Hi AJ,
I know what you mean. I had nothing to lose because mine was well and truly out of warranty. Probably safer not to do anything & just take it back to repair centre.

Good luck.

This isn't getting any better any time soon ... Now they want to ship the board out to Korg and let them look at it. I asked if they have any idea what the turn around time is and I can get no answer but based on having do something like this with another Keyboard in the past I am probably looking at several weeks at least.. They offered me the use of the same loaner and again I am uncomfortable taking it. My board is losing value as every day passes by and really all I want to do is be able to sell it, and have full confidence that I am not selling something that is going to break down on someone else. As an alternate, they offered me 1300 trade in on a board I paid 2200 for at the end of August. Totally unacceptable.

I am trying to stay relaxed but this is beginning to try my patience... I really don't know what else I can do to expedite this so I can have a working board that I feel confident selling to someone else... I understand that they no longer want to have the "in house" guy work on it, but whatever their issue is, mine is that I am going to be without my board for a while again, and while I wasn't expecting to get exactly back what I paid for it, I think 10 percent less might have been a reasonable offer, given I had the board for barely over 3 months before it began to malfunction.

Ok ... I guess I jumped the gun. The problem is solved and they have agreed to replace my PA800 with a brand new keyboard. So now I must apologize for being a more than just a bit impatient and admit that I was completely wrong about how this would turn out. I must give many kudos to Alto Music, particularly Chris and Jon Haber, for stepping up again and doing the right thing.
Thanks fellas... Al was 100% spot on !!

Hi AJ,
gee, that's decent of them.

That would actually give you the opportunity of selling the PA800 & upgrading to the pa3x.

The bonus for me PA3x versus PA800 are
the 4 fills, much smoother.
XG drumkits, makes it easier to convert my psr1500 styles across to korg.
Guitar Mode 2, the ability to have both midi notes & guitar mode notes on the same track. Brilliant.

Yes,they already told me that I could upgrade to the PA3x for the
price difference from what I paid on my PA800 to what the PA3x is going for. I'll miss the on board speakers a little and not sure I want to shell out the bucks for the speaker bar just yet, but PA3x it will be.

Hi AJ,
I haven't got the speaker bar yet either. Not sure if I'll actually bother, unless I need to make it more portable.
Sounds quite good running thru my amp & stereo speakers which makes it far from portable haahaa.

Hi Rikki,

I do occasionally play out locally and in most situations the on board speakers are enough to function as monitors. There are even some situations where the on board speakers are sufficient on their own, such as the "deck gigs" I do for a couple of my local neighbors.

I also often run my Tyros 2 output through the PA80 or 800 and leave my main sound system and studio monitors in the home studio off, except when I want to be louder or need to record through my sound card.

Still, there may just be a better solution than spending what they are asking for the speaker bar, even though it does sound rather good on the PA3x in the store. I have seen similar speaker bar ensembles at less than half the cost and I am at least going to give those a look to see how they spec out vs the Korg speaker bar and whether they will fit properly onto the board before I make final decision.

I am looking forward to getting a working Korg arranger once again, although I should clarify that by saying "new model Korg", as I still have the PA80 and after 10+ years it still works as well as it did the day I bought it.

Hi AJ,
so the speaker bar does sound really good?

They didn't have them in stock when I bought my PA3x about 6 months ago.
Haven't checked recently to see if they now have one.
I didn't want to order one, without hearing it first, it's not exactly cheap over here. $500+

It does sound really good but before I consider plunking down the money I want to explore other options as well. It also costs around $500 US Dollars and that is at Alto Music, the company I always dealt with here. The keyboard manager told me that the speaker is a very slow selling item. If it were more reasonably priced, maybe comparable to the Tyros speakers, ( aren't they under $300.00 ?? ) I'd buy it on the spot.

I rarely have to shop much when Alto has given me a quote on something because on the past occasions when when I have checked ( extensively sometimes ) I have found them to almost always be among the best on prices and what can I say,.. they took very good care of me in this matter, and because of that and my past experiences with them, I am not inclined to barter much on their prices anyway. I like that even as they have grown, I found through this situation that the boss is still readily accessible and as soon as he was made aware of what was happening he fixed my issue quickly and decisively. His name is Jon Haber and he has a good thing going on there in his store(s). I told him I hope I'm able to live long enough to spend another 20 grand there. LOL

I'll keep you posted. I may, in the end., decide to get the speaker bar anyway. I'd love to hear from other PA #x owners to get their take on it, including any potential good alternatives or if you did decide to purchase the speaker bar.

Cheers

Hi AJ,
I know of at least a couple of them bought it. Might be best to ask at korg forum. A lot of them don't frequent synthzone.