Hi!!!!!

I got my PSR-9000 last week and I am very
satisfied with it. My other choises
where X1, KN6000 and I know that there is
also G-1000 and i30 but I wanted a keyboard
with internal speakers and vocal harmonizer.
There is also Generalmusic WK8 but we don´t
have GEM dealers in the town I live. Here is
my opinion bout the three. But remember I am
only 17 years old and my english is not good.

Technics KN6000

Our import dealer recomended this keyboard
for me when he was presenting it and the X1
in the instrument shop. That time this board
had the chord recognition problem but I knew
that it will be fixed soon or later with soft
ware update so for me it wasn´t a problem but
what was bothering me was the distortion from
the internal speakers. I didn´t play even
loud and still I could hear the distortion
when I tryied this keyboard at home. I think
this problem is fixed now. But here is what
else I found out. No sampler and poor vocoder
but the most beautiful and the most user
friendly keyboard in the world. The screen
is fantastic and the styles are the best I
have ever heard. PSR-9000 and X1 have also
great styles but the KN6000 had the best. I
don´t know why but somehow they sounded so
real that I can not find words to describe
it. The sounds where good also. Piano
sounds are also the best of the three and
the soloist sounds are fantastic also. I did
not like the strings and the pipe organs that
much. The internal sound system was maybe the
best (not the distortion). The quality of the
internal speakers is great (still PSR-9000 is
a bit better) and no matter how loud you had
the keyboard there was no hiss at all. I
could not hear any hiss not from the speakers
and not from the headphones and this keyboard
has 60 watts of power so it can go very loud
but still I don´t play loud becuse it is bad
for the keyboard and bad for my ears. Other
good things in this keyboard where the sound
controller and the style converter disk. One
bad thing was the expensive hard disk and the
size of it was only 3,2 gb. I like this board
very much.

Yamaha PSR-9000

My previous keyboard was PSR-4000 so I had
style disks and foot controllers for it and
the good thing was that I could use them with
PSR-9000 also. This keyboard has many great
features like video out, scsi, sampler and
vocal harmonizer and I can find use to all of
them but the sounds where the best in this
keyboard. KN6000 has the best piano sounds
but PSR-9000 has great piano sounds also.
Yamaha has also sweet, live & cool sounds and
they are all fantastic. Also the basic sounds
are the best. Yamaha sounds have been always
my favourite ones. The styles are good also.
I like the pop styles very much and also the
8 & 16 beats where good. The latin and soul
beats where also fine but still they where
better on the X1 and KN6000. Internal sound
system was great. The quality of the internal
speakers is the best and there is no much
hiss on the sound. A bit more than the KN6000
had but much less than the X1 has. The sound
can´t go very loud on the PSR-9000 and in
higher volumes it gets distorted but It
doesn´t bother me at all becuse I don´t play
loud. This is my favourite keyboard of the
three and it was my choice. I like it very
much. Now I am waiting for the 2.0 operating
system update.

Solton X1

"This is a stage keyboard for professional
keyboardplayers. I think you should look at
the KN6000" sayed the import dealer to me and
I did what he sayd. I heard all the praise
in this forum before I even saw the keyboard.
One day I wen´t to dealer to try this machine
and I decided to find out from where does all
praise come from. This "stage" keyboard was
fantastic. Almost all the sounds are great.
I did not like the grand piano at all. That
sounded miserable but the strings and the
organs I liked very much. Also guitars and
the saxophones where gut. Flutes also. The
styles sounded very "live" and almost all of
them where good. I did not like the dance
styles that much but still it had some great
rap & hip hop beats. Also other pop styles
and ballads where not my favourite but the
country, latin and jazz styles where great
and very live sounding. The internal sound
system disappointed me. It could go very loud
but the quality of the speakers was bad and
there was too much hiss on the sound and also
from the headphones I could not hear nothing
but hiss at lower volumes and to hear
something more than hiss I had to turn the
volume very high and that is very bad for my
ears. My dealer connected the keyboard to
external speakers and it sounded much better.
This keyboard is not as user friendly as the
PSR-9000 and KN6000. The way you select the
sounds are styles is not something that I
like very much. But still this instrument is
not a bad keyboard to use. Other good thing
with this instrument is the memory slot and
the good sampler. I think that X1 has better
sampler than the PSR-9000. The Yamaha has
mono sampling and that is bothering me a bit.
Why is it mono? Why not stereo? So after I
tryied this keyboard I found out from where
does all the praise come from and when
I was walking to the bus station from the
instrument shop I sayed to myself that "This
is a stage keyboard but I could really have
one in by bedroom"

Michael

Hi!

I think its down to taste. People will always vote on their fave keyboards and i guess there is always a fave one amongst us all.

I went to a gig recently with my dad, he brought the WK8 with him, I brought the X1 and someone else in London who was joining us brought the PSR9000. At the end of the night, I can sincerely say that the X1 did the best job, especially when using the styles. The guy with the PSR9000 then conceded that the X1 was a better performer though I did say to him that the PSR9000 was just as good in some aspects if not better in other areas compared to the X1 but then I also said that if his sole purpose was for playing styles then he should of checked it out first! But then he also said that Solton keyboards are near impossible to come by in the UK, which then made me feel lucky to own one!!

but just as your points suggest, its what your going to be using it for. I use my X1 mainly at home though most professional musicians whom ive spoken to reckon its best used on live shows. Maybe thats true, but to my ears I think its the best sounding machine out of them all.

