I don't know if you'll find this interesting or not but here goes....

I threw together some samples of the Tyros piano and Korg PA1X piano taken from the excellent demos provided by Dirk Baert (notlos). First up is the Tyros, a short clip played in stereo, 128 Kbs, mp3. No edits, same as the original. Then comes just the right channel, then the left, then the sum of both channels to mono.

Tyros Piano Stereo

Tyros Piano R. Ch.

Tyros Piano L. Ch.

Tyros Piano Summed Mono

No doubt about it, you lose a lot of good sound.

Here's the Korg's PA1X piano demo, again from Dirk's demos.

PA1X Piano Stereo

PA1X Piano R. Ch.

PA1X Piano L. Ch.

PA1X Piano Summed Mono

Kind of sounds like this piano patch will suffer the same fate as the Tyros when summing.

So here's my dumb question...Why? Why do the manufacturers do this? I understand why they play with the phase for ambience or spatial effects. But why play with the phase of the actual piano sound?

Tyros owners...When playing your stereo piano samples thru a stereo PA at your venues, how does it sound back in the far corners or way in the back of the room, out away from where the stereo field exists?

mike