Dear George ,
Thank you for enlightening on the technical datails of this fine keyboard. It seems that you are going to 1000s of 625.
However, there is still one thing that is unclear to me (maybe due to my limited knowledge of technical English).

What does "5 types of Master EQ" mean?

Is this a 5-band equiliser or just 5 eq. presets?

Regards,
George V

Reading your post George makes me want to work at a music store...seeing all the new cool music gear coming in. That's really cool.

By the way, how has George Kaye been doing? It's great to see you again out here on the forums!

Thanks for asking about my store Ryan. The past year has been an interesting one for music stores. I'm selling more and more lower priced chinese made products which means less dollars in the cash register. Customers can get really good gear for much less then things cost 5 years ago. Higher end arranger keyboards are still my forte and continue to do quite well. Lower priced digital pianos and arrangers are still very strong. The models that have really slowed down are things like Motif ES's, Fantoms, Tritons, etc. Thank goodness for many of my customers from the Synthzone who will purchase products from me.
After 36 years of owning my store, I find myself working more hours then in previous years and with less help because of economic times. However, my passion for my business and enjoying my customers is still a driving force for me.
If you sense my excitment for new products arriving you are right. I still feel like a kid in a candy store when something new arrives and I try it out.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, Ca.

[This message has been edited by George Kaye (edited 06-05-2006).]

George V,
The 5 Master EQ settings are provided to give you the best possible sound when listening through different reproduction systems-
the instruments internal speakers (1 and 2), headphones (3) and external speakers (4 and 5). This is a good addition because headphone/lineout single jacks don't always sound as good as dedicated line outs.
In my testing, setting 1 and 2 accentuate the bass so that the internal speakers sound really full, which I already reported on. Now, with my outputs plugged into a pair of powered monitors, settings 1 and 2 are very bass heavy but when I go to 4 and 5 the EQ curve sounds great. I also confirmed the headphones sound better when using setting number 3 compared to the others. Yamaha did us all a favor here!
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene

George V,
The 5 Master EQ settings are provided to give you the best possible sound when listening through different reproduction systems-
the instruments internal speakers (1 and 2), headphones (3) and external speakers (4 and 5). This is a good addition because headphone/lineout single jacks don't always sound as good as dedicated line outs.
In my testing, setting 1 and 2 accentuate the bass so that the internal speakers sound really full, which I already reported on. Now, with my outputs plugged into a pair of powered monitors, settings 1 and 2 are very bass heavy but when I go to 4 and 5 the EQ curve sounds great. I also confirmed the headphones sound better when using setting number 3 compared to the others. Yamaha did us all a favor here!
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene

1) If the YPG225 doesn't have a USB to device, does it have a disc drive instead? (Connecting a computer to the keyboard every time I want to xfer a file wud be inconvenient for me).
2) Is there a website with specs? I would like to know what are the sweet, cool, and live voices.
3) Does it have 2 variations only?
Starkeeper

Manuals available online!

You can't get them on the US site, yet, but you can get specs for the whole Portable Grand series here: http://music.yamaha.com/products/categoryProducts.html?groupId=24

The manual for the YPG-625/525 is here: http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/emi/english/port/dgx620_en_om.pdf
And for the YPG-225: http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/emi/english/port/dgx220_en_om.pdf

All your questions can be answered here. The 225 has 3 Cool! and 5 Sweet! voices, but no Live! pianos and orchestra.

Rickid

George and Rick,

Thank you for your input. I downloaded the DGX-620 manual and already read it.

I am curious to try on such keyboard.

Starkeeper, the special voices are:
Live! Grand Piano
Live! Warm grand piano
Live! orchestra
Cool! Galaxy elecric piano
Cool! Suitcase electric piano
Cool! Electric piano
Cool! Organ
Cool! Rotor organ
Sweet! Tenor Sax
Sweet! Soprano Sax
Sweet! Clarinet
Sweet! Trumpet
Sweet! Trombonoe
Sweet! Muted trumpet
Sweet! Flute
Sweet! Pan flute

There are a few XG voices that are not present on the DGX-305/505.

The styles, like the older DGXs, have only 2 variations.

I hoped for a sweet harmonica or oboe voices, or a spanish guitar voice. Such voices would enrich my compositions. It seems that yamaha have (still) reserved them for their more expensive boards.

Regards,
George

Just to clarify, the 225 that Starkeeper is interested in has fewer Cool! and Sweet! voices, and no Live! voices, compared to the 625/525.

Also, sorry, the 225 has no disk drive.

R.

Not much different then my PSR550 (and it has full XG and a disc drive).
No disc drive and no USB makes it way to inconvenient.
76 keys though, would have been nice.
Starkeeper