I need help urgently since the sale is ending very soon and I need to make my decision.

I need to have good pro-quality sound voices, styles and ability to save settings (transpose, styles and sounds) into registration memory. My playing style is similar to Uncle Dave - I use manual bass on left and right hand comping with drum rhytms only.

I have considered the following and consider them inferior for the budget less than $800: PSR550, Casio keyboards(WK1800 and MZ2000), Yamaha DGX series unless I miss something.

Any recommended website that offers real good prices is also appreciated.

Lukitoh,
If I had a choice between the PSR-550, WK series, or DGX keyboards I personally would take the Casio MZ-2000.. Of course the DGX series gives 76 and 88 keys but neither the PSR-550, WK series or DGX keyboards compare to the features of the MZ-2000.. The MZ has initial and aftertouch, full synth engine with 4 element voice structure, room for 8 registration instant recall settings in one bank, MZ has better action than PSR-550, it has an internal 40,000 note sequencer with the ability to hold 10 user patterns that has a capacity of 20,000 notes.. Also the MZ completely beats the 550, DGX's and WK's in terms of sequencing power. The MZ I think is the better of those choices.. Now with the PSR-1000, 640 and 740.. That depends on what you need.. Of course the PSR-1000 is the newer model, but keep in mind this replaces the PSR-640.. The PSR-1000 does however have a far better sequencer than both the 640 and 740.. Plus the PSR-1000 will allow you to customize your own voices. With the PSR-1000 you only have 32 note poly, and same with the 640.. The 740 can compare closer to the PSR-2000 since the 2000 replaced the 740.. The 740 will give you vocalizer, modulation wheel, drawbars, 12mbs of sound, but it doesn't have the sequencing or voice editing features of the PSR-1000... However the 740 does have 64 voice poly.. If it were me buying one of these I'd choose the PSR-1000, but that's for my personal needs.. What you have to do is decide what you really want from the keyboard.. Every keyboard you've listed will save your voice, transpose settings, and much more in the registrations.. They all do this..... Also the sequencers on the 550, 640 and 740 are all direct disk.. Meaning there is no internal memory for the keyboards song recording.. You have to have a disk in the drive to record.. What it does is use the disk as the memory for your music.. When you finish a track the keyboard will ask you save to disk or not... So it basically saves your tracks directly to disk after you record them... Some people found this to get in the way of song writing, while having to wait for the track to save before moving on.. The PSR-1000 and the MZ-2000 have internal memory and will keep your song in memory if you unplug the board.. Also they MZ-2000 will hold 10 songs in memory.. I think the amount the PSR-1000 holds depends on how much memory you are currently using....

Squeak

How about the voice quality of the PSR1000 compared to PSR740 ? Is it better ? Lets say both keyboards are plugged in to the same sound system. Which one will sound more professional ?

I'm talking about the basic sounds that I normally use like piano, brass, string, bass and sax. Or are they pretty much the same ?

I don't use the sequencer or song recording at all. Maybe once or twice. It's not that important to me. Vocalizer is also not important. The sound is what's important.

Well you have to look at it like this.. The PSR-740 has 12mbs dedicated to 267 panel voices and 13 drum kits.... From what I've been told by Yamaha the PSR-1000 has 8mb's, and thats dedicated to 233 panel voices and 15 drum kits.. This is almost something you have to hear for yourself.. The PSR-740 has 4mbs more memory but it also has 34 more panel voices than the PSR-1000, so I would think that they would sound pretty close the same to eachother. Again this is something you really have to hear.. When I run my PSR-550 through good monitors it sounds amazing because the PSR-550's internal speakers really don't do the keyboard any justice... The 740 and 1000 have way better speakers with good tweeters so the sound is going to be clean and crisp, and also sound more natural. If it's just clean sound you want and you're not really too interested in the sequencing then both the PSR-740 and the PSR-1000 would be a good choice.. They both sound great and you can't go wrong with either...

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 09-24-2002).]