I know there's lots of folks here who do live gigs and we all know that playing our stuff in stereo sounds much better than mono but we also know setting up a pair of speakers or a PA for stereo is a pain. The Spacestation is a tri-amped system with two side firing speakers and computer modeling. It's creating quite a stir on the Keyboard Corner with all the guys like me who are looking for the best way to project organ with leslie sims or stereo piano patches in a band context. But it's not just for that, it seems to be really good for singles and duo guitarist/vocalists as well. Here is the 9 page thread on KC:

http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2602284/1

The owner of the company jumped in the thread around page 6 or 7 and is answering very technical questions about it plus his website now has a bunch of good vids demoing the unit here:

http://www.centerpointstereo.com/

It's only available through Sweetwater and it just began shipping last week. A few guys on the KC forum have reviewed it with very positive results. The owner Aspen Pittman is putting on a demonstration at the Amp Show in Van Nuys California this weekend and I'll be there to check this thing out.

Apparently this really is a whole new level of stage technology and I thought some of you might be interested as well. It's not very expensive either, it's selling for $599.

Bob

"Center Point Stereo—melds in your mind!" At least, that's what I gathered from their home page. Affordable, as you said. Unfortunately, their flagship offering seems to be out of production. If I was looking to gig, this is the first thing I'd check out.

It's interesting, but....100 watts into an 8 ohm 8" speaker? No mention of sensitivity or SPL. Might work for a keyboard or an acoustic single, but I doubt that it's beefy enough to handle a bar.



Edit - It does have a couple of rave reviews on Sweetwater though.


http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Spacestation3/reviews

Rzyard, this is part of the confusion, his old V.2 is the one that's been out of production for several years. This V.3 is brand new.

90DB, that was my exact point on the forum but several guys who just got theirs last week have reported it really does work in a higher volume situation. Part of it is it has a "sub out" but that's a misnomer. It's not just for sub bass freq's, it's a full range out put so guys are sitting it on another amp or powered speaker for more boost and it seems to work great but one guy didn't do that and he says virtually everybody in the room including on stage can hear him great.

This is why I'm going to the show this weekend because the demo is going to be with a full band. If I'm lucky maybe I can sit in and try it myself, we'll see.

The part that sounds like someone has been smoking their magic mushrooms is when he talks about how the sound is projected all over the room including on stage and it's the same volume everywhere. That in turn does not require anywhere near the power that we would normally think is required.

Note this is the same claim Bose makes with their L1 and L2 systems and by and large they've been right. But those Bose L2's are close to 3 grand for the double sub system.

Bob

I'd be interested in your opinion of the thingy.

"...the same volume everywhere"

Yeah, right.

Bose is right about the sound coverage, but the sound itself? Not so much. There is a guy here in town who has the 2 sub Bose, and it sounds horrible - bassy, but heavy on low-mids, not thump. Could be the way he's mixing it, but I'll stick with my 18" powered JBL sub. Boom boom.

I just read the description of the technology on the website. This is really nothing new. In fact, I had my cheapo Panasonic home stereo set like this after reading how to do it in the liner notes of Brian Eno's "Ambient" series.

You can try this yourself if you have a stereo amp and some spare speakers with which you don't mind experimenting.


Here's the gist of it with ingredients required (you can probably look this up on one of Eno's sites or google it, but this is from memory)

Wire up a 3rd speaker using the + leads from both your left and right speakers or at the amp.

Put this 3rd speaker across the room from where you have the L/R speakers set up.

What will drive this 3rd speaker is the uncommon content sent to the L & R speakers. Normally, this is mostly mid to high frequency data, so this 3rd speaker really doesn't need to have much low frequency handling capability. If I remember correctly, my 3rd speaker was a little oval job with a whizzer cone that I scavenged out of a TV someone was throwing out on trash day. I didn't even have it in a cabinet. I had it suspended from the drop ceiling in the room I had this setup in.

On personal account I can vouch that this WILL increase the amount of space in your room where you are getting spatial imaging, compared to a traditional stereo speaker setup. It won't be as much as Quadrophonic sound for you 8-track fans, but it is quite noticeable, and particularly noticeable because mid-high frequencies are what our brain uses for localization of sound, and this technique does give more data to work with for your hearing system in terms of where it's localized in the room.

