I recently bought a Roland KC 550. It is a keyboard amp, but you can use it for many other things. I bought it for some gigs this summer. It has an XLR microphone input, plus 3 additional inputs. Easily enough to share with a keyboard player, your EWI and your Sax mic. We touched on the subject of amplification way back (not sure if I agree with my opinions from then, oh well).
Sound. It has a nice, smooth sound, and a real nice low end. Two of these together would make a nice little PA system. One makes for a killer amp for those gigs where no one wants to setup and run a PA system. The KC550 has tons of output. I don’t think I ever got past about 4 on it. It never cut out or distorted on any gigs.
Size. Well, it is big. Really big. And heavy. Roland quotes it as being 63lbs 15oz. Ok, 64 pounds. The wheels at the bottom help, but if there are stairs on a gig, be prepared to make a trip just to bring the amp up.
Things that could be better. I wish it had some sort of power cord wrap. It has this cheap thing on the back to hold the power cable, but, really, it is worthless. It would have been nice to have like little posts or something on the back where you could wrap the power cable up. Or a slot in the box to put it like some amps do. Perhaps that would be a good modification project.
Currently, this amp, when not in the back of the car, is providing excellent bass and mid-range to my KRK speakers via the RCA inputs it has (for like an iPod/CD player). Though, it has to be set at like 1 to keep in balance with the KRKs.
This amp is not cheap, selling for over $500, but if you need a good, solid, great sounding amp with a lot of input options, this would be a good one to consider. I’ll give it an 8 out of 10. Here is a link to the brouchure.
