Well, as I said, it sounded a lot like the bigger system. As for pushing it, I did crank it up quite a bit after all the customers had left, just to test it, and it sounded even better at a higher volume.
There is definitely a limit as to how loud it will go, but at full volume it would be WAY too loud for that room.
It was designed for a guitar/vocal act with facility to play MP3s and/or backing tracks.
It will work nicely for arranger keyboards in fairly small venues. It distributes the sound very well and sounds crisp and clean.
The bass is full and solid, although not QUITE as robust as the original. The bass response on the Compact is down to 65 hz and the original goes down to 40, if I remember correctly. It's more of a "feel" than a hearing thing.
I have not even tried the mic channel yet, which has a built-in mic preset, plus volume and e.q. controls. That channel is designed for mic input only, not line input.
The other channel has your choice of a 1/4-inch input, two RCA inputs or a 1/8 stereo input. All can be used at the same time, but levels must be controlled from the input device, as there is only one level control for all inputs on channel 2.
I ran my E50 and Harmony M into a mixer and ran the l and r mixer outputs into the RCA inputs on the Compact. It worked well. I tried also using just the mono output of the keyboard and running it into the Compact. It sounded good, but you lose some volume, and to my ears running both outputs sounded better.
Hope this helps.
DonM