Last spring our dealer had invited the Roland
import dealer to demonstrate the VA7 to his
shop. I had bought my PSR9000 about three
months before but still I went to see the demo
because I was so interested of these high end
keyboards. The import dealer asked me what
keyboard I have and when I told him that I
have PSR9000 he wanted me to compare these two
keyboards. There was also a customer in front
of the KN6000 and he wanted me to compare that
keyboard also. I told them that I can compare
these three keyboards but first I want to play
the VA7 with my own hands. Yesterday then I
had a chance to play the VA7 in the instrument
shop and now I would like give my opinion
about it and compare it to PSR9000 and KN6000.
But still I want say that I am only 17 years
old and I play just as a hobby in my small
home studio so this opinion is nothing special
but I hope that people would still read it and
I hope that people also understands me because
my english is so poor.

Design and user friendlyness

I think the KN6000 is the most beautiful of
the three and it also has the best screen.
It is huge and the colors are nice. And my
opinion is that it is also the most user
friendly of the three. So the KN6000 is the
winner here. PSR9000 is also very user
friendly and the design is very beautiful but
KN6000 is the best. I think the VA7 is the
loser here. It is a good looking keyboard but
not so user friendly. For example I hate the
touch screen and the way you select the sounds
and styles is not good for me.

The sounds

First I want to say that all the three have
great sounds. All the three can sound a bit
different compared to each other but they all
sound great. Of course there are some sounds
that I don´t like. I for example hate the pipe
organs and the strings on the KN6000 and the
synth sounds on the VA7 and the few brass
sounds on the PSR9000 but I also like the
piano sounds on the KN6000 (especially the
Steinway grand piano), the saxophones on the
PSR9000 and some electric piano sounds on the
VA7. So they all sound great and have only few
bad sounds. Still to my ear the PSR9000 sounds
the most realistic. Still the difference
compared to the other two is very small.

Internal sound system

I think the KN6000 has the best sound system.
You can play very loud with the KN6000 and no
distortion at all and no matter how loud you
have the speakers not hiss AT ALL. And that is
a very good thing. Still it is not good to
play loud because you ears and the keyboard
suffers of the loud playing. The quality of
speakers on the KN6000 is very good also but
still PSR9000 has the best internal speakers.
They don´t go as loud as the speakers on the
KN6000 and on the very high volumes the sound
is distorted but this is not a problem because
I don´t play loud. Here the VA7 loses again.
The speakers don´t go so loud compared to the
other two keyboards and you could hear the
distortion even in lower volumes. The sound
quality of the speakers is good. Much the same
level compared to KN6000 but they both lose to
PSR9000.

The styles

KN6000 has the best styles. The quality and
the beat is fantastic. They sound so realistic
that I can not find words to describe it. I
remember when I had the KN6000 at home for one
weekend (I had asked it for home trial) about
year ago and I had connected it to our high
quality hifi speakers I played the old latin
songs and it sounded like a real latin band
playing in front of me (still I was the
player) and that was one of the greatest
musical experiences of my life. Not only the
latin styles are great. All the styles are
are the best on the KN6000. The styles on the
VA7 and PSR9000 sound also great. To my ear
the quality of the styles is equal and the
rhythm also. So KN6000 is the winner here and
VA7 and PSR9000 are the losers but not bad
losers.

Features

Here we don´t have winners or losers. KN6000
has the best editing functions and I think
that the recording functions are also the best
and it has also the style converter and sound
controller and you can also install a 3,2 gb
hard disk on it which is very expensive. But
on the KN6000 you also have very bad vocoder
and no sampler. On the VA7 you have no vocal
harmonizer and you can not install a hard disk
on it but you have internal zip drive, D-beam,
ribbon controller and sampler/variphrase. The
variphrase is a great feature but for me it is
useless. In the PSR9000 you don´t have these
things you have in the VA7 but you still have
a normal sampler and a high quality vocal
harmonizer and you can install a hard disk on
it and you have SCSI-interface, PC-keyboard
interface and these good things you don´t have
in the VA7. And I almost forgot that in the
PSR9000 you have also a lot of weight so
carrying the PSR9000 is a very good sport
(Think Positive). So if you want to buy one
of these keyboards you have to know what
features you need and what features you don´t
need. I need the features which the PSR9000
has some other people want for example the
ribbon controller and d beam but not vocoder
or SCSI-interface.

So these are all very good keyboards and it is
very difficult to say which of them is the
best. For me the PSR9000 is the way to go.
There is the pro version coming which has
something more than the normal PSR9000 but
without the internal speakers the pro version
is not the right choice for me and it is also
more expensive.

Micco

Hi Micco!

Thanks for your help. I appreciate it. I myself am 22 and also just Hobby, not playing at parties and gigs like a lot of pro players here. I dont know what a C#911 Roothless is hahah. But I enyoy playing Balkan music. Therefore I need a keyboard that doesnt focus on totality but on freedom. That mean I have a Korg cause its the only perfect machine for me.

Enyoy playing!

Ilija

PS Got some pics of you and your machine?

Hi Micco

It is interesting to hear so many positive comments on the KN6000. I just bought a Roland 5080 sound module, so the internal sounds are less critical. I have a Yamaha PSR8000 which seems dated now. My next arranger might be another Yamaha because I like the emphasis on quality vocal harmony.

Thanks for your review.

Micco,

Thanx for your excellent review of some of the top of the line keyboards. I too will agree with mostly what you said being I have tried them all also.. I wish you would have included the X1 too in your report, I'm enjoying playing the Solton X1 like no other.
But what I would like to say is that I hope people realize from your post is that it is a very personal thing to play a keyboard of your choice. Why? Because we all play them for different reasons, we play at different levels, we all have different interpetations of what is a "GREAT SOUND" and we all use them for different purposes. This alone is a tremendous factor in choosing an arranger keyboard. Whats right and wrong, what has more or less is not the answer, but "Whats Best For You" as a musician to make music for the purpose that is intended to be, with the instrument it takes to do so, new or old doesn't mean anything. What matters is making music the Best you know how to and most of all "Enjoying it to the MAX" .

donny

What is GREAT is these young people getting involved with arranger keyboards, and also having the maturity to realize that the choice is a very personal one. So far the 9000 works best for me, and I need another sport besides golf anyway. :>) But having played the X1 and the KN6000, I can readily appreciate that they have wonderful features, some of which I wish mine had. But I choose the 9000 because ITS feature are ones I feel I need most.
In order for these companies to continue doing the research and development to produce newer and better models, we need the younger musicians to be involved. There are just not that many of us "old pros" buying one keyboard every year or so to support the market.
Don

"Well said everyone!" This is why I find myself keying up this forum so many times a day.
George Kaye

Hello

I have also compared the Solton X1 to Yamaha
PSR9000 and Technics KN6000. I wrote that
comparison to this forum a long time ago. It
was the time when there wasn´t any VA7s
around. If you search some pages back you will
find this comparison. I wrote it after I got
my PSR9000.



Micco

>Originally posted by Micco:

>I have also compared the Solton X1 to Yamaha
>PSR9000 and Technics
>Micco

Here is the link to Micco's excellent X1, PSR9000,KN6000 comparison:
http://www.synthworld.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/000357.html

- Scott