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Hello,
I am planning to buy a stage piano, specifically the "Kawai MP5" stage piano. I am from Slovakia and in my country I have not found any music store where I could "physically" try it. So I tried some other brands like Yamaha, Roland or Kurzweil.
Because most of the stage pianos don't have built-in speakers, I tried the sound by headphones and it sounded beautifully.
But when I tried the sound through an amplifier (I think it was some Behringer), the sound was not such beautiful like through headphones, especially the lowest and the highest notes.

I am absolute beginner to amplifiers so I don't have so much understanding to them. Maybe the amplifier I tried, was for guitar and therefore the sound was not as good as through headphones.

So could you please give me some overview which are the best amplifiers (or combo amplifiers, I don't know which term is better) for stage pianos? It doesn't have to be some large one, just for playing in home, "but quality sounded", and of course in reasonable price.

Thank you in advance.

Petike, maybe you could give a bit more information. Do you need amplification just for the house or will you taking the piano out to play?

What's the amount of money you would consider spending?

Also, since the sample for your piano is stereo, a typical 'guitar' amp won't do it any justice. Most 'guitar' type amps won't sound great for piano for many reasons.

For home use, or for use as a stage monitor, I use this Roland Cube.

Most Keyboard Amplifiers sound lousy...I have been through quite a few, and now use a small PA on stage.

But for home, check this out:

http://www.zzounds.com/item--ROLCM30

Almost any brand of amp will sound better than Behringer. They have a reputation for making poor copies of other companies gear.

What to buy depends on the size of the venue. How big is the room and how many people inside. A small coffee shop is a 2,500 seat theater? The other question is what kind of music. Ar you with a band are you playing acoustic piano voice or electronic "synth lead" kind of sound. Is is pop, clasicial, or what?

In general for piano sounds look for the kind of PA system a vocalist would use. Look for PA speakers with both a 12" driver and a horn tweeter. The piano has stereo samples and it' best to use stereo PA system if you can. Details depend on how you answer above questionos

Thank you for your answers.

So, to be more specific, I want the amplifier "only" for home use, which I mean my "4x4 meters" living room.

And to my musical style - I play very often pure piano music so the grand piano must sound "awesome", next I play rock music and in the last time mainly songs from "Dream Theater", so there must be good piano, synth-leed, strings, jazz organs, etc...

And another question, what the abbreviation "PA" (from PA system) stands for? The main thing now is to find, what "output device" produces the best sound "of a stage piano" - is it combo amplifier, PA system (which I don't know "what it is" for now), or what?
First I have to find out this, "and then" I can start comparing several brands.

Any ideas?

PA = Public Address.

I have two Roland CM30s. They are small but powerful, with a very clear response. The bottom end is not bad, given the small size of the speakers, but obviously not as good as larger woofers. The mid and high ranges are very good. I highly recommend them.

Some people use Logitech 2.1 speaker systems for their pianos, but I have no direct experience of this.

For stage work, I have two Mackie SRM350s. These are excellent 10" active speakers, with a very "true" response across the full range. However, mine emit a low-level buzz that is present whenever the speakers are switched on. This would be annoying at home. Mine are possibly older stock - I believe they cured this problem in later models. An alternative to the Mackie speaker is the JBL Eon; a similar concept. Both the Mackies and the JBLs are smallish and lightweight, but probably won't look too good amongst nice furniture!

If you're on a very low budget, believe it or not, the 8" Behringer KT108 puts out a reasonable quality of sound. Again, you'd need two for piano amplification - and they won't make your piano sound "awesome", just OK - but here in the States a pair of KT108s cost about $120. As a comparison, a pair of Roland CM30s is about $400, and a pair of 10" active Mackies or JBLs is about $1,000. I think a decent Logitech 2.1 system is about $200-$250.

For best grand piano sound in a small room, where you do not need to transport and set of the gear ever night, I think your best best is a stereo pair of "full size" home stereo speakers and a good 100 watt per channel stereo amp. I'd recommend some brands but you are not in the US. Best if you buy locally or even used equipment.

Studio monitors or the PA equipment a band would use don't work well in a living room. For you use, find some good but not expensive speakers that might be 1M tall but narrow, with the drivers mounted high, near ear level when seated and are rated to about 40Hz. There are mostly sold for use as left and right channels in a home theatre system.

I'm using a pair of there, I paid $100 each.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...14&cm_re=polk-_-82-290-014-_-Product
but you can find something like them, I'm sure.

It turns out that size really does mater. You want to set them up so that the sound fills the room and then you here mostly the reflected sound. This is how an acoustic piano works, you hear sound after a reflection so if you want the piano to sound like an acoustic grand you want a speakers that works like one.

Good advice from ChrisA.