I had this setup for probably 5 years before I moved from that location, and in that move made a significant bump up in my home stereo gear compared to the Panasonic all-in-one unit.

If you read the claims closely, it does not state that the power level/volume is the same across the stage, rather that the stereo image is preserved across the stage - there's a big difference in stating that imaging is preserved, rather than volume levels being the same across the stage. I would believe the former can be true.

Actually, I just found Eno's description of this: http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/onland-txt.html

Give it a try - it is pretty cool in how it works. This cabinet and speaker wiring in the aforementioned center-point-stereo is using almost the same concept.

Right, and when some guys asked about why doesn't Aspen build a bigger system, he replied he did years ago for Ray Manzarek. It weighed over a hundred pounds and put out 4-500 watts using separate speaker cabs. He went on to say he's built many different versions of this. Right now, he's basically retired and he's a one man show. A big part of the sound this V.3 gets is the computer modelling that was done by a PhD who used to be the lead sound engineer for JBL.

If you haven't read that whole thread on KC you should. There's a bunch of guys there who are as technical as you are and they're really getting deep into the weeds with this.

Bob

I went to the Amp Show yesterday, met Aspen and checked out the unit. I posted a full review on the KC forum, just go to the link I posted above if anybody's interested but bottom line, I'm getting one.

Bob

Sounds interesting Bob, but I think Aspen's SPL figure is a little vague.


"Aspen said he was holding the max volume at 105db and the amp still had quite a bit of power left."



105dB where, exactly, and with what? 1 watt/1 meter? "A" weighted or "C" weighted? 105dB standing right next to the thing?

I wish you had brought a SPL meter.

But - if it meets your needs, goood on you. I want one of the ones he built for Manzerak!


Regards,

Bob

Just go on Keyboard Corner and ask him, I'm not here to start shilling for Aspen I'm just letting folks know about this amp. It really is different though. He was probably using the same meter the NAMM guys were using for his demos there this year. For NAMM the organizers required all the vendors to keep their sound below 85db and they walked all over the hall testing that.

This was primarily a guitar god show but since Aspen used to own Groove Tubes lots of the guitar guys know him. I personally never heard of him before but he's somebody in the industry that's for sure. He was selling a book he wrote that is the history of all the major amp mfgrs including what looked like 30 pages of schematics of famous amps.

If there were more interest here I was going to email him and suggest he start posting here but it doesn't seem it's worth it. I'll admit the Spacestation is being marketed mostly for keyboards and specifically organ but like I just saw, this thing is pretty nice for small combos too.

Since we don't know each other I don't know what you're thinking of when I mention volume. If you're a heavy metal rocker that's one thing, if you're a lounge lizard that's another. The keys player he used for the demo told me for louder gigs he sits the SS on a powered Eon using the sub out (it's really a full range out) and it sounds great with plenty of power. I'll post here when I get mine and do a couple of gigs with it but that won't be for a month or so.

Bob

Bob,

Allow me to step in here and take an educated guess about 90 dB's interest in the specifics of the 105 dB discussion.

90 dB's handle here is an indication of some of his past experience and possibly thinking of in this instance: hearing conservation.

90 dB Time Weighted Average is the daily exposure limit set in play by OSHA with a 5 dB exchange rate, though more conservative organizations recommend 85 dB TWA with a 3 dB exchange rate. These are calculated using A-weighted measurements, normalized to an 8 hour day.

Lots of people throw around dB values, without much knowledge as to how it's calculated, what weighting is used, time response, etc. etc. etc.

Someone who is familiar with the details of SPL measurement technique, like 90 dB, has an instant distrust of persons making statements about SPL, and this is exacerbated by the prevalence of folks that think that their iPhone/Android SPL meter app has any kind of precision or accuracy (these are different in measurement theory), and most of them are quite far off, make no indication of whether weighting is being used, time averaging in play, and so on.

Even more dangerous are folks that are semi-informed on the topic. I've lost track of the number of times someone has shown me a peak level hit on their iPhone SPL meter and complained that I'm damaging someone's hearing because I had an instance in a show that hit 93 dB on their app (I run live sound now and then).

