Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Recomendation needed to buy a good monitor for RD-800

I'm planning to buy the RD-800, but don't know which monitor is better for it. Recomendations will be very appreciated.

Hello Banzai Ed
See the following thread...
https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubb...Which_Would_you_Choose?.html#Post2307293

Also depends on whether Banzai Ed is going to be using for practice at home, playing for others at home - small concerts say, studio recording or giving concerts & gigging. Or a combination of those.

Small PA for gigging, reference monitors for recording, monitors or hi-fi speakers for general use. You could also use best quality multi-media active speakers for genral use, too.

AT home I use the Behringer MS16.
For small gigs I use KC-350.
For larger gigs I plug into house PA or other band member's PA, and use the KC-350 as a monitor.

Thanks all of you guys for the good input, I'm not a musician but a hobbyist, my wife as well. We play pianos at home for fun, sometimes we invite friend for a party and play music on our very old electronic keyboard, now we have a HP508. So a small concert would be suitable for my settings. We have a Logitech 5.1ch speaker system connected to my computer, but none of us likes it, in terms of sound quality. Maybe our ears are a bit pickey, we do need a better one for small concert.

Thanks:-)

Well, I'm very happy with Yamaha HS7 - a neat simple active reference speaker. Those with a subwoofer would give you full range sound. They are relatively good value in Europe, it seems to me. Thomann stock them for around €400 a pair, bundled with pole stands.

However, these are maybe not spectacular sounding - they are more for accuracy and showing up 'errors' when recording & mixing music. KRK Rockets are similar, but perhaps better for electronic music. Behringer Truth monitors are also very well regarded and cost less than the KRK or Yamaha HS.

I need to pay 600USD for a pair of YAMAHA HS7 in US, plus a sub-woofer, a mixer.Which sub-woofer do you guys suggest, and a cheaper mixer?

You should perhaps look at a range of speakers that would suit your particular case. I can vouch for the Yamahas especially if you're looking for accuracy - the sound from them is very close to my phones which are also an unflattering 'reference' type. However, there are others that may sound better or be more economical where you are (the market changes from country to country, continent to continent, even if all the products are coming from Japan, Indonesia or China in the first place.

Do you need a mixer? Active monitors of the sort we're talking about here can be fed from the keyboard if you wish, and if there is no special need to bring in other instruments or voices on the same system, you can go direct.

Based on what I have briefly read, you might want to look at the Yamaha StagePass 400i which I use often with my RD800 and Kawai ES7: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/StagePas400i/

I find it extremely easy to use. Great sound for small (few people) to medium/large (100+ people) venues. Mixer on board if needed. Plus other instruments and vocals can plug into it if needed. It's a very good PA with many features for under $700.

I've tried the Yamaha Stagepas 300 (predecessor to the 400, recommended above). Either of those will do fine in a "small concert" (less than 100 people) setting.

I use an Electrovoice ZXA1 powered PA speaker (just one -- it's what I could afford, and fit into my room). With an 8" woofer, horn-loaded tweeter, and several hundred watts of power, it sounds very nice.

The specs on the HP508:



That's pretty good for built-in sound. If you want to improve it (IMHO), you'll need:

. . . larger woofers (probably 8")

. . . more power (100 watts, or more, per channel).

Don't expect major enhancement from small, inexpensive "studio monitor" loudspeakers. Yamaha HS8 (HS8M?), KRK Rokit 8, or one of the PA systems mentioned, _will_ make a difference.

. Charles

PS -- edit -- I was confused -- you were asking about the RD-800, not the HP508. The list of suggestions is the same, for the same reasons.

I may be practicing in a larger room in the near future where my current monitors won't have enough power so I've been thinking about active/passive+amp and other possibilities.

The question of accuracy springs immediately to mind. Maybe there are good reasons to think otherwise but for unaccompanied playing (i.e. not needing to 'cut through' a band etc) and in mind of the lofty ambitions of those working their nuts off to give us 'authentic' sounding sample libraries, wouldn't accuracy be a vital prerequisite?

The inexpensive mixer I use is a Behringer Xenyx 802. It should serve most "piano hobbyists".

If you get woofers of 7" or 8", you probably won't need a sub-woofer. Pianos don't have much power at the _fundamental_ frequency in the low bass (down to 27 Hz). As somebody said in the Pianoteq forum recently, you need either:

. . . 5" woofer plus sub-woofer, or

. . . 8" woofer.

. Charles

PS -- if you play lots of organ voices, and you want to shake people's tooth-fillings, then a sub-woofer comes into its own.

I have Yamaha HS8 and I'm extremely satisfied. You don't need a subwoofer with these, unless you want to tear a wall down or have a large area you need to fill with bass.

would the Yamaha Stagepas be a good sub for studio monitors like, let's say the KRK Rockit or Presonus Eeris, or you guys think stage monitors have a more refined and detailed sound?

I use both for different uses. Simply put, my studio monitors (Presonus Eris5 & T10) are for home and used just for my listening as studio monitors are detailed and very directional. I find monitors excellent for practice as they are not forgiving and point out my sloppiness. When just right they sound is amazing. The StagePas400i is meant for multiple listeners and the sound is wide and dynamic which is ideal for entertaining.

If I had to choose just one it would be the StagePas400i just for its flexibility alone. It would be fine for home - just a bit overkill perhaps for my small space.