Hello!

Two weeks ago I went to my dealer and I had a chance to play the PA80 and PRO9000 and now I would like to write my opinion about these two keyboards here but first I would like to say something. At the moment I have PSR9000 and I have had it for a year now. I am glad that I bought it then because now the price of this keyboard came up 2900 finnish marks. So the PSR9000 costs 22900 mk and the new PRO9000 costs 25500 mk. I knew about the PRO9000 when I was looking for a new keyboard but the PSR9000 was my choice because I really need the internal speakers and I don´t need so much the added features which the PSR9000 does not have. Also the PRO was more expensive and another bad thing is that the PRO doesn´t fit to our car so it would be inpossible to carry it. Last autumn I started to play in our business college band and we have had few gigs so now I also now more about playing on stage "live" in front ot the audience. About the Korg I don´t have much to say. I have only played the Triton and the i3 some years ago. The only thing what I can say is that they are good keyboards but here is my review:

The design and the user friendliness

To my eye the PSR9000 is the best looking keyboard of the three. Also the PRO9000 looks nice but not as nice as the PSR9000. Some of you will disagree about this but the PSR9000 is the most beautiful. The PA80 doesn´t look so nice but it doesn´t mean that it is ugly. It only means that the Yamahas look a bit better. The 9000s are also more user friendly than the PA80. The difference is not big but still.

The sounds

I heard rumours that the PRO9000 would have better sound than the PSR9000 but this is not true. The sound are the same and the only difference is that the PRO9000 has few Live!, Cool! and Sweet! sounds more. I have heard that it would be possible to have these added sounds on the PSR9000 on a sample CD or OS update. Has anyone any more information about this? First I have to say that all the three keyboards have great sounds and it is not very easy to say which one has the best sounds. The "Triton" sounds on the PA80 are fantastic and very realistic but Yamahas sounds have always been my favourite so what can I say? They are equal or maybe the 9000s have only a little bit better sounds to my ear. It is very difficult to say which sounds. The clarinet sound could be better on the PA80 but the flute is better on the 9000s. This is tooooooooo difficult.

The styles

The quality of the styles is the same. About the beat it is more difficult to say. The PA80 has better dance, ballad and 8 & 16 beat styles but the 9000s have better jazz, country and rock styles. This is what I found out. The PRO9000 has few more styles but it is possible to have these styles on the PSR9000. You can download the from the internet. I did so. If we compare to styles we don´t have winners or losers. Some tyles are better on the PA80 and some are better on the 9000s.

The internal sound system

The PRO9000 is the loser here of course. The PSR9000 has the best sound system. The internal speakers are fantastic and they can go very loud (I don´t never play loud). The sound system on the PA80 is not so good compared to the PSR9000 but still it is ok. The quality of the speakers on the PA80 is fine but nothing compared to the PSR9000. On both keyboards I could hear distortion at very high volumes but this doesn´t bother me because I really don´t play loud.

The features

The PA80 doesn´t have a sampler and also the vocal harmoniser and the video interface are optional. On the Yamahas these features are in the keyboard and they are not options. Also the 9000s have more connections than the PA80 like SCSI, dual MIDI, PC keyboard and on the PRO9000 you also have more audio sub outputs and connection for the lamps and one the 9000s you can install a hard disk up to eight gb instead of the two gb on the PA80. On the PRO9000 you also have two card slots for more sounds and on the PA80 you can add more sounds on a PCMCIA card. This is something that the PSR9000 doesn´t have but on the PSR9000 you have a lot more weight especially compared to the PA80 so carrying the PSR9000 is a very good sport so it keeps you fit like I have told even before

Micco

Thanks Micco for your very comprehensive review of these three instruments, it came at just the right time, I have recently been thinking of ugrading my PSR9000 for the 9000pro. I have also had my PSR9000 for about a year and like you I love it to bits,
I don't think the 9000PRO has enough additional sounds/features to justify me spending more of my hard earned cash.
Yesterday I recorded some MP3'S of my PSR9000's factory demos and also downloaded the 9000pro demo's, I then played them both through the same set of speakers and there seemed to be very little difference in the overall sound of both keyboards, obviously where the demo included a piano the 9000PRO
was a hands down winner, but with a little tweaking I have managed to get a very nice piano on the PSR9000 , so I certainly would'nt upgrade for an improved piano sound. As you say the PSR9000 speakers are really superb, probably the best ever on a portable keyboard, I'm sure I would have to spend a considerable amount of money to get a comparable external speaker system for the 9000PRO, so this is another downside.

If the 9000PRO had the ability to load industry standard "AKAI" samples, had more flash memory for custom styles, then maybe I would upgrade, but as it stands I will wait for Yamaha's next offering PSR10000, hopefully this will have the features I mention, imagine having access to the "AKAI" library of sounds, you would possibly never have to upgrade again, perhaps this why Yamaha have left off this feature???.

Paul.

Micco, Paul, and Blinkers,

I've had my 9000PRO for a week now, and love it. The synth-weighted keys are a HUGE improvement over the PSR9000 (owned one for a year).

The 9000 pro has 50% more voice memory than the PSR9000, (mostly used by some terrific new Live! voices). It has 848 voices in total, (342 panel voices, 480 XG voices, 24 Drum Kits, 2 SFX kits). There are 32 custom voices (user programmable) and 20 organ flute voices (10 preset, 10 programmable). The 11 new voices are: a stereo Live! Grand piano voice, Aloha guitar, Santana sounding "Carlos guitar", a distorted lead guitar, Live! Arco strings, a sweet muted trumpet, a sweet flugel horn, Live! Horns, Live! Brass, Live! Octave Brass, and two synthesiser pad sounds - Pro Heaven and Sunbeam. There also 8 new drum kits.