105 dB, at someone's ear, in a sustained situation has an allowed exposure time of 1 hour in a day, before it would tip over the TWA of 90 dB. To see a time weighted average calculator, you can go here: https://www.noisemeters.com/apps/occ/twa-dose.asp

Regardless,

I find it quite intriguing someone is using the difference encoding in a stand-alone amp/cabinet. It makes quite a bit of sense to me how this would sound like more spatial sound would result from this kind of an arrangement. You know, there is a bit of this going on in Dolby Surround and Pro-logic stuff as well. The ability to encode more than 2 channels of information, in a purely 2 channel signal is a hallmark of the Dolby Surround signal encoding/decoding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Pro_Logic

But the difference there is the encoding/decoding is done intentionally, whereas this system is using the differences of the left and right signals, no matter the source, to crank out a 3rd signal and the common signal to crank out a 4th signal, at a spatially 90 degree oriented speaker. I totally buy that this could create a 'spatial' sound at much more locations on a stage, than signals being created by L/R separated speakers, where because of proximity to either speaker, your perception is dominated by the signal coming from that closer speaker.

“Since we don't know each other I don't know what you're thinking of when I mention volume. If you're a heavy metal rocker that's one thing, if you're a lounge lizard that's another.”


Actually, volume is volume, regardless of the genre. A heavy metal band can attenuate their volume, just as a lounge act can blow glasses off the bar if they have the power to do so. Quite a few bar bands equate volume with “good”, and play at ear-splitting levels. We play Classic Rock, and try to keep the overall SLP at 90 dB, “A” weighted (slow), 30' from the stage. This keeps people on the dance floor, but still able to converse without shouting. We have a comparatively small PA – just 900 watts into 4 ohms driving 15” mains, and a small JBL 500 watt powered sub. Add to that a 30 watt tube amp and a 250 watt bass amp, and if I want, I can knock people's glasses off of the bar.

The ambient noise level in a packed bar can reach 90-100 dB without any music playing, so actual sound levels are cumulative.

Wattage and volume do not equate either. Tube amps generate higher SPL that SS amps, for example.
My reticence regarding Aspen's “105 dB” is simply because – lacking any sensitivity specs, or even a frequency chart, there is no way to compare his unit with known factors/systems. Bose is infamous for this kind of thing.

As an example:

The QSC K12 powered speaker:

12" LF driver, 1.75" HF driver
Frequency Response: 48Hz-20kHz
Max SPL: 131dB
1,000 watt, efficient and light-weight class-D power module


The Max SPL is the important number. The QSC is a 12” driver coupled with a 1000 watt Class-D amp. The Spacestation is an 8” driver with a 100 watt amp.

How loud a speaker gets depends on how "sensitive" it is. "Sensitivity" is measured by determining the decibel (dB) level of a speaker when 1 watt of power is applied, measured from 1 meter away.

This "sensitivity rating" means that a speaker with a sensitivity rating of 90 dB SPL can create a sound pressure level ("SPL") of 90 decibels with 1 watt of power measured 1 meter from the speaker. In short hand, "90 dB SPL 1W/1M".

I just doubt that an 8” speaker driven by a 100 watt amp can generate 105 dB @ 1 watt/ 1 meter. I could be wrong - it's happened quite often before!

Scott is the expert in these things – I'm just a guitar player, but I have to deal with SPL in everything from a quiet restaurant to a noisy biker bar.

As I said before, if it works for you, great. It sure is easier than dragging a Leslie around!


Regards,

Bob

I see you guys are way beyond me on this subject. But, it's not 100W it's 280W tri-amped. Like I said just read the now 11 page and growing thread on the KC. Aspen started posting on page 7 and he's interacting with a bunch of tech types just like you. As you read what he's saying and you become aware of his impressive history you realize he's one of the heavyweights and knows what he's talking about.

