Supplemental speakers/amplifiers

[jjm542]

I'd be interested in feedback from people who have connected external speakers or amplifiers to their CVPs. What kinds of speakers did you use, what speaker placement worked best, etc. This would be for a home environment.
Thanks.

[fredsmith99]

I have a Revey KBA30 amplified speaker which I use occasionally with the Clavinova.

If it's volume you want, certainly the speaker will do the trick. But I've found in a home environment, the Clavinova on its own can produce ample volume. However, I've used the speaker outside on the patio and it works very well.

I usually position the speaker about three feet from the Clavinova, without any feedback problems.

I originally bought the speaker because I wanted to use more than one microphone (a headset mike for me and a cordless mike for the crowd). But I found it was not easy to control the volume of everything. Also, without the mike going into the Clavinova, you can't use the vocal harmony feature.

So now I have a Y jack for the two microphones, and it works perfectly.

Hope this helps.

[jjm542]

Thanks Fred. I'm primarily interested in quality of sound as opposed to quantity. I have just parted with my Roland 1077 which had 240 watts and 12 speakers in its baby grand case, and the sound was huge even with the volume turned down. I'm wondering if supplemental speaker/amplifiers would do the same for the CVP. Guess I'll just have to try and see!

[fredsmith99]

The quality is great. I was very impressed with the sound. There didn't seem to be any loss in using the speaker as opposed to the Clavinova.

My main complaint was controlling the volume. I play for a lot of sing songs, and I get better feedback when I use just the Clavinova rather than the speaker. Maybe it's that I'm just more used to the Clavinova's sound output.

[wesrahn2002]

I connected the line out from my CVP-207 to my "Home Theater"
which includes a Yamaha RX-V595 Natural Sound AV Receiver, with 105watts RMS. I have the small NHT speakers and a Klipsch KSW-12 Powered Subwoofer. It has more output then I need to blast my neighbors. With the Yamaha amp, I can "play" with the different digital effects to change the sound of the music.

Not sure why someone would want to play through the home system, since the sound of the 200 is loud enough for home use, but it did sound great. I would think it would be great for a karaoke party with the sound coming from the direction of the remote connection to the TV. It also is weird to play the keyboard and have the sound come from another location.

Wes

[jjm542]

Since I started this topic I thought I'd report on my experiments.

Although the CVP900 has the same sound system as the other high-end 200 series (albeit with different speaker placements) and sounds pretty good, it compared unfavorably with the Roland KR1077 that I had to give up because of space constraints. The Roland had 120/120 watts of power (vs. the 900's 60/60) and 12 speakers (some of which were larger than Yamaha's) vs. the 900's 6. This, plus the large resonant cavity of the Roland's baby-grand-size case, produced a more realistic sound for most instruments, at least to my ears. I wanted to see if I could come close with a supplemental sound system.

The setup I arrived at uses two bookshelf speakers connected to a vanilla stereo receiver/amplifier (100 watts per channel) driven from the CVP's output jacks (the 1/4 inch ones that are controlled by the master volume control). The speakers are placed under the piano about halfway back and elevated off the floor a little, with the amplifier volume adjusted for a pleasing balance between the external and internal speakers. I auditioned several speakers in my price range and went with Cambridge Audio M80s, $399 for the pair. I also liked the Bose 130s. Very low-cost ($50 each) speakers weren't nearly as good, nor were "computer" speakers. I tried a powered subwoofer (filched from my stereo) but it didn't seem to add much, at least to the main instruments like the piano.

The results have been fantastic. The CVP now sounds easily as good as the Roland did, probably better. I learned that speaker placement is a key to success - different orientations made a large difference in perceived sound quality. I wanted an effect that blended with the internal speakers to make it sound like it was coming from inside the piano as opposed to at a distance. I even tried pointing the speakers at a wall behind the piano to see if reflected sound was better - Yamaha now does this with their new CLP pianos. I didn't like it as well, but YMMV. Different speakers also sounded better or worse with different instruments - I was optimizing for piano.

Anyway, if you're not satisfied with the sound quality (as opposed to quantity) of your CVP, this is worth trying. You can start by borrowing your stereo components and see what they sound like. Most stores will let you return speakers after auditioning them in your home and I recommend this - what sounds good in one place may not sound good in another.

FWIW...
jim