Fishman SA220 ($1,000 street)

P.A. and Amplifier for the Solo Musician

www.fishman.com

By Jon Chappell

Performing as a solo musician is always a challenge with respect to gear, because you often get the feeling that you’re either bringing too little or too much. A single combo amp, while ostensibly sufficient in wattage and channels to handle both guitar and vocals, feels like “cheaping out,” and it’s way less than ideal in terms of frequency range, stage placement, and dispersion. On the other hand, carting along a big two-speaker setup with a separate amp and board may cover the gig, but it’s a huge hassle when you’re by yourself, and often takes more than its fair share of precious stage real estate. And that can be a particular problem for a solo act, because they’re often hired precisely because they take up less space—at a restaurant, for example.

Enter the Fishman SA220 Solo Performance System (also known as the SoloAmp). This cleverly designed personal performance system solves several problems at once, and provides great sound in the process. Let’s look at some of the ways the SA220 addresses the needs of solo performers, both sonically and ergonomically.

Overview

The SA220 is a self-contained two-channel, 220-watt P.A. housed in a single cabinet—with its speakers, amp, and control panel stacked in a vertical orientation, or line array. In other words, it’s tall and skinny, as opposed to most P.A. systems, which are squat and boxy. The space-savings of such a form factor is immediately obvious: the performer’s onstage footprint is much smaller for having the rig go upward rather than outward (it’s the same principle for high-rise apartments, except this is a high-rise for speakers!). Also, because the cabinet is “tall,” it reaches out over bodies, tables, chairs, and other sound-impeding masses in the immediate vicinity, with better line-of-sight geometry for everyone in the room.

Of course the putative disadvantage of an enclosure that’s skinny is that it wouldn’t have the inherent “wide throw” of sound we normally associate with a large-diameter speaker. But Fishman has designed the six custom high-excursion 4" speakers and 1" soft-dome tweeter to produce a very wide dispersion. This specific speaker arrangement creates what is known as a line array, first used in practice at Grateful Dead concerts to create a “wall of sound” effect. A line array is what produces both wide dispersion and more evenly distributed sound levels from the stage to the rear of the room—meaning you don’t have to blast the front row so the rear can hear you. Fishman reports the high-excursion (a.k.a. long-throw) capabilities and frequency response are the custom parts of their design that gives the system its ability to “push lots of air and provide great low end.”

Unlike some P.A. systems, the SA220 does not employ a separate subwoofer, opting instead to enhance the bass characteristics of the existing speakers. Not having a subwoofer might be a deal-killer for DJ’s, but it’s not critical for singer-songwriters, guitarists, keyboardists, and other non-dance-oriented acts. On the other end of the spectrum, the SA220 includes a soft dome 1" tweeter with its own level control. The system is biamped (20 watts for the tweeter, 200 for the woofers), with an active crossover at 4 kHz.

Control Center

Besides the striking form factor — tall and skinny and lightweight (25 pounds for the cab, another 10 for the stand) — the SA220 is marked by a very complete control panel, with some novel features. Let’s look at the unit’s brain in detail, and refer to Fig. 1.

The SA220 features two identical channels, each with the following:

• XLR and 1/4" inputs
• 10 dB pad
• Gain control
• 3-band EQ
• Phase switch
• Anti-feedback control
• Reverb level control
• Phantom power

Operating at a global level, or over both channels, are a master volume, aux in, and monitor levels, a mute switch (for tuning and during breaks), and a choice of four reverb programs. If you don’t like the onboard reverb, you can strap on your own outboard version, as the SA provides an effects send/return.

On the rear panel is where you find the I/O panel for additional connections, and some of the SA220’s cleverest features (see Fig. 2). First up is an effects send/return, which provides two jacks (one in, on out). I’m pleased to see the SA220 didn’t economize here and provide just one TRS jack, which would require your stocking a couple of Y-cords. The effects loop is serial here—more like an insert but placed post-EQ—and has sufficiently high impedance to accommodate guitar-style stompbox effects processors. There’s also a pre-EQ D.I. Out for each channel, which enables you to process your signal in a different way—take a bass guitar to a sub-woofer, for example, or to send the signal to a larger board while you use the SA220 as your stage monitor system.

Also included is Tuner-out jack (for channel 1 only) that works even while the system is muted (and as a bonus, can also be used as pre-EQ unbalanced D.I. out ), a Tweeter Level control (-6 dB to 0 dB), a Mute Footswitch jack to kill the system (good for momentarily turning off those live mics while you give the substitute drummer the instructions for the next song), and a Mix D.I. (Post) jack, which you can use to take your signal out to a recording device or even a larger P.A. system. (All D.I. outputs are balanced XLR.)