If he said 105db, that's what it is. All I can say is I've been gigging since 1964 in the Air Force in Japan and all over North America since carrying B3's, Leslies and tons of other crap. Of course that's all gone now and I've severely downsized. I know what volume means and how bands sound and the mix and all that stuff. I was an agent for five years and wrote reports from clubs on the mix, the overall volume and stuff like that to other clubs who trusted me. When I say this little amp was pretty darn loud in that room and very clean, I mean it. Talk about 8" drivers and all that all you want, technology marches on. You mentioned QSC and they're very good, I happen to like the new EV stuff and the new EV ZXA1 is an 8" and it kicks butt. So does the new Yamaha DXR10. These amps with new electronics and neo drivers blows 10 year old Eon's and such right out the water not just with the sound but the weight too.

Somebody mentioned how heavy the Spacestation is for it's size (39 pounds) and why doesn't he use Class D amps. He said he does and then launched into a short tech discussion of the differences between amp types and how they interact with the exact drivers he's using, how that affects the computer modeling for the stereo 90 degree out of phase effect and blah, blah, blah. My eyes glazed over. The dude is an engineer, you know?

I know you're a bit skeptical and I respect that and your knowledge too but I'm telling you this thing is a game changer not just for keyboards but as a small group PA with everything going through it except drums. He also mentioned he will be coming out with a bigger version in about a year. Will it be that mouth watering Manzarek one? Probably not but I'll bet it will be pretty hot.

Bob

I would love a chance to experience it. This would be just the sort of thing that would go over well in a local Audio Engineering Society chapter meeting.

Bob,

I wasn't trying to impugn your knowledge or experience, and I apologize if it came off that way. I understand that Aspen is an innovator, and that this is probably a great product.

I am certainly no engineer, just someone who has had to sort through a lot of hype with audio gear; companies that fudge their specs, some that don't provide any specs (like Bose), and some that substitute peak for RMS. I like to see specs that I can compare to other systems, with solid measurements, such as the standard 1 watt/1 meter SPL.

To merely state: “If he said 105db, that's what it is.” may satisfy your curiosity, but not mine. It could be that the 105 dB figure is actually a measurement at 1 watt/1 meter, but without the clarity of having that stated plainly, I cannot make that assumption.

I will be interested to read your review when you get to use it at a gig. Looks like a really cool unit.


Regards,

Bob

I'm anxious to try it too but he said the first two runs are sold out right now, it may be a few weeks until I get one.

Bob

Aspen just posted a vid from the same show I attended, I was there on Saturday, this is from Sunday. It sounds pretty much the way I heard it and he's recording it with a pair of mics plugged into his camcorder to get the stereo effect. This gives an idea of the size of the room and there was a good 10-12 feet behind the camera to the rear wall.

Now you can see what I meant when I said I walked behind the stage in both corners to hear the mix and it was the same as along the side walls going to the back. That was impressive, it was not all muddy like it usually is with regular PA speakers and amps.

When you listen to this turn it up to the point it almost sounds like these guys are in your house or use headphones because that's how loud it was there at the show. This little thing cranked pretty good and there's been a few more posts on the KC forum talking about how great it sounds if you sit it on top of a powered PA speaker for more oomph if needed. He says you just turn up the width control to compensate and it still creates a good stereo effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7yJWzDKDXE

Bob

Hi Bob. I've been reading through the posts on Kybd Corner and I'm impressed by the reviews of those who have the SS. I hope that when you get your unit you'll post your review here in BIAB. I'm thinking of selling my QSC-10 and getting the SS. Later, Ray

Some of his description - the magnet analogy, and stating that the sound at 105-110 dB at your ears is not fatiguing, well, now I'm the skeptic. I understand he's trying to explain a rather complicated concept - broadcast of a m/s signal, to an audience that may not be prepared to listen to that - but saying that the mid and side signals repel each other, and general mumbo-jumbo like that - he would do better just to be quiet and let the unit speak for itself like he does when he disables the side speaker signals and you can hear the audio instantly fold down to mono.

I will tell you if there is 105 dB real SPL at your ear, you will not hear a person next to you well enough unless you are shouting. Even then it's going to be difficult and it will be fatiguing and it will be potentially damaging to your hearing. Period. So there's something flaky about his measurement technique or description of it, etc. Air attenuates, whether it's a m/s signal or not - that is a law of physics that cannot be defied.

