Well, what do all of you use? I'm ready to upgrade my rig so I need to decide on this to figure out my budget. I usually just plug into a PA both in the studio and while playing live. Should I buy an amp? Or do you guys think a PA is sufficient?
I use an amp because sound guys either have me to loud or to soft in the monitors never just right. Plus venues out here are small so don't make much sense to me to run my rig in stereo. All in all it's whatever makes "you" happy.
I run my keys to a rack mixer - with each chanel set to mono (center pan) - I then send the left stereo out to the PA and the right stereo out to an on stage amp (and old Peavy KB100) - basically as a stage monitor
As bsr2002 indicates, I've had less then ideal monitoring when I depend on the sound guys.