Portable PA Speaker (or other suggestions?), mostly piano but also vocals & guitar

shufflebeat

The 108 will be fine for piano. 8" speaker doesn't mean what it used to, have you heard the Bose s1 pro?

thecolourbox

Thanks that is helpful to know. I suppose I just need to try it to make sure as classical piano can be quite demanding in the bass

The Bose S1 Pro was one of the ones they suggested in the shop that were way over budget, however I've set up an eBay search just in case a second hand one pops up

shufflebeat

thecolourbox said:

The Bose S1 Pro was one of the ones they suggested in the shop that were way over budget, however I've set up an eBay search just in case a second hand one pops up

Yeah, I really only mention it to illustrate that small speakers can often deliver a much fuller sound than might previously be expected due to modern use of internal digital processing.

Trude

I'm looking at the G10 Mix from LD at the moment

https://www.ld-systems.com/en/series/mix-g3-series/17576/mix-10-a-g3

They have a MUCH more comprehensive mixer section than any other powered speaker I've come across, and could be a very viable all-in-one solution for a lot of uses

thecolourbox

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out. What I'm finding is there are loads of models that are basically the same thing with minor differences, all of which will sound "fine" but none of which sound great, just at different levels of loudness or direction. 

I think we are spilled as guitarists having so much great sounding great and amps at most price points, whereas I'm finding with PA and piano gear it's all fairly meh unless you can spend huge amounts

Danny1969

thecolourbox said:

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out. What I'm finding is there are loads of models that are basically the same thing with minor differences, all of which will sound "fine" but none of which sound great, just at different levels of loudness or direction. 

I think we are spilled as guitarists having so much great sounding great and amps at most price points, whereas I'm finding with PA and piano gear it's all fairly meh unless you can spend huge amounts

Well you are in an odd situation where you need something that sounds great to you an the audience.  Most keyboard players either use IEM's or a simple keyboard amp as a monitor ..... knowing the side out front will be high quality so they put up with less than stella monitoring. 
Piano is difficult to reproduce. Large  dynamic range and very wide frequency response needed to reproduce convincing tones. 

I would go for 2 reasonable speakers like SRM450's and run the rig in stereo. It will sound much better than a single higher quality speaker running the piano in mono. 

thecolourbox

I don't need to hear the speakers, in fact I'd prefer not to really as I dislike PA sounds in general. My hearing is weird, the louder something is the less I can hear it. I'll use earphones for myself. For classical you rely on your ears a lot for the dynamics and expression so I would not want to rely on a PA speaker for that. The digital piano sounds dull enough without that dragging it down further.

The SRM450 is above budget just for one let alone two unfortunately but the principle of your point makes sense

thecolourbox

The advice from three different shops now (admittedly over the phone) has been effectively along the lines of "it doesn't really matter, just get anything". Is that fair or are they just fed up of speaking to people on the phone?

horse

thecolourbox said:

The advice from three different shops now (admittedly over the phone) has been effectively along the lines of "it doesn't really matter, just get anything". Is that fair or are they just fed up of speaking to people on the phone?

 Whilst I'm not sure I'd go that far, it may possibly be that the room you're in and how the speaker is positioned is going to make just as much difference to how you sound to the audience.

ICBM

I would get a keyboard amp, not a powered speaker. They’re harder to find these days since the trend for keyboard amplification has very much shifted to powered speakers, but there are still a few, or look second hand - they’re usually cheap. Many models have a dedicated mic channel and most also have a high-impedance input which is better for acoustic guitars (and necessary for a Rhodes-type piano). Roland and Peavey both make - or at least made! - good-sounding, reliable amps. They’re usually quite heavy since they normally have very solid cabinets and 12” or even 15” speakers (to get good low-frequency response), which is another factor that reduces second hand values. There are other manufacturers but those two seem to be the most common.

thecolourbox

Thanks, I did think of those although never heard one used (apart from the awful practice amps you get in schools) however I got the perception they were more for monitoring purposes than for the audience. That perception may be wrong. But I thought as they are lower wattage than the powered speaker they would be more suited to that application (but they don't seem to publish their SPL so I don't really know, plus I assume the same things about speaker efficiency apply to these as with guitar amps). That said, I don't really know how loud I need to be, so it's moot really isn't it.

Lord only knows

Trude

The LD Mix 10 I linked above has a Hi-Z input for acoustic guitar, a slave output so you could add the matching passive slave speaker for stereo and it also has an XLR monitor output that you could run into a wired IEM setup to hear the same mix being put out by the speaker.

I've ordered a B-stock unit from Thomann, so I'll let you know what I think of it. My own application is for a one man band setup that includes acoustic & electric guitar with extended bass, vocals and drums.  Monitoring is via wired IEMs This is for small gigs where I don't want to bring the full PA and mixer setup.

thecolourbox

Thanks, yes be interesting to see real world experience of something out there, it's a struggle to find the kind of useful demos we are used to with guitar gear on this kind of stuff.

I did pick up a cheap (£80) keyboard amp yesterday, the mighty Alto Kick 12:




https://www.altoprofessional.com/products/kick12

Hopefully if nothing else it'll be a stop gap, or as it has a stereo mix output I could expand it a bit if necessary considering it is significantly under budget. We shall see

Jalapeno

Our pianist uses a Behringer 205D, the small speaker is a bit tinny to my cloth ears, I thought they used to do a bigger version but seems to have been dropped.

Mackie do a similar power/form factor SRM150 - https://www.thomann.de/gb/mackie_srm_150_02.htm

theBox also - https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_box_pro_cx_5.htm

There's plenty of choice £100-£200 when it comes to 10"/12" powered wedges.

thecolourbox

I've heard one of those similar to the Mackie above at a couple of shops but they didn't really make sounds I'm happy with unfortunately - they just seemed like a monitor to get by with rather than something you'd want a paying audience to hear.

Jalapeno

thecolourbox said:

I've heard one of those similar to the Mackie above at a couple of shops but they didn't really make sounds I'm happy with unfortunately - they just seemed like a monitor to get by with rather than something you'd want a paying audience to hear.

As I said - look at wedges

ICBM

thecolourbox said:

I did pick up a cheap (£80) keyboard amp yesterday, the mighty Alto Kick 12

Hopefully if nothing else it'll be a stop gap, or as it has a stereo mix output I could expand it a bit if necessary considering it is significantly under budget. We shall see

That looks pretty comprehensively spec'ed. The only thing it seems to really lack is a dedicated high-impedance channel for acoustic guitar, but if your guitar has an onboard preamp or you use an external one, it shouldn't matter.