Nord User Forum

Hi, I am about to purchase my first Nord piano and have few questions since i am totally new to instrument audio amplifications. I am planning to connect the Nord piano to a pair of passive speakers thru a stereo amplifier that i already owned. Most stereo amplifiers only accepts RCA inputs where there are TS left/right outputs on the Nord piano. The passive speakers unlike powered speakers only take speaker wires from the stereo amplifier and i do not wish to get separate powered speakers for the Nord piano.

1) I assume Nord piano outputs are instrument level instead of line level. If so is the signal hot/strong enough or do i need to get some sort of audio interface to boost it?

2) Can i buy a pair of TS to RCA cables and connect the output straight to the stereo amplifier? Any problems I might face if i do that?

3) I plan to get Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 which have RCA output where i can connect TS to the USB interface and RCA out to the Stereo Amplifier then to the passive speakers. Like question 2 can i just skip the interface and get TS to RCA straight to the Stereo amplifier instead?

If anyone have experience in this feel free to give me some advice. Thanks!

Hi, I sometimes run my Nord into a hifi amp and speakers, it's fine for home use. I use two cables that are jack to rca, into an aux on the hifi. No issues, it sounds nice.

One difference is that you can actually get a more complete frequency response from an electronic instrument than from a recording on an mp3, or older technology such as cassette tapes or LPs. All of those sources have some "error" or lack of fidelity, which tends to roll off the very low end and very high end. Even an audio CD is going to be have some low and high end rolloff because it is a recording, and it may have come through a mic in the studio. Your hifi home stereo amp is probably pretty good at preserving whatever low end and high end signals are sent into it from an audio source. So it might be easier to damage your passive speakers, if you drove it to high volume, when hooking up an electronic keyboard to your hifi home stereo amp. If you keep the volume moderate I would not expect you to have a problem.

Basic rule: If it sounds ok at reasonable volume settings everything is ok.
If You need to crank the stereo amp a lot - find out why. Probably ok to play, but good to go through settings if there is a better match to be found.
If it sounds distorted or very loud in relation to modest volume setting on the stereo amp - stop playing! and find out why. This may harm Your stereo amp and/or speakers, also at low volumes.

Like every powered keyboard (unlike Clavinet or Rhodes), the Nord outputs line level.