The only thing I would caution about using home speakers is that DPs can send out high level "spikes" of sound that are possibly damaging to speakers not designed to handle them. Stage and rehearsal monitors are supposed to be able to cope with the levels that such gear pumps out. If you're going to go with a "home" system, you'd be advised to over-specify - i.e. go with a system that can handle very high sound levels.

I have used the Roland CM30s in a living room, and they sound great.

This is an ongoing challenge for me too

Having owned Roland Rd600, Yamaha S90es, Roland RD700GX and Kurzweil PC3X, is has become really clear to me that there's a huge difference in how the piano sounds when using headphones compared to what comes out of the different speakers.
The RD700GX is the toughest one to work with! The PC3X is the easiest! I'm currently thinking of getting a Kawai - dunno how this sounds with active PA speakers, anybody?

Anyway,a normal HIFI stereo system will work, but it's off course important so sit in the right spot.
The Roland BA 330 works ok too, but the stereo sensation is limited. I'v been through serveral computer speaker systems too (without any luck).
Had high hopes for the Bose Compact system but were deeply dissapointes.
For live use (aprox. 150 audience) JBL EON 15 has worked great, except with RD700GX.

I'm using a pair of Yamaha MSP7 nearfield studio monitors for this, and it sounds pretty good to me. My music room is close to the same size as your space. They're powered speakers--- simple to set up and use; no external amp to fuss with. They certainly have more than enough power for a room this size.

I got this model hoping that I would get a speaker big enough for decent bass rendering, but also detailed in the midrange and up... and I don't have room for all the speakers and cables to do a 5.1 surround setup. It looked to me like the speaker size and specs, and the moderate price point, would work out. So far, not bad at all.

Thanks for the comments about the Mackie speakers, voxpops. I've had good luck with their gear in the past, and seriously considered this model. If I get a bigger house one of these days, I'd like to get the 10-inch cones to help fill out the surround--- and ok, I admit it, I'm a bass junkie; I love sound you can feel with your skin.

Good luck with your setup, Petike. It would be nice to hear about what you get, and how you like it.

I'm very happy with my active monitors. They don't sound as good as headphones, but they're still very pleasing. Other than these I've tried bookshelf hi-fi speakers and large hi-fi speakers - the actives sound better than either of the hi-fi speakers I had tried.

The actives (Samson Rubicon R8a, which I bought used) have 8" low frequency drivers and they're not as bassy as I thought they would be. So, if I want the full experience I use a hi-fi subwoofer.

Greg.

Yes you are right. those speakers I gave a link to as examples can handle 150W of power and I said to find a 100W amp. You don't need the 100W amp because you are gong to run it at 100W. You need to power to provide headroom.

I'd say your advice holds true for playing CDs or an iPod too. Those sources can have 100 dB of dynamic range. about the same as a digital piano.

In all cases look at the amp's power and the speakers rated limit and make sure the speakers can handle anything the amp can dish out.

I know those speakers. Samson is one of those company that makes pretty decent "value priced" gear. I think the R8a are about $500 a pair.

I they sound better or worse than a pair of HiFi speakers depends a lot on which HiFi speakers you compare them to. and how yo place those speakers in the room.

If yo are gong to buy studio monitors you need a pair with specs a lot likethe R8a. KRK makes some and MAudio does too. I have a pair of the smaller Samson monitors I use for "computer speakers" and they good imaging and detail.

The real difference is that with monitors you tend to use them as near field speakers, that is pointed directly at your ears, like headphones. The larger stereo speakers will most be aimed at the walls on the room and not used as near field and the sound will be colored by the room. I think this better simulates the way an acoustic pianos works but the monitors do give more accurate un-colored sound.

Btw, I think this track:
http://itunes.apple.com/au/album/theme-from-dirty-harry-original/id354025871?i=354025875 (the theme from "Dirty Harry". I haven't had a look in YouTube for it yet)

would be a good test track for the multimedia type speakers (e.g Logitech etc), because it has a lot of bassy warmth. (it's solo electric piano). This type of music is very demanding on headphones too. So, if you have a nice set of headphones, you could compare the sound from the headphones to the sound from the speakers, perhaps.

Note that if you're primarily interested in acoustic piano, though, and you just want it to sound good, then this test track is less relevant.

Greg.

Somewhere online recently I found a deal for the Privia PX3 with an amp thrown in for free...Casio's throwing in a carrying case for free for the rest of the year.

You won't find any consumer gear with 100 dB dynamic range. Nor 90. Nor 80, except in the most exceptional gear. Much lower still on most equipment.

For what your looking for the best solution is BlueSky System One 2.1
Best small room keyboard speakers I've heard under $5000

For what your looking for the best solution is BlueSky System One 2.1
Best small room keyboard speakers I've heard under $5000

OMG, for $2300 I could build the most amazing speaker system in the world. A $50 dome tweeter is about as good as it gets @ 100W / side. Even the most expensive 12" sub driver is <$500. Highly doubtful that they are using components anywhere near this good though.