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I appreciate your comments.

I believe that until recently the signal quality of digital pianos was frankly not refined enough for ultra high fidelity amplification to matter that much. Roland's and Yamaha's have a long history of portable and cheap. You can even argue that the whole history of amplified guitar and keyboard music embraced low fidelity and made a virtue of distorsion. Organs, who pionneered electronic sound earlier than pianos, and even historical pipe organs all the way back to Bach were never refined high fidelity instruments, as say, a flute or a violin. They were and are often difficult to tune, many stops in fact designed to be out of tune or dissonant. Filling a church or an arena with sound from a big Allen is not an audiophile project, and the evident scorn of classic concert or opera lovers for amplification is telling.

Accepting that the sound engine technology has progressed to the point where the signal is worthy of the best treatment, it is nevertheless difficult to express exactly what I do not like in the amplification of my digital piano. Of course I have played around with equalisation, but in the end I think that tampering with the signal is never the ultimate solutrion. It is better to focus on the simplest sound and its "quality" which is of course extremely subjective. It is like choosing speakers in a good hifi listening room : I always request Gould's Goldbergs and everything neutral where the system cannot cheat.

By the way my main hifi system uses the same B+W 805 as you do : I regard them as the best, with an added REL subwoofer. I do a lot of classical listening over IDAGIO streaming with the Bluesound Node 2i. But these speakers require heavy power amps. The system is installed in a large music room and cannot be easily moved to the little study where I practice on the digital, so I am currently not exploring the hi-fi route you have successfully implemented.

The alternative of "professional PA for gigs", I have briefly explored. I hooked a loaned Behringer K900 to the line out : awful. Admittedly it is a built to low cost box, and the Roland gear may be better. But my impression was that the affair was projecting (mediocre) sound away from me and I was completely dispossessed of my playing.

I am now looking at studio monitors, particularly the respected Adam's at Thomann.


Thank you for the words of wisdom. I think you are right, and there is also a big psychological dimension to it. Headphones deliver right into your brain with an intimacy that speakers will never achieve. This sensual sensation compensates for the lack (in digitals) of the physical resonance that our body experiences in dealing with an acoustic.

Still thinking...

. . . But was the problem a simple output volume issue, or are there other factors like impedance or hertz at play?

...meaning, contentment is such a bitch. I own a Korg C1 Air with comparatively [censored] poor speakers and I've been envying of these "better" models. Again, contentment is such a bitch.

"enjoy the moment"

Does anybody agree/disagree about the subwoofer idea?

Haha tell you what, I may sound like a good preacher but I ain't walking the talk quite as I should... but I'm trying. :-)

P.S I like you ending line... "happy and ..." :-)

P.S I like you ending line... "happy and ..." :-)

Me 2.

Hello,


I've been pondering this a lot. Because of that 27.5 Hz. And because I'm a perfectionist of sorts 🙄.

But in reality, the gains with a subwoofer may be marginal. I tested adding my subwoofer to the piano, and although it added a bit more fundamental in those lowest notes, I disliked the resulting quality of the tone--among other reasons because this subwoofer rolls off too slowly, introducing muddiness in the lowest mids. A third or even fourth order low pass filter, preventing the subwoofer to sound where it shouldn't, is one critical factor in having it be a successful addition.

It depends a lot on what you try to emulate. A really beautiful long concert grand has bass strings that may actually produce beautiful clean fundamentals. And that is so utterly lovely to experience. But many other pianos just can't really get there; what we're listening to is more the harmonics than the fundamentals. The first harmonic of A0 is at 55 Hz, which is where decent hifi or monitor speakers with a well balanced bass extension/rolloff already (should) perform quite nicely.

Also, consider how much your music depends on the lowest 'strings' of your piano. However satisfactory monkeying with da bass is from time to time, many pieces hardly use the lowest octave at all.

Hope this helps you a bit to evaluate whether a subwoofer is for you, or is an unnecessary burden.

Cheers and happy A0's,

HZ