Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Suitable for use with Digital Piano?

I have a digital piano in my room (Technics SX-P50 for those interested) that sounds great through my headphones (Sennheiser HD580) but absolutly horrendous through my 4 year old dinky Yamaha computer speakers (the digital piano has no speakers of its own). My current computer speakers can play MP3's fine, but when I connect them to my digital piano, they start buzzing and distorting so I hypothsize that I simply can't turn the computer speakers up loud enough to the level I would expect from a real piano.

Unfrotunately, listening through headphones gets tiring after an hour and I often play more than that so i started looking around for good speakers.

After some research, I discovered that many musicians use monitors, and more specifically for people in my situation in a small room (10x10), near-field monitors. I was considering getting some near-field powered monitors but my friend suggested getting an integrated amp/monitor instead and this way, I could easily add a CD player in the future.

My questions are:
1) What distinguishes a monitor from a bookshelf speaker? Are they the same thing? Isn't the goal of all speakers to acheive as flat a response as possible?
2) When a monitor is described as "near-field", it means that its meant to be near the listener. Does this mean that near-field monitors sound better up close than a bookshelf speaker? Do they sound worse from far away?
3) Is a bookshelf speaker powerful enough (say the M22) to simulate how a piano would sound in my room? The samples on my digital piano are actually from a Steinway grand and are very good and while I'm not expecting miracles, I expect to be able to get a satisfying sound with the right speakers (the outputs from the piano have a soundtage so that lower notes come from the left, and higher notes from the right).
4) Given the size of my room, should I consider towers?

I'd appreciate any help!

I will answer your questions as you posted them. First though you will need an amplifier which can be plugged into the Left and Right RCA outputs on the piano. For your room size you do not need a lot of power (60 watts or more) but if you would like it to play loud then the sky is the limit.

1) Actual nothing distinguishes a monitor from a bookshelf or floor standing speaker. In fact Axiom speakers are used as monitors in many studios.

2) A "near field" monitor means it is located close to the recording engineer, normally sitting on their board right in front of them. As a side note, Aldo Nova uses the M3s as his near field monitors in his studio. They will sound just as good from a further distance.

3) and 4) Either the M3 or M22 will be powerful enough for your room size. The question is how low you would like to go in the bass frequencies. Both the M3 and M22 have excellent bass for bookshelf speakers but if you would like extension below this you should consider floor standing or adding a sub-woofer for this purpose.



Ian Colquhoun
President & Chief Engineer