That is true, but it could be unbalanced, or at a lower level than if you had gone through a DI box or interface.

In any live or recording scenario, you’re always going through some type of interface or mixer (of course there are also keyboard amps).  I’ve never heard of anyone going straight from a board into monitors.

Do the monitors even have a line level inputs?  I would expect it to be speaker level inputs. 

 Yes, active monitors normally have line input, or even rca. DIs and balanced signals are something for live shows or recording as you say, balanced signals just have a better signal ratio noise, so you can have use long wires without suffering static noise. For this setup just connect the keyboard to the monitors is more than enough. If you want to record then you need an interface or a mixer  

 Got it, good to know.  If the issue is that it just sounds ‘flat’ then a preamp or compressor could still help add some warmth or color. 

 Yes, people use those to add harmonics, and some distortion to the sound, specially hardware ones 

 I am just starting to get a little home studio together… run my synth through a stereo tube compressor now and it sounds great.  Would love to get some analog pres but damn this stuff gets expensive quick 😂 

 thanks guys, so something like this?
https://www.thomannmusic.com/behringer_mic500usb_tube_ultragain.htm 

 This looks nice for something simple. I use to have a cheat 8 channel behringer that cost me around 100 fiat units... It was good and cheap 

 Could be worth a try… but I was just reading about your SV1 and it has a tube in its circuit, as well as built in amp modeling.  So I’m surprised that it isn’t sounding good direct in :-/ 

 Yeah, the tube is there. Not sure if it's used always, or only for the distortion section. See pic.

On headphones it's really good though. https://image.nostr.build/6d662c24bfd202990289363e1abe793b3d1e2ad2a1ad40c5be48c3718d97a0b0.jpg  

 Huh.  I really can’t imagine why it wouldn’t sound good direct.  Are you using balanced TRS cables (as opposed to TS / instrument cables)? 

 XD I know, I use to fix those things in a SAT Ive seen so many crazy hardware and weird synths. They are very expensive, but also super fun, there are also a trend in diy kits that are awesome  

 This ones are really cool https://warmaudio.com/wa76 

 👀