-Scott

I agree because that's exactly what happened when I was talking to some guys in the back of the room. We still had to put our heads together and raise our voices to talk. I chalk that up to marketing but overall though I can't wait to get mine.

Bob

Bob is standing on his front porch, waiting for that brown truck.


"Did you hear that? Was that a truck??? "Did it sound like a UPS truck?

UPS trucks do have a very distinctive engine sound quality. Whenever I've got something on order that I'm anxiously awaiting, the sound does have a Pavlovian effect on me!

Well, I got it. Now that tax season is finally over I called Aspen this afternoon because he said I could meet him at his studio and try one out with my Hammond SK1. He said he had a session scheduled for 7 this evening to do a new demo with better quality piano sounds and said if I can make it early I might be part of the video so I showed up and played for about 45 minutes or so.

I don't want to gush too much but this amp is the bomb. It's the best sound I've ever had from one amp, period. Everybody there said my SK1 sounded great and it really did and now I'm in the video, don't know if I'll get 30 seconds or 5 minutes. You know how when you get lucky and have a really good sound you get inspired to play? That's what happened. I also played the SK1 piano, rhodes and clav through it and they all sounded really good.

As for volume, when I grabbed all the drawbars, hit the leslie button and did some smears to a high chord, that thing was screaming. The next thing is I have a bar gig next Friday, 4 piece with a girl singer. I think it's going to sound great by itself but I'll have my EV112P PA speaker in case I need more juice but that Spacestation by itself has some balls to it.

I needed to clear out for Al who's a solid pianist who was the real reason for this session. He played the new Casio P5S piano and his Nord Stage that sounded really good too. While he was warming up I walked behind him and behind the amp next to the drums and it sounded just great. Everything was very full and clean, not muddy when you go behind any regular amp or PA speaker.

Nothing else I can say, I like this amp.

Bob

Good for you! Wish I could come and hear you play, but I'm 2,428 miles away.
Knock em dead!


Regards,

Bob

Hi Bob. Does the SS have socket so it can be placed on a speaker stand? Ray

No, you would have to install a pole mount yourself. Aspen has posted on the KC forum about that along with why it only has one pair of stereo inputs. If you use two keyboards for example you need a mixer but lots of folks doing singles or duo's use a mixer anyway because of the vocals.

Yesterday I was able to get mine out of the car and set up in my living room. It sounded just as good as the one in the studio. Not just the organ but the AP sounds too. Very clean, crisp and full range.

I know I'm sounding like I just went to work for Aspen, trust me I haven't. No endorsements or anything like that other than he's said I'll be in the next demo vid because lots of guys want to know how a SK1 sounds through it.

We keyboard players are famous for searching for that perfect stage sound because keys are so hard to get right especially the acoustic grand sound. I've got 2 Eon's, 4 EV's, two Barbetta's and my old huge JBL rig with a separate horn sitting on a big, heavy 15" K145 speaker cab powered by a heavy 400W Peavey boat anchor power amp. That one is my make your ears bleed festival rig that I haven't used in years. They all sound more or less good but to get stereo for the organ leslie or all the cool sweeping Rhodes or Wurlie effects you really need two speakers on stage so I've tried all kinds of ways to get that. Oh yeah, I also have a pair of Berhringer 8" monitors for smaller stages.

This amp is the holy grail for me. The stereo effect is real and strong (as long as you're using a good stereo patch in the keyboard) and the overall sound quality is right up there with the best I've heard. And, it's surprisingly powerful.

This is from my personal pov as a keyboard player. I don't sing so this is just for my keys. But, after seeing it in action at the amp show three weeks ago it's a helluva PA amp too.

Bob

"No, you would have to install a pole mount yourself."


You could try one of these:

http://www.zzounds.com/item--MUPEB9760


I installed one on a much lighter amp (works great), but it might work on the Spacestation if you can through-bolt it.

Here's a technical tidbit for you guys. I've been inspecting this thing closely and here's what it has.

The top half is the 8" woofer with a small horn in the upper corner. The bottom half is the 6.5" Emminence. I thought there were two 6.5's but no, there's just one mounted perpendicular to the woofer right in the middle of the box. The cabinet is completely open to the sides on the bottom half so the front and back of the Emminence is firing directly sideways and there's little triangular cutouts behind the front grill too so some of that stereo sound is firing to the front.

