Post from YPKO forum
......."returned to the MIAC Show today for a second look at the T3. This time I had a better Digital Camera. I am posting 7 photos….first 3 in this Post (max of 1500kb per post I understand) and the last 4 in a followup post(s)
Unfortunately, today was even noisier than yesterday so it was still difficult to fully evaluate the Sound quality even with headphones on. The built-in Demo in the T3 has a
Comparison of some T2 vs T3 sounds….Piano, Organ and a few more. In general the T3 sounds seem to be more dynamic and even more realistic as far as I could tell (given the surrounding noise). The improved DSP is supposed to enhance (fuller sounding) even the sounds/voices which have not been changed. The Demos sound very good but I suspect they have been heavily edited using Sequencing software…don’t think most players will be able to reproduce those results playing the T3 live. However the two new SA2 buttons should be a great help for expressive playing and Yamaha’s demonstrator Blake used them in a nice demo of the SA2 Breathy Sax despite the fact that he had not had much time to practice with the T3….I can’t wait to hear demos from people like Michel Vonken in Europe!
The SA2 voices were available for Sax , Clarinet, Irish Pipe and Harmonica and they all sounded great. Some of the Piano, Organ, Guitar, Flute and Drum sounds are new/improved.. but they are not listed as SA2 voices. However they still sound very good.
Re The Styles from the T2….they seem to be all there. Some(most?) of them are supposed to have been tweaked/improved a bit but I could not tell with all the surrounding noise.
The on/off Power button is now on the rear panel.
Re Prices…..www.zzounds.com is advertising the T3 in the US for $3900USD …they state that the List price is $4,900 USD
For those who don’t already have a T2, getting a T3 for about the same price as a T2 I think is a pretty good deal….more features and improved quality for the same price(at least in North America). For those already owning a T2 and thinking of upgrading, I guess it comes down to factors such as:
-Price of T3 vs T2 in your country
-How much can you get for a Trade-in of your T2
-What’s your perceived value of the new features and improvements ( 80Gb HD, new improved screen, sliders, USB2, LAN port, rounded shape, SA2 , new styles, new voices etc) For many people it will come down to whether they feel the T3 sounds and plays much better than the T2 (which I feel is still a very good sounding keyboard).
Because of the surrounding noise problem I am sorry I cannot yet give a confident opinion of how much better the T3 sounds over the T2. You all will soon have your chance to try the T3 (hopefully in quieter surroundings) and make up your minds.
Finally some comforting comments. The production model T3 never crashed or hung up while I was there. Everything seemed to work well and hopefully this augers well for the reliability of the T3. My only complaint was the “non-intuitive” way the sliders worked sometimes when changing numerical level values (see comments in my first post). Might be faster to just use the Up/Down buttons like you already do with the T2. However for controlling the Drawbars, the sliders were reliable and worked quite well. Hope you find this Update and pics useful."
Allan
http://www.yamahapkowner.com/forum/index.php?topic=15125.0 [