Greetings! I'm new here and had a long post that I was going to enter under a new topic, but this looks like a good place for it so I'll drop it in:

Stereo patches / Live Music / Mono vs. Stereo

Sorry about the long, multi-topic heading, but these issues present a dilemma for keyboard players. For the sake of simplifying, I’ll make some generalizations. If this has already been hashed over I apologize – I haven’t seen the thread.

The conventional wisdom among live sound professionals is that, generally, for live music, a mono system sounds better than stereo to most people in the audience. This is mainly due to fact that many people are located much closer to one speaker bank than the other. Depending on how much closer to one speaker, the sound they hear doesn’t have the desired imaging, seems to lack “information” and may be noticeably out of phase. For these people, a mono signal would sound better, ideally with the speakers arranged in a mono stack in the center of the stage. A mono system would not have to be a single centrally located stack to sound better, but that’s another topic and I am not too interested in it because…

I know that the stereo patches on my S90 don’t sound nearly as good in mono. When I listen to the sound through stereo monitors or headphones the sound is so wonderful and rich – that is how I would want the instrument to sound like live, only louder. Do I have to choose between mono, which will sound acceptable to everyone, or stereo that will sound great to those in the center, but poor to those not in the sweet spot?

I think there may be a way to allow the full expression of the stereo patches while avoiding many of the problems with stereo PA setups, but I am curious to hear what the rest of you think. Suppose you connect your synth to a stereo PA / two speaker system but instead of going for the usual wide separation of speakers, keep them closer together. After all, some of the most effective stereo patches on my S90 simulate what is generally a point source of sound like an EP, synth, organ or a leslie set-up . I can hear the effect of that spinning horn and a wide separation isn’t necessary and in fact sounds less like the original instrument or leslie. Wide separation is mainly important for pan effects and for imaging. Imaging is really more of a studio/recording consideration that is problematic in live shows as mentioned above.

It seems that in smaller venues where its power is sufficient a Motion Sound KP200S would be an ideal set up. You get true stereo sound from two channels. Yet the speakers are close enough together to eliminate the problems caused by separation. The amp features a control to allow you to enhance the stereo separation effect, if desired. This technology would give the listener the perception of wider separation but without the major problems of true wide separation – the sound is coming from speakers that are side by side. I have not heard the KP200S yet, but I am curious as to how good the sound is from various locations in the audience. I’m sure it sounds great in the sweet spot, on axis with the speaker, just as a PA system does. The sound pros concede that stereo sounds better than mono for the folks who are equidistant from widely separated speakers. But how does the KP200S sound as you move off axis? Any other thoughts?