I hear clear and obvious stereo coming from that speaker so it's like you said, somehow he's taking both the L and R signal and getting that one speaker to shoot the L and R in two different directions. So the tri-amping he talks about is between the woofer, the horn and the 6.5" sideways one.

It's also very solid, well built and weighs 39 pounds.

Here's something I saw in the studio, he has two big versions of this along the wall. One was really big, about 4 1/2 feet tall with what looks like a 15 facing front and two 12's mounted on the bottom facing each other. I mean directly bolted together, no space between them mounted sideways. I can just imagine what that sounds like on a big stage with a lot of power driving it.

Bob

"Here's something I saw in the studio, he has two big versions of this along the wall. One was really big, about 4 1/2 feet tall with what looks like a 15 facing front and two 12's mounted on the bottom facing each other. I mean directly bolted together, no space between them mounted sideways. I can just imagine what that sounds like on a big stage with a lot of power driving it."




Say, Bob.....

What was the address of that studio, and is there anyone there after dark?


ROAD TRIP!!!!!

Bob, the way that this works is not one speaker shooting stereo. The top and bottom speakers are doing Mid/Side type projection, rather than Mid/Side recording like you do with a figure 8 mic and a cardioid mic.

The bottom speaker, because both sides are exposed, radiates sound like a figure 8 mic records sound. When coupling this with the front projection of the common mono signal that is common, it creates the L & R signals out in the listening space. If you switch off one of the speakers, you'll hear the stereo effect fold down to mono.

It's a brilliant idea, actually. Send me a PM to let me know how much you paid.

-Scott

Wow, I know you're an engineer so I believe you but that really does sound like sonic voodoo. So the stereo is not coming from the bottom speaker? That's just so counterintuitive.

Sweetwater is the only authorized distributor but Aspen can sell them direct as well which is how I got mine. The price was $599.

Bob, I was sorely tempted to take some pic's of the studio especially that big unit but I was a guest and didn't think that would be too cool but he's got some interesting stuff in there.

Bob

Bob, have you ever investigated how Mid/Side stereo recordings work? Two mics are used, but not usde as a left mic and a right mic. Here's an article: http://www.uaudio.com/blog/mid-side-mic-recording/

Think of the way this amp works in reverse - playing out sound instead of recording it.

The unbaffled speaker at the bottom of the cabinet pushes sound one direction while the other side of the speaker is simultaneously 'pulling' sound. In the article above, this is like the figure 8 mic, with the out-of-phase switch enabled on the copy of that signal. With the bottom speaker, that 'phase reversal' happens naturally because the back side is exposed to the air. The speaker on the top is playing what is common to both but the back side of that speaker is enclosed in a cabinet so the 'pull' on the back side is not effectively creating sound out in the room. It's like the analog of the carioid mic that is on top. On a Mid/Side recording - you can widen and narrow the effect by the relative balance of the mid mid, versus the magnitude of the two channels of the 'Side' recording.

I've only done this a few times, when I had a Cascade FatHead ribbon mic. I tried it with acoustic guitar recordings, but found that a good-old two-mic spaced recording gave me a much easier setup (It's hard to get that M/S setup without a bunch of precise placement of mics - and both mics I tried it with had shockmounts - which makes it a little difficult to get the two capsules close - and the effect wasn't all that great on acoustic). I have since sold the Cascade - it needed a cleaner preamp than what I had available at the time.

It's not voodoo - it is a bit surprising nobody has tried this before now to be honest. It makes perfect sense as the 'playback' version of Mid-Side recording.

All right, that makes sense. In his studio Aspen uses two mics, the lower one appears to have two sides that come together vertically. That's the bottom one and a small circular mic is mounted right on top of the two sided one. This rig is pointed right at the SS amp about 12 feet back.

As far as nobody else doing it Aspen says it's because he holds the patent on it. He brought in dinner for everybody during a break and we talked about this. It goes back to his Groove Tube days, when he sold the company to Fender the only thing he kept was the patent for CPS. He said Fender wanted it but he refused to give it up. This new one is V.3 he produced two earlier ones years ago under the GT name. He's not a young guy, it's possible he may be the originator of this concept.

