Best column speakers for Piano Amplification?

[WP63C]

The question of how to best amplify piano is always a hot topic.
I'd be interested to hear if you agree with my comments below and have any answers.

Here's what I have found in my years of experience to date, starting with an original Fender Rhodes through Yamaha P200 and several others. I now have a Nord Stage 3.

1/ Achieving a good FOH sound for an electric piano (Nord or any other) is difficult, whatever the size of PA.

2/ I have yet to hear any piano through any PA that sounds as good and natural as the sound of built in speakers on cabinet type pianos such as Yamaha clavinovas

3/ The best piano amplification I have ever heard is when I play it through my home Hifi. Comes close to Clavinova type sound.

4/ That tells my I ideally need a Hifi quality PA

I play solo and for congregational singing in small venues. I have 2 Bose L1 Compacts (ie stereo) which have ample power but not the quality I would like.

One really revealing thing to do is to play CD type music through such speakers and ask yourself if you could live with that sound quality as your home Hifi. Answer for the L1 Compacts - definitely no!

I really like the form factor of the column speakers. There are now many of these around.... so my question is..

Have you found if any of these (small-ish ones) have sound quality that is way ahead of the Bose?

Thanks everyone.

[Eumel]

Hi WP63C,

I also have 2 pieces of Bose L1 compact (which I use as my stereo keyboard monitor during gigs). I agree that the sound of those is not perfect, but for monitoring it is really ok.

Regarding FOH for smaller to medium venues, I can recommend the Electro-Voice Evolve 30 (smaller) or the Evolve 50. They provide a decent sound, are set up quickly, and are built like a tank.

Greets

Eumel

[Tasten-Bert]

… I really like the form factor of the column speakers. There are now many of these around.... so my question is..

Have you found if any of these (small-ish ones) have sound quality that is way ahead of the Bose?

Thanks everyone.

I have and love this one:
https://www.dv247.com/en_GB/GBP/Fame-Au ... 019474-000

Playing piano solo or a duo with female vocals or even full band gigs at not too large venues is great (full band we use a second one which a bandmate owns). We all like it.

Practising at home my Sony Stereo with good BRAUN speakers does the job excellently.

Cheers from Germany and happy new year all of you

[Schorsch]

Thanks Bert,

interesting to know that you are very satisfied with the Fame speakers. I was thinking about these also but hesitating since Fame has a low budget but low quality image

[WP63C]

Thankyou everyone for your thoughtful replies.

I had never even heard of the Fame Audio products, will check it out. Did you ever get a chance to AB it vs any Bose L1 (compact or standard)?

I spent yesterday afternoon with my L1 compacts and achieved a better sound that I had previously by carefully adjusting the on board EQ on the Stage 3 and on my mixer. Not perfect but now acceptable. Each piano eg White Grand, Studio Grand etc required a very different EQ and I've not had time to do that before.

[anotherscott]

I think the newer Bose L1 Pro8 are a lot better than the L1 Compact it replaced.

I haven't heard the EV Evolve mentioned above, but I'm always impressed with EV. If I were looking for a pair, that would probably be the first one I'd consider. I ended up choosing the Bose L1 Pro 8 because its wider dispersion means it's easier to get by with just a single unit instead of having to have a pair (assuming you don't actually need stereo per se), and it is a good sounding speaker, even though I could wish for more volume from it in some cases.

[cphollis]

If you can find a used Bose L1 Model 1S, or Model II -- those sound amazing for digital acoustic pianos. I love my 1S.

[Spider]

I agree that the original Bose L1 Compact doesn't sound that good, even it is had the merit of popularizing portable and "cheap" line arrays. The new model is supposed to be much better but I've never tested one yet.

Can't go wrong with EV, they are probably the best price/quality ratio you'll find when you go into the mid-high quality segment.
A step below you have the systems around 1000€/$ from JBL, RCF, Yamaha etc.
One of my bands uses a pair of RCF Evox and they sound absolutely amazing, everybody (we musicians, our sound technician and the audience) noticed the upgrade in sound quality when we made the switch from our previous system.

[FZiegler]

One of my bands uses a pair of RCF Evox and they sound absolutely amazing

What product are you talking about? Having 8x 2'' (Evox J8) or 4'' drivers (Evox 12) sounds quite different to me. One of the problems of the Bose L1 Compact was a totally uneven handling of high, mid and low frequencies.

[Spider]

We have a pair of Evox J8 and while it's a relatively small system, the sound quality is really good.

Of course the Evox 12 will sound even better (4" tweeters instead of 2", 15" woofer instead of 12") but it's also almost twice the weight and more than twice the price, for our band it was too much. Two of them would have cost more than our annual budget, and we just didn't need so much power for the small gigs we mostly do (for big gigs we have external FOH service anyway).
For our needs, the J8 (x2) was the perfect combo of price/power/sound quality/portability.