I've had some really good experience playing keys through an old Marshall combo amp. I've really gotten to enjoy the color that it brings to the piano, clav, wurlitzer, and other sounds, whereas a traditional keyboard amp now just feels too clean and hi-fi. The Marshall gain sections give the keyboard just a little bit of dirt, even on the clean channel, and for rock and jazz gigs, that little bit of edge (while I think it's barely noticeable to listeners) has a big difference in how the music gets registered. We understand harmonics (or at least our brains notice them) in a far more complex way than we could process them if we had to stop and think about it, and I think that bit of edge really gives us a tighter sound as a group.

What do you guys think? Straight PA, Keyboard amp, or guitar amp? What's your experience?

Of course back before they had keyboard amps, a lot of players just ran them through a bass amp or a guitar amp. I didn't see dedicated keyboard amps till the late 1970s, and most of those were simply bass amps with a horn added and three or four inputs. I think a bass amp with a tweeter would be good for most keyboards, but I can see whay a Marshall would work, too. It seems to me that Jon Lord of Deep Purple ran his B3 through Marshalls, but he also had a Leslie speaker. With the electronic rotating sound built in to so many keyboards now, you don't need that Leslie.

Maybe I'm just a little snobby when it comes to Leslie's, but I feel like I have to have a Leslie or it isn't real, haha. I WISH I actually did have one. I worked with a Brazillian funk group for a while in school, and the organist had a Hammond/Leslie combo. I was green for it from day one until he had to go back to Recife.

Yes, nothing sounds like Leslie. But they were underpowered. You had to have about 10 of them to really play loud. I think they cost around $3000 now.