Bob

"He's not a young guy, it's possible he may be the originator of this concept."


Mid-side has been around for a long time. From the article Scott cited:


"Mid-Side microphone recording is hardly a new concept. It was devised by EMI engineer Alan Blumlein, an early pioneer of stereophonic and surround sound. Blumlein patented the technique in 1933 and used it on some of the earliest stereophonic recordings."

After Bob's review along with other reviews and checking out the videos, I've ordered the SS V.3 and the SKB case. Delivery will be sometime in Nov. Later, Ray

I might pick up this: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ISOL8R200Sub

Wow, didn't notice until now, over a thousand views. There's more interest in this amp than I thought. The unit is starting to get delivered to people on the KC forum and a few reports are coming it. Everybody just loves it as much as I do.

Unless your ears are really weird Ray, so will you. Seriously, this thing is a game changer. And again, it's a game changer as a PA amp too. It really fills the room with vocals, guitar stereo effects, all that stuff.

Bob

Just saw your video at Aspen's studio on Kybrd Corner. Good sounds. Can't wait to get my SS. Are you going to post your video on PG? Later, Ray

That's actually a pretty decent price.

Here's the vids that were produced when I was at Aspens studio last week. Two with Al and the one with me. It's definitely funny seeing myself like that. I've heard myself on recordings lots of times but this is the first good quality video. Kinda strange.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL9-51bIWNw&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRNKZbPNKxs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTQA0XE5yuc&feature=youtu.be

Bob

I did my first gig with it last night in a bar that holds 140 people, we had maybe 100 more or less. It's pretty loud in there. Small stage, 5 piece with a girl singer. This is the place I was worried about concerning the power output of the Spacestation. I'm jammed right next to the drummer with my back against the wall so any amp I use is beside me so everything sounds muffled to me but I've been told I sound good out front. I've been using an EV ELX112P which they rate as 600W. I think that's too high, it's probably around half that continuous power but it's still a powerful powered PA speaker anyway. The SS is about two thirds that size with an 8" woofer while the EV is a 12 with a big horn.

All I can say is WOW! I had the EV in the car in case the SS wasn't loud enough but it has plenty of power. I agreed with your earlier assesment 90DB about how can such a small woofer put out like that. I don't know but this thing rocked the house. We had a guitar player who's too loud, a drummer who really gets into it, a jammin bass player, a sax player, a girl singer and me with a double rack keys rig. For the first time EVER I heard myself clearly in stereo from one little amp jammed up right between me and the drummer. On the first break the bass player said it's the first time he could hear me like that and the drummer was even more enthusiastic, he pointed down to the amp and said he simply could not believe how much sound that little thing put out. Even though it makes no sense, Aspen is right when he said the stereo 300 degree dispersion carries the sound so well you don't need nearly as much power in order to be heard. That effect that Scott described really makes a huge difference. There's now several more guys on the other forum including a Hammond fanatic in Germany saying the same thing. This thing kicks serious [*****].

And to top it off, I wasn't pushing it. The organ and pianos were crystal clear, no distortion at all. I'm sure there was more power left. I had the master volume set at about 1 o'clock.

I don't know what else to say, every keyboard player in the world needs one of these and don't forget what I said earlier, this is a great PA amp too.

Bob

Bob, have you had a chance to play through the SS with BIAB yet? Anxious to hear how that sounds since I have some solo gigs coming up. Ray

Glad you're digging it. It might actually put a dent in the Bose market for small gigs (and it's a lot cheaper!).

I'll be thinking of you as I'm loading the trailer full of PA and backline for tonight's gig.

Hadn't forgotten about you, I just need some time to set up a proper test. My bedroom where my home studio set up is is way to cluttered to get a good reading of this so I needed to get some adapter gozinta's to go from the headphone out of my home theater amp in the living room because I have a 25' HDMI cable going out there so I can do this sort of thing there as well as in the bedroom. I just sat the Spacestation in the middle of the living room floor in front of the TV using a stereo headphone out going to the SS and played some Biab tunes through it. It sounds really good. The Real Drums are very full, not thin, the bass and everything else is right there like it should be. Depending on your gigs you may or may not need a sub because this little unit puts out a surprising amount of bass by itself.

