Didn't play the Korg on jobs - just tried it out for a couple weeks. A good friend bought it, said he couldn't make it sound right, and neither could I. To me, the pianos were thin, tinny sounding and no matter how hard I worked with them, they still sounded awful, though DonM says there's a huge difference between them on the 600 and the 1000. Same with the guitars - just didn't provide me with those incredible Yamaha effects that came standard with my S-950.

My friend took it back to GC, got a refund and ordered a S970 from Frank. Says it's the best sounding keyboard right out of the box that he ever owned. I agree that it really sounded much better than the PA600, at least to MY ears. Am I a bit Yamaha prejudiced? Yep, most likely true, though I have sure owned a lot of other arranger keyboards in my 30 years on stage, including a couple Rolands, a Korg I-3, and even some lesser known brands. Like DNJ, I kept coming back to the Yamaha - I just liked the way they sounded better than the other brands.

As for the PA systems, well, I've sure went through a lot of them in my career. Started off with an old Crate 100-watt guitar amp, then graduated to a bunch of Peavey's, mostly the ungodly heavy KB series, but also had a 600-watt stereo system with a couple big poles to hold up some 78-pound, 15-inch speakers and a big sub on the floor. Lord I never wish to go back to those days. Also had a pair of Barbetta Sona 32SC, which were lighter and punched out 450-watts each. I then went with the Bose L1 PAS and later to the Bose L1 Compacts, which were what I was using when I retired. The PA 600 was used both on the Barbettas and the Bose L1 Compact. Just never got the quality out of the PA600 that I got with the Yamaha systems. Yes, the PA600 had some punch, when properly tuned, but it lacked in so many other areas, IMO.

Whatever floats your boat!

Gary