It's simple for me. The speakers aren't a "must have", but given the choice, I'd rather have them onboard. They make for excellent "in my face" monitors, and are convenient when I play at home. On the other hand, I won't use them without something else, even in the smallest of venues. My basement studio is basically a 16 x 25 room that has decent acoustics, probably as good if not better than the average small room I'd play in. I was curious as to how the speakers of the PA80 and 2000 would sound, from say 10 or 15 feet away, so I recorded a midi file of me playing and then sat 15 feet away. I even went one further and recorded a vocal that I synched to the keyboard with N Track and fed back into the kb's speakers. I listened to tunes with and without vocals. In both cases, it all sounded decent coming through the kb speakers, but I liked the sound better coming through the rooms sound system ( at low volume ). It also sounded better when I used just my Yamaha YST-MS50 powered speakers. For what I hear, having the speakers point more "at me", as opposed to having them face the ceilng or point away, enhances the quality of the sound.

AJ