The 9000PRO styles are identical to the PSR9000, with just 2 extra styles pre-loaded in the flash banks (Vocal Swing and Jazz Singer). A few new styles are on disk including a "Western" style (John Wayne-ish), an Orchestral ballad (James Bondish), a Club Latin, and some new 8-beat and 16-beat styles.

The 9000PRO's organ sounds are VASTLY superior to the PSR9000. I've got all of the old PSR9000 sounds on the PRO and I can play them side by side and there is simply NO CONTEST - it's not even close. The physical modeled organ sounds are AWESOME.

The 9000PRO accepts the new Yamaha piano plugin (haven't got it yet) that adds 136 piano sounds. The new piano sounds are stereo sampled and the plugin actually adds another 64 notes polyphony to the 9000PRO. It should make a big difference (but we'll see).

Hey, I'm not telling you to upgrade. I'm just saying that I did, and am extremely glad I did. Minor improvements have been made everywhere, making the 9000PRO more roughed and overall much superior to the PSR9000.

As far as speakers go, George Kaye has a small satellite speaker system (2 mini speakers and a subwoofer) that are very reasonably priced. I play the 9000PRO through my Samson EX20's - great sound.

Paul, you haven't listed an email address on SynthZone's profile, so I can't email you some confidential info. Email me.

Steve

PS. Upgrading isn't as expensive as you might think . . .



[This message has been edited by Stevizard (edited 02-12-2001).]

Steve,

I have now change my profile so you can see my email address. Thanks for taking an interest in my current dilema of whether to upgrade from PSR9000 to 9000PRO. A few months back a dealer wanted 500(english pounds) to upgrade, does this seem like a good deal???. Before Xmas I went to a demo of the PSR9000/9000PRO side by side, I must admit the 9000PRO seemed to have a more "live" sound to it
but I put this down to the speakers they were using, both keyboards were on stage but they used a separate set of speakers for each one, being very suspicious of some dealers selling tactics I assumed they had set the PSR9000 to sound inferior so they tricked owners into upgrading. As I said above I downloaded all 9000PRO demos and compared them to the PSR9000 demos, I played them both through the PSR9000 speakers and to me most of them sounded identical. From your above post I can see it would probably take a couple a weeks to really appreciate where the differences lie, it's a pity I can't have one on trial next to the PSR9000 to make my mind up, but I don't know of any local shops that allow a trial period. I look forward to receiving the confidential information you spoke of in your last post.

thanks Paul.

There are few things that I forgot to mention. Personally I don´t like the synth weighted keys that much. I prefer the keys of the PSR9000. I also don´t like that the headphone and mic connections are behind the keyboard. For me it is easyer that they are in front.

I tried also the organ sounds on the PRO9000 but I didn´t hear any difference compared to the PSR9000 and I think there are two reasons for that. First, I didn´t know that the organ sounds where physically modelled and second, I didn´t pay much of any attention to the organ sounds because personally I don´t much need them. Only sometimes I use the pipe organ sounds when I want to play some Bachs organ works. Blinkers! I´m glad you told me about the physically modelled organ sounds. I will check them more carefully the next time when I will visit my dealer. I am still wondering that is it possible to have those new Sweet!, Live! and Cool! voices on the PSR9000? And also those drum kits. I really like those sounds and I would like to have them in my keyboard.

But no. I am not going upgrade. There is no need to do that. For me the PSR9000 is better than the PRO9000. For most of you the PRO is better. At the moment the PSR9000 gives me everything I need. I am only 18 years old and I play just as a hobby so I don´t need to have the latest thing. Not even when the PSR10000 comes out because I want to save my money. I started to play tenor saxophone last autumn and I used all my money to a Yamaha saxophone. I also would like to play soprano saxophone so I am collecting money for that. Are there any saxophone players here?



Micco

Yep.... I'm a sax player, although I must admit I'm not very good.

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John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Hi all,

I would like also add some comments to this interesting discussion.
In general I agree with your oppinions I would only express some own observations:

* in the competition PA-80 vs. 9000 (PSR or Pro) I think the PSR 9000[Pro] is the definite winner. Especially the sounds of the PA-80 I did not find as realistic and exciting as the PSR9000 ones.

* It is true that 9000Pro is the "big brother" of the PSR 9000, but on the other side I have not noticed such great improvements, so that I would start to think at an upgrade.
I counted about 10 new voices (Live!, Sweet!) in the 9000Pro compared to the PSR 9000 (except for organ voices). The styles are the same (these 2 new styles of the 9000Pro I already copied to the flash memory of my PSR 9000 ).
The keys on the 9000Pro are better weighted than the light PSR 9000's keys.

Big disappointment: the 9000Pro has the same amount of the flash memory as the PSR 9000 and if you do not delete any style from it, you have 32kB available (a little bit strange).
The possibity to extend the set of voices (and also the polyphony) of the plug-in boards' voices is a great feature and for someone who often plays with synthesizer voices also very useful.

As I heard, the voices (samples) of the 9000Pro will NOT be available for the PSR 9000.

So, if I have not bought the PSR 9000, I would buy the 9000Pro definitely, but now the changes are not worth the money I would pay for an upgrade (Steve, it depends on the dealer how expensive the upgrade is. The dealer in the music shop in my town do not want to take the PSR 9000 back and to sell me the 9000Pro for a lower price).
Paul, for 500 GBP I would upgrade immediately!

Regards

Marek