to turn it away, to save my ears.

 

The bottom end is, as you can expect with a single 6", a bit less. I think some bass-correction is impemented, since I have no volume complaints on the low end, but it is just not very tight or controlled.

 

Volume

80 watts for a full-range amp isn't much. It all just works, not much gain left. I have to optimize the input chain before going in the David. With the digital rhodes, when I set the sensitivity switch to the more sensitive position, it will overdrive if my Echo Indigo soundcard on my laptop ouputs on maximum volume. So I have to lower the soundcard a bit, until I can bang away when I have to, without being afraid to overdrive the preamp. At that setting however, I can play with jazz drummers, without asking them to play soft (as if they would listen).

Also, at the big-band rehearsals, the David made it, just. But I didn't use a mic with a little preamp, like condensor mics. With that, the input stage again could be optimized more to make it easier. Still, feedback lures on the volumes I used, so that's more a problem than the maximum volume of the David. With upright piano's this is more troublesome than with grands, since the mics can't be on much distance from the player. But there are solutions to that, like isolating the piano more (since the mic is in the piano, it doesn't heart the sound) or using a feedback-destroyer/eq. Or even mixing in a feedback-resistant Barcus Berry or Schertler contact mic.

 

Others

I tried the bigger brother of the David, the Unico, which is 180 watts and has an 8" speaker. Certainly better lows, but the beautiful mid-high was flattened and a bit harsh. So I switched back to the little one. I probably buy a second David later, giving me more volume and spread for gigs. Don't be fooled though, the Unico still sonically rules over a Roland KC amp or a Mackie SRM or something like that.

 

For better bass, Schertler has a bass extension, called Bass. It's 200W with a 10" woover, 15.5kg. If I ever go playing without a bassist, I might be adding that one. With a bassist I rather turn down the bass and use a more raw bass sound that won't get in the way of the bassist.

 

Negatives

Besides the low-end, not much. Except for the wobbly knobs. A more daring color would be nice.

 

Concluding

All in all, I see this amp as the upper two way part of a wonderful small three way system. A lot of other amps focus on lows, while I like this approach of very good mid-high and less low more. Missing a thundering low-end also makes the amp lighter and smaller, which is perfect for me. I can take it on my bike to the center of car-unfriendly Amsterdam for rehearsals. It will also serve fine as a stage monitor, where the sound-engineer just needs to plug in the DI-out.

 

http://www.schertler.com/images/prodotti/Active_Loudspeakers_Amplifiers/FotoD-david.jpg