Best amp to use?

[Mike Hyland]

Hi folks,

I've been using a Roland KC300 amp for a long time. I always thought the sound was good enough, I didn't think too much about it.

But recently I was at a friend's house and he has a SWR California Blonde acoustic amp. He's a guitar player.

I thought that the sounds out of the Minimax (as well as my Yamaha M08) sounded much nicer out of his amp. Just warmer, I guess. It didn't seem to matter that I was using a keyboard into what is, I think, a guitar amp. It was better enough that it made me want a new amp.

So I started to wonder what other people are using for keyboard amps, and whether my ears were playing tricks on me.

Mike

[slammah2012]

Hi folks,

I've been using a Roland KC300 amp for a long time. I always thought the sound was good enough, I didn't think too much about it.

But recently I was at a friend's house and he has a SWR California Blonde acoustic amp. He's a guitar player.

I thought that the sounds out of the Minimax (as well as my Yamaha M08) sounded much nicer out of his amp. Just warmer, I guess. It didn't seem to matter that I was using a keyboard into what is, I think, a guitar amp. It was better enough that it made me want a new amp.

So I started to wonder what other people are using for keyboard amps, and whether my ears were playing tricks on me.

Mike

Yes
Our ears are playing tricks on us....

Acoustricks...

[garyb]

sure, you may prefer one amp over another, but as to which is better?

i would tend to suggest a keyboard amp over an acoustic guitar amp just because the keyboard amp has a speaker designed to handle bass. the acoustic amps speaker is not a "bass" speaker, it's full range, which means that the acoustic amp's speaker could be damaged from heavy bass synth use. since it's for guitar, i would imagine the midrange on the acoustic amp to be a little nicer. i would expect the keyboard amp to be a little flatter in response since it must sound good with many different sounds, so i would also expect the keyboard amp to sound decent over the full range possible of the synth, while the acoustic amp would tend to sweeten a particular type of patch.

there are a number of choices in acoustic and keyboard amps. taking yours and your rig with you to various stores that sell others and doing some direct comparison at stage volumes(sorry store operators) would really tell you the most.

regardless, for a synth capable of lots of bass, i'd always opt for more, rather than less, power.

[astroman]

I've recently tried a Shertler Unico in a shop - not very loud, but should match the Mini just perfectly.
I've played it with my Hohner headless, which is a bit on the hifi side of bass since it got a pair of Bartolinis.
The sound was as remarkable as the price, so I quickly disposed of the idea to aquire the amp ...

cheers, Tom