Ok. I've had the PSR2000 for a couple of weeks and have played around with everything in it. I think the Honeymoon period is over and I can now give a fair evaluation of the two boards. I do more playing and writing at home and occasionally also in the studio, but I also wanted a good board for a duet act I plan to do with an old friend who is a singer / guitar player. I know everyone will not agree, particularly because sounds are so subjective and certain features are more important to some than others, but for me..this is how the two boards work

Keyboard feel
PA80: very responsive to touch and aftertouch. Excellent for me when emulating many instruments, especially electric guitars and saxes. May not be comfortable for someone who strictly plays piano, but for me, born and bred on organs and synths, excellent feel.

PSR2000: seems a bit tighter than the 740 I had and this is a good thing. No aftertouch. Not quite as comfortable for me as the PA80 but very good nonetheless.

Pitch Mod wheels:
PA80: A very important function for me. I had almost forgoten how much I missed the joystick setup on my old M1. Excellent response and again great for bending notes on guitar sounds and adding mod all in one motion.

PSR2000: Ok, I admit I'm prejudiced because I much prefer a joystick, but the Bend / Mod wheels on the 2000 are located in a good place for me and respond well. They feel a little more solid than the ones on my 740 were. I had to have the potentiometer on the 740's pitch wheel replaced.

Display and menu areas:

PA80: Good easy to see display, but too much work going from menu to menu to get to certain functions. Sometimes it seems that there is an extra step or two to get to a mneu that shouldn't be there, but apparently korg agrees and is modifying this in the next OS update. No way to adjust volumes from default display, but thankfully it has an accomp / seq volume slider and an assignable slider, which I assigned to the upper split.

PSR2000: Excellent display. The default display is intuitive and allows you to see several parameters. It also allows you to adjust volumes of seq and upper voices, but I find the PA80 sliders to actually be easier to use. Easier in general though than the PA80 to get to the function you need from the main menu... much easier learning curve too for me.

General sounds / editability and effects
PA80:
The PA80 has pro level editing and access to the raw samples, so if I don't like a sound that much, I can edit it as much as I'd like, and sampling will be includued in the next OS too. There are a couple of sounds that I'll likely upgrade, ( no editing will help ) but for the most part, this is where the PA80 outshines the 2000 for me. Up to three sounds can be layered for the main voice, plus an additional one for left hand split. Effects come in 2 blocks iof 2 effects for each block..One block is genrally assigned to accompaniment and the other to your main voices, although they can be assigned by individual channel as well. The effects are excellent with great editability, but one drawback..Gen midi standard of reverb and chorus is not assignable seperately apart from the effects without use of an external sequencer

PSR2000:
Good to excellent sounds overall, and the 2000 allows for some very basic synth editing and complex editing of effects. Up to 3 effects are assignable to any
channel(s) you wish, but each effect can only go to one channel, with an additiional insertion effect assiganble to multiple channels. A big plus over the PA80 here is that each voice or channel can be eq'd seperately from within the board. No direct access to the raw samples.

Pianos:
PA80: The acoustics are ok, but I've heard better. The electrics are good and many vintage electric sounds are well represented.
PSR2000: very good acoustic pianos and electrics are also well represented.

Organs:
PA80: Excellent drawbars and vintage B3 type sounds. Very good Jazz and Pipe Organs as well.

PSR2000: Very good drawbars, pipe and jazz Organs, but not quite as good overall as the PA80, especially for that vintage B3 sound.

Drums:
PA80: The best drums I've heard on any arranger period. Standard and electronic kits are well represented, and little if any eq or reverb adjustments are ever required for me.

PSR2000: Good to very good overall, but occassionally I like to back off the reverb and adjust the eq from the factory settings.
Not as many kits and not as adjustable as in the PA80, but good enough for anything I'll ever do with it.

Guitars:
PA80: Outstanding acoustics and very good electrics as well. Here is where the editing and 3 layered voices really help too. The right combination of guitars and key and string noises applied at different velocity / aftertouch settings make for some very authentic guitar sounds. I generally dislike most electric guitars on most synths, but some of th ones here, in the right combinations are so good ( played of course with timely pitch bends and mod action ) that even a couple of friends who play guitar had some difficulty discerning it from the real thing in a mix with other instruments. Does a very realistic strat and "Carlos" sound ( not from presets though..these required a bit of work ). I feel like Robin Trower sometimes ...lol

PSR2000: The acoustics are very good here, nicely done with a few new and improved voices from the 740. The electrics..well... there are a few new ones and I guess in a mix for rythym or chords could sound pretty good, but for soloing and leads..uh uh. Even if I write the whole rest of the song on the 2000, any electric guitar solos will actually come from my PA80 or even better yet ( but not that much better especially with ME playing it ) my Strat itself if they aren't too complex.

Strings:
PA80: Very good violin and good to excellent ensembles. Fiddle sound is muddled a bit though.

PSR2000: Very good violins and fiddles. very good to excellent ensembles. Toss up betweent these two boards here.

