I have a Kurzweil PC88 that I use exclusively in my home (as a stand-in for an acoustic piano). It has no internal speakers, so when I don’t want to use headphones I hook it up to a stereo system using the system’s auxiliary input. I keep searching for the smallest micro system I can find that has an auxiliary in, but it seems like the smaller systems don’t have them. The best I can do is a bookshelf system, which kinda takes up a lot of room (especially the speakers, which I place under the keyboard on either side).
I keep thinking that there has to be a better way!
I definitely want the left/right separation, so hooking up to a traditional keyboard amp isn’t an option. In light of that, maybe my stereo system setup is the best way for me?
If you use a keyboard at home and amplify it somehow, what do you use?
Be careful with that stereo and an electronic keyboard. If you use something besides the piano voice, say DX7, you can easily blow speakers. I play an instrument through my home theater receiver, but I use passive studio monitors (cheap ones – Alesis Monitor One Mk2), which are less likely to commit suicide via cone breakage (but its still a possibily).
Thanks for the tip, squeegee, but I’ve been using this setup (with various stereo systems) for the past 10 years and have always known about the speaker risk.
I was just remembering my days of blowing out (not inexpensive) speakers using my MIDI setup and doing Tocatta & Fugue horror movie music on it. Good times, good times.
I think a good stereo amp and some really resilient speakers aren’t a bad option. Passive studio monitors are built to take some abuse. My Alesis speakers were $200 new, and they sound awesome, best $200 I ever spent. And I’ve yet to blow them out, despite much provocation. That said, I haven’t been doing electronic keyboard work lately, so someone will probably be along with a non-“tin cans and string” option, unlike mine.
Or, failing that, a straight mixer and a couple of active studio monitors would probably be even better, and you’ll get tone that’ll blow your head off (should the need arise).
Ditto on what squeegee said. In the past I’ve run my keys through a mixer-power amp-pair of M1s chain. The Alesis monitors are truly a great deal and very adequate for keyboard amplification in the home.
I run my keys (guitar, too) direct into the board (well, through a sub-mixer). We have individual monitor mixes so everyone gets as much keys as they like.
The mixing board/monitor thing never occurred to me. I’d been trying to keep the setup simple, but when I think about it I already have 3 pieces of equipment (and I bet I could find a board smaller than a stereo). I might have to check that out. Thanks, everyone!