Monitor Sharing

Of particular interest is the monitoring section, which allows you to gang together two SA220’s through its two XLR jacks (in and out, see Fig. 3). This way, you can listen to your partner’s monitor mix, and he can listen to yours. You blend that monitor mix with your own and you have the blend of the entire 7ensemble, while being responsible (and carrying around) only your component. Very slick.

Anti-Feedback Control

Solo acts often have to deal with feedback issues, because they’re using acoustic instruments and microphones. One of the biggest problems feedback poses is that it usually limits your ability to turn up past a certain point—or if you do, you’re forced into performing such drastic EQ surgery just to quell the feedback that you compromise severely the tone. To help performers combat feedback, the SA220 provides two controls: a variable notch filter (called Anti-Feedback control) and a polarity switch (called a Phase Switch).

The Anti-Feedback control is calibrated for the range where problematic low-end frequencies occur, attenuating resonant peaks from the subsonic (or off) up to 330 Hz. In addition to squelching feedback, this notch filter can be used to tame “wolf tones” or any other unwanted low-end emphasis in the room. The Phase switch reverses the polarity of your instrument, which often solves feedback problems, and like the notch filter, offers you an additional tonal variation. Using these controls in conjunction with each other (typically, the Phase switch for the lowest feedback frequency and the Anti-Feedback control for the higher one) will solve most feedback problems, which allows your effective overall volume to be much higher. It’s power without the punishment.

In Use

The first thing you notice as a solo performer is that you make far fewer trips in and out of the venue with the SA220. The padded carrying case is soft but rugged, with sturdy wheels, so it’s very lightweight and rolls as easily on streets and floors as any modern “rolly” suitcase. For my solo brunch gig, I made exactly two trips—one with the entire P.A. (rolling bag and speaker stand) and one with my guitar and mic stand. (Other stuff, like mics and cables were consolidated into these various bags.)

Setup is a snap, and the rear-panel orientation of the SA220’s jack bay means that cables are hidden from the audience. Once assembled, it’s a very clean look. I found that having the cabinet up high puts the controls at a comfortable level for eyeballing and tweaking during the set, and the stand provides plenty of security and steadiness.

The dispersion and quality is excellent, and there’s plenty of wattage to handle four inputs of instruments and vocals to fill a medium-sized club, assuming you’re not expected to rock the joint or project over a large drum kit. I also found the four digital reverb presets to be quite appropriate for singer-songwriter situations, though you can only vary the effect level. The only slight inconvenience is that the control panel is on the front of the cabinet, so that when you place the speaker column out in front of you (as you would with any system to minimize feedback), you have to reach around the front to make any adjustments. But if Fishman had elected to put the panel on one side or the other, you’d be disadvantaged for the 50 percent of the situations where the panel wound up on the edge that faced away from you. So short of a detachable panel, placing the controls on the front is a workable solution. And for “set-and-forget” situations, it’s a non-issue. (In the manual, Fishman recommends the speaker be placed just behind and to one side of you so that you and the audience hear the same thing. Fishman reports that most players use it this way, making the controls very easy to adjust and eliminating the need for a monitor as well.)

When I had a guest sit in, I took the opportunity to take a semi-circular walk-around of the sound field to listen for the dispersion quality. I noticed very little high-frequency drop-off as I moved off center from the cabinet. Even when I was approaching 180 degrees (almost sideways with the cabinet), the lyrics were still crisp and intelligible and the high strings of the guitar clear and sparkly. Throughout my gig, as tables came and went, I found I could easily “aim” the cabinet using just one hand toward the largest cluster of listeners.

Conclusion

I feel very comfortable with the SA220 onstage. It’s tall enough to stand over the tables and chairs of nearby impediments, but not so top-heavy that I’m worried about someone bumping it and sending it crashing. Plus, the very secure stand sees to that, and can withstand the casual shoulder brushes of patrons and wait staff. The control panel is right at a comfortable height to make quick, on-the-fly adjustments, and its cable protrusions are hidden from the audience view, making for a very clean unobtrusive look.

The sound is quite loud, clear, and full, especially when you take time to tweak the very useful feedback controls found in the notch filter and phase switch. I did not miss having a sub woofer on my acoustic gigs, even when a prominent low end was necessary for establishing a good feel (e.g., heavy downbeat music, like bluegrass). My system ran quiet and buzz-free, directing all of its power into putting my guitar and vocals out into the audience.

There’s good solid electrical engineering going on, too, with the low-impedance channel and mix D.I. outs made to be phantom-power tolerant and ground isolated. This would be a good system for augmenting with another SA220 or in conjunction with a larger system. But for solo work, the SA220 removes the toil of moving gear and is a joy to play through.