My advice for being fully in the sound with a Neotone

The Neotone is a digital instrument: it has no built-in speaker. To hear it, you connect it to a speaker or play with headphones. And one detail changes everything: where you place your speaker. Set up well, it puts you literally inside the sound. Set up badly, you play “next to” your music. Here’s how I do it.

Why placement changes everything

On an acoustic handpan, the sound is born under your hands and rises up to you: you’re bathed in it without thinking. With the Neotone, the sound comes out of a speaker somewhere in the room — often in front of you, facing you, as if for the audience. The result: you hear yourself “from afar”, a bit like listening to someone else play.

The idea is to recreate the acoustic feeling: let the sound reach you, surround you, and carry you while you play.

Place your speaker behind you, at head height

My favourite setup, by far: the speaker behind you, raised to head height, aimed forward over your shoulder — exactly as shown in the diagram at the top of this article.

What happens then:

• The sound arrives from behind and wraps around you — you’re in the wave, not facing it.
• At head height, you hear it like a personal stage monitor, clear and present, without cranking the volume.
• You keep your hands and attention on the instrument, not on “can I hear myself?”.

My speaker for this is the Bose S1 Pro+ (≈ €599 at retailers — official Bose page, and also check second-hand listings on Leboncoin): self-powered (about 8 h of battery), compact, it sits on a stand and travels anywhere — perfect in a jam, a lesson, on stage. Mind the model: the Pro+ has more bass than the older S1 Pro. You can even get rid of the cable with the optional Bose wireless instrument transmitter (≈ €168), sometimes sold as a speaker + transmitter combo at ≈ €759. It’s the one I recommend among the gear to plan for around the Neotone.

Going further: the Bose L1 system

If you want to be completely enveloped, the Bose L1 system (a line array column) placed behind you is magical.

The column spreads the sound over the full height, very evenly: wherever you move your head, the level stays constant, and the sound unfolds like a wall behind you. It’s the ultimate comfort for long sessions, and it sounds gorgeous in a room.

Headphones: your intimate bubble

The other, complementary option is headphones (plugged into the Neotone’s headphone output). There you’re in a total bubble: perfect at night, in a flat, on tour, or to record yourself with no ambient noise. I talk about it in the article playing with headphones.

Headphones and speaker aren’t rivals: headphones for intimacy and precision, the speaker behind you to feel the sound physically.

Three settings that help

• Volume is set on the Neotone: bring it up until the sound carries you, without saturating the speaker.
• No feedback to fear: unlike a mic on an acoustic handpan, the Neotone is electronic, so you can push the level with no howl.
• In stereo (two jacks, two speakers), place them slightly behind you on each side: the immersion is even better.
• Choose angled jack cables on the instrument side (like this Ernie Ball cable): with a straight jack you can’t rest the Neotone on the floor — it’s a hassle and it can damage the connector.

In short

The best sound with a Neotone doesn’t cost much in gear — it mostly comes down to good placement: put your speaker behind you, at head height, and you’ll go from “I hear my music” to “I’m inside my music”. To see the rest of the useful gear, head to the Neotone page; and to learn to play through colours, go to Handpan Studio.