Bass:
PA80: good electrics and acoustics..Excellent electonic basses.. well reperesented for an arranger.
PSR2000: very good electrics and acoustics..I prefer a few of them slightly over the PA80. electronics are good but not as varied or as good as the PA80.

Brass:
PA80: trumpets are good, muted are ok. Very good trombone. Ensembles are ok but not outstanding
PSR2000: Very good trumpet and good muted and Trombone. Ensembles are very good as well.

Sax:
PA80: Very good overall. "Folk" sax is a very nice preset, but I prefer the 2000s breathe saxes.
PSR2000: Excellent tenor ( sweet ) sax and very good saxes overall. growl sax is one of my favorites.

Woodwinds:
PA80: Good to very good flutes, except some, in particular the Jazz flute, have way too much breathe sound. Nice shaku sound.
PSR2000: Sweet Pan flute and sweet flute are among my favorite sounds on the 2000. Shaku is not as good as PA80. Bagpipes aren't very good on either.
Synth sounds:
PA80: Chock full of very good to excellent synth pads and leads with full editability. As good as it gets on an arranger I think. If I wanted better, I'd bypass the workstations too and go for a Nord Lead or MS2000 or maybe a real analog synth.

PSR2000: Very good and useable, with some very basic editing available, but not in the same class as the PA80 in my opinion. The acid test..can I do the portatone solo on ELPs "Lucky Man"? very well on the PA80..not well at all on the 2000.

Sequencers:
PA80: 2 sequencers built in ..good for croosfading from one song to the next, but no editability at event level until the new OS comes out. It would appear at that point the resolution will be 384 ppq. Acceptable but not top notch. Very good features though overall..especially the basic synth edits available for each individual channel and the remapping capabilities for drums.
PSR2000: can record in multitrack mode from an external source and has 1920ppq resolution. Very easy to use and some good editing features and functions for an arrangers sequencer. Although it is still easier ( quicker ) for me to use a mouse and software, I can actually edit an entire song without using an external sequencer, which means I can do it away from the computer. Great for when I'm away somewhere.

Accomp / Styles:
PA80: very good sounding mixes overall..mostly 8 bar styles that sound very realistic and complex, even somewhat usable for pieces in some compositions with some modifications to spice up or add changes. Only 2 fills pre style though and some fills on a few styles sound out of sync with the main variations. New OS promises 4 fills per style..hopefully they will be smoother transitions from the main variations as well.
PSR2000: Good basic styles. Not as complex or natural sounding as the PA80s to me overall, but very useable in a duet or solo act and still good as scratch pads for ideas for my own compositions. One thing I don't like though..is that you have to go to a seperate menu to change the intro or ending ( 3 of each but only one available from the default menu and buttons ).


Disk functions:
PA80: Plays styles from disk directly. A bit confusing at first, but very good for storing and recalling styles, performance and patch settings and midi files. Has a hard drive option.
PSR2000: Similar functions to PA80 including direct style play from disk. No hard drive option.

Conclusion;
The PSR 2000 for me will be a bit easier to
use in a live setting in a solo or duet act and it's styles will work well for that purpose. In a larger band I'd use the PA80 because I prefer it's sounds. To me the PSR2000 is the ultimate arranger in it's price class, while the PA80 is closer to a workstation that happens to have very good arranger features added on. For composing, both machines have pros and cons, but again, overall for sounds, the PA80 will see more duty but not in all cases. The PSR2000 is an excellent replacement for the PSR740 for me, and gives me the functionality that I had in the 740 only when I had XG works software hooked up to it.

AJ

AJ,

excellent piece of work, thank you.
If I may I would like to add the fact that,
surprisingly so, the PSR2000 turns out to have a DYNAMIC ARRANGER (be it of a limited nature.), the volume of ALL the acc. tracks respond to the touch. To the best of my knowledge this very expressive tool is absent on the PA-80, and (but here I am not sure) I seem to recall it is not even included on the PSR9000 !!!!
A further point I would like to raise is the DRUM section. As you already pointed out the amount of drumsets to pick and choose from is limited compared to the Korg, there is no user drumset on the PSR and, and this to me is very vital, unfortunately you can not
"manipulate " the drumtracks the way you can on the Korg PA-80, e.g. by muting the snare, or bass drums. (in this respect the Soltons are even better and absolutely the cream of the crop)
I add these two specific aspects (DRUMS and
DYNAMIC ARRANGER) because I sometimes fail to understand how easily they are glossed over in comparing new equipment, whereas to me they are overall important, and a very decisive factor in any new STYLE............

regards

john.

Thanks much John. Good point about the dynamic touch too. The Casio MZ2000 also has that and some other excellent functions that I now have on the PSR2000. Too bad it didn't have some of the sounds to go with it and any support from Casio.

AJ

AJ, thanks for your excellent detailed review.

John, thanks for pointing out the PSR2000's dynamic arranger feature, I'll definitely have to try that out.

I'm sure that without this board and valuable input from co-members, it would take us all (individually) much longer to discover all the secrets of our highly sophisticated keyboards. Let's keep the dialog going.