Over the years, my system has evolved into what I would call a "studio" system (see sig below). In other words, I am setup to play in a studio setting not "out in the real world".

Lately, I've been thinking about trying the nursing home or small party / benefit circuit.

While I can adapt most of what I have, speakers are the biggest unknown for me. My thoughts are that I would go with "powered" speakers and perhaps those that have built in mixers.

Right now, for lack of anything else, I'm looking at Yamaha's; their two speaker Stagepas 600BT or their soon to be released "stick" system, the Stagepas 1K.

But here's where I get confused. In a two speaker system, I could do a "hard" pan to the left and right and get a stereo image. With the "stick" system, it would be mono only.

All of my BIAB and RB songs use panning to one extent or another. How important is this in a live setting? Up close with my monitors having both channels helps to widen the field, but is this really necessary or preferred in a live setting where the "audience" is further back from the speakers?

While I understand that having a stereo setup with speakers too far apart would be a problem, does having a multi-speaker setup with left and right speaker channels enhance the overall sound in larger settings? Will mono, providing that you have a wide horizontal dispersion, sound just as good?

Maybe it doesn't make any difference....I just don't know.

Would appreciate your thoughts.

Jeff

Win11, Intel i7 7700K 4.2Ghz, 32Gb RAM, 2x1Tb HD, 500Gb NVMe, BIAB/RB 2024, MOTU 828MK3 audio, MOTU Midi Express, Yamaha Montage 7, DX7II, TX802, Motif XS Rack, Roland Fantom XR Rack, Oberheim Matrix 1000, VoiceLive3 Extreme, Kontakt 6, SampleTank 4.3