Also for those who are not keyboard players, here's a couple of vids I found where Aspen is demo'ing a good guitar duo and a nice four piece band with vocal harmony. Since I was messing around with my headphone out anyway I also listened to some of these demos through the cans and it really makes a big difference. His recording setup using his MS mic in the studio to get a live sound really works well through the 'phones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4E7Rg9Suc8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-YXyV8-F3I

I think these two demos show how good this amp is as a PA. Remember this is throwing the sound in a 300 degree dispersion all around whatever space you're in. This works whether you're feeding it a stereo source or not. In that sense it's the same idea as the Bose L1. I've done two gigs where the vocalist had the Bose and it does sound very good but man, the price of those things. This Spacestation does the exact same thing as far as I can tell but it will reproduce true stereo if you have a source and it's $600. Seems like a no brainer to me.

Bob

Time for an update, lots has happened. The biggest thing was the longshoremans strike on the West Coast. This put the SS shipments way behind schedule. The first shipment was sold out very fast and it's taken until this week for the second shipment to finally arrive at Sweetwater and get out to people including our own Raymond.

The thread at the Keyboard Corner has grown by another 15 pages at least. Every single review is not only positive, people are absolutely gushing about it. I thought there was no need to talk about it here again until they start to become available because the keyboard players have bought every single one in sight.

The point is this is not simply a keyboard amp, it's an awesome PA. I was at NAMM and saw some reaction there to this little box and people were positive comments about it there too. Casio was using one to demo their new keyboards plus using it as a PA. Everybody thought this thing is a game changer. This amp really is a much less expensive option compared to the Bose L1 for small group PA work.

For me personally I've now done several gigs with it using different keyboards and it's the best amp I've ever had. I've always bought the best available, Barbetta's, JBL, EV and this is by far the best, it's not even close. I'm trying to not sound like I'm working for Aspen (I'm not) but seriously this amp is a killer little box. And it's loud as hell. Call it voodoo, call it whatever this thing projects all over a given room in true stereo. The Bose can't say that, it's not stereo.

Those who are doing small single/duo/trio type gigs with or without tracks really need to check this out. The fidelity is amazing too for a stage amp. Biab tracks sound really good through it.

Bob

Saw your video on their website, sure you're not working for them? Just kidding.

Looks like it would be an upgrade from my old Roland KC500 in that it provides a good stereo spread.

Have you compared it to any of those rotary speaker enclosures? I'm curious if the stereo output would sound better than something like a Leslie.

Actually what happened for that vid is I called Aspen last October to ask if I could come up to see him and try the amp out. All I was going to do was test it to see if I wanted one. He said good timing, if I could make it by 5:30 he could video me because he had his regular player Al Morrata scheduled for 6:30 for a session. I had to run through LA traffic all the way from Redondo Beach across the west side up to San Fernando. Took me an hour and a half in real bad traffic. I was fried when I got there at about 5:45, sat down and did that vid. Not my best work but it is what it is.

I'm a B3 guy at heart so nothing sounds as good for organ as a real Leslie but who's carrying one of those around any more? My primary rig now is a Hammond SK1 on top of a Roland FA06 and they both weigh about 12 pounds each. Gotta love that. The SK1 goes into a GSI BURN leslie sim. That and the Roland go into a small mixer in stereo then out to the SS. The BURN sounds absolutely great through the SS. The thing about a real leslie is if you're close to it you can hear the rotors whirring and feel the air moving but out in the room just simply listening I doubt you could tell the difference. The SS really throws the sound around. The SK1 sim sounds very good too but I'm a total geek when it comes to a Hammond sound and the BURN is just that little bit better. That vid is me using the SK1's internal sim which is not bad at all and nobody but me would notice the difference between the SK1 sim and the BURN but you know how that is. I gotta have that sound man. The BURN has a leslie 147 rock preset that will knock your socks off too. In addition I also have a PC3 76 and I did a piano gig with that using the SS and the acoustic and electric pianos sounded awesome through this amp.

Bob

Nice info. Thanks!