In the old forum, when I had the I30 as my best keyboard, George Kaye said to me to really go and try the X1 and that I would get converted, and judging by the excellent styles of the I30 i did not think this was possible. But George was right and I bought the X1. No keyboard or no person had an influence over my decision making about keyboards before but this was an exception. And to this day (after owing Yamaha keyboards ranging from the PSS780, PSR300, PSR500, PSR410, PSR510, PSR520, PSR620, PSR5700, PSR7000 & PSR8000) the X1 was like a totally new experience and a breath of fresh air. When I tried the PSR9000 (this was after I bought the X1), though I really liked this keyboard I knew I still made the right choice and not waiting for the PSR9000, not because its bad or anything, but rather a change was required after so many familiar Yamaha's sounds & styles.

You cannot go wrong with these keyboards though, they are all great (and expensive). If they were all the same, THEN it would be boring. I love the different opinions, it makes for good discussion. But is there such a thing as a bad keyboard?!

DannyUK

There are some things that I forgot to mention
in my comparison. I think that these things
are also important so I wanted to write them.

-
I did not say anything about the weight of the
PSR9000. It is very heavy and I am sure that
it bothers especially those people who have to
carry the keyboard a lot. For me the weight is
not a problem becuse I don´t carry it never.
Only sometimes I move it to my bed when I want
to clean the desk of dust.
-
I must also mention something about the full
keyboard mode becuse it is very important for
my playing. In my old PSR4000 it worked very
well but in my new PSR9000 it doesn´t work at
all. I hope the OS update will fix this. Also
in the KN6000 it did not work properly. Has
this something to do with the chord problem?
Is it fixed now? I also tryied this mode in
the X1 and there it worked very well.
-
One thing that I like very much is the music
database in the PSR9000 and the music stylist
in the KN6000. This was something that the X1
doesn´t have. It is not the most important
thing on a keyboard but still the X1 should
have something like this.
-
Then about the keys and the touch response.
The X1 is the only keyboard that has weighted
keys. The keys are nice when you press them
softly but when you press them harder then
the touch is not that good. KN6000 has good
keys and touch but still they are better on
the PSR9000. But if you play softly then the
X1 is the best. I hope that people understand
what I mean becuse for me this is difficult to
explain in english.
-
I sayed before that to my ear the PSR9000 has
the best sounds of the three (still some piano
sounds on the KN6000 are bit better) and still
they are the best but not all of them. There
are some XG sounds that are not so good. Most
of the XGs are very good but there where a few
sounds that where not so good. Other sounds
are the most realistic to me.
-
I must say this about the KN6000: The sound
distortion and the chord problem is fixed now.
So people should like this keyboard much much
more now. It is not only user friendly. There
are also many many other great things on it.
For example the the best styles (to my ear)
and great sounds. Good internal sound system
and sound controller. It has the best screen
and it is very beautiful keyboard. I mean the
silver color and the design. Everyone of you:
Try it and I am sure that you will like it now
and make sure that it has the latest OS.

These where the things that I forgot to say.
I also want to say that people can 100% agree
or 100% disagree. I also like hear different
opinions about these keyboard.

Michael

Thanks Michael for all your hard work comparing these excellent keyboards, I have had my PSR9000 since January 2000, and to my ears the sounds are really spot on, in the past I have played flute, guitar and piano, the PSR9000 produces all these faithfully and practically all the other sounds are of equal quality.
People are always critising the styles for being staid and boring, I personally like the internal styles because they do not steal the limelight away from the player and after all this is the most important part of the player/keyboard relationship, but for people who prefer fully orchestrated styles,
try www.egroups.com/group/yamaha-psr-styles
and download "style9000.zip", "style4m.zip"
and "style2m.zip", they were programmed by yamaha in italy and they are definately a departure from the usual Yamaha styles, the italian website also sells a 6gb Hard drive already programmed with 33MB of new styles and 1000 XG backing tracks(my italian is non existent so this bit might be wrong), I will certainly be making enquiries about it. Presumably these styles represent the future direction for Yamaha, I'm sure with the advent of 9000pro their will be further quality styles available, that will hopefully be back compatible with the 9000 (I will keep my fingers crossed anyway).

Paul.


[This message has been edited by Paul A Smith (edited 10-15-2000).]

Paul,
Could have written your comments myself, particularly about the styles. I will check out the new styles tomorrow on my day off. I heard about them on the PSR styles club already.
Don

Wo, Michael! I'm impressed. Really. I spent a bunch of years as an high school English teacher and, after reading that you're 17 years old and, if I understand correctly, writing in a second language, well, I was totally caught up in how well you expressed yourself. Your assessment of these three instruments sounds like that of a mature-minded person (which many teenagers are). And your use of the English language is very real and conversational, yet uses technical jargon very naturally.

I don't mean to sound like a teacher or anything, but, Michael, you write in your own voice and I'm hearing you loud and clear. I look forward to future posts.

Jim Henry

Thank you. It was very nice to hear that. I am
also glad that people have read my comparisons
of these keyboards.



Michael