Korg and Yamaha!!! This board rules in sound..

Awesome sounds for sure, and didn't even hear the great drums.
Look how awkward it is to use the mod and pb wheels though. Too far a reach.
Joystick on other models is a big improvement.

That, perhaps, and the Leslie sim, where I use the Neo Ventilator. making it the only board to beat out the Pa4X. Of coarse, we are speaking of sounds only, including styles.

Its just a matter of getting used to...
Takes time...

No Surprise there...

Indeed, the best realistic sounds/styles are Ketron's, IMHO.

Not so fast..

The Audya was an exceptional keyboard in its heyday but times change and technology continues to advance and there are better options today in my opinion. The video below is the Yamaha Genos with its 256 note polyphony vs. the Audya's 192 note polyphony. The Genos also has a USB 2.0 interface vs. the Audya's USB 1.1. The Genos also has 58 GB of flash memory (ssd) whereas the Audya simply has a mechanical hard drive. The Audya still costs $5,000 from what I understand whereas you can get a Genos for the same price as a Korg Pa4x if you know where to shop. The Audya acoustic Grand Piano is okay but the Genos is a step up in my opinion. Overall I think the Genos (and for that matter the Korg Pa4x also) sound better than the Audya but that's just me. To each his own right Fran? Don't get me wrong. The Audya is still a nice keyboard but Ketron really needs to step up to the plate and provide a worthy successor if you know what I mean. Still sounds pretty good though. And Ketron continues to provide updates from what I understand too so that's nice. The Genos is hands down the better arranger in my opinion. Again, to each his own. I probably won't change Fran's mind though. G-1000 anyone? Just kidding.

All the best,

Mike

Mike I said hard to beat.... not impossible to beat,,


Drums, bass, and sax... Audya still the best..

Audya is old...
Try the new SD9-pro

Ketron took another step...
Espescially where it comes to user interface
Same top knotch sound quallity

I went to an AJ demo session when the SD7 came out... and it was clear the Audya sound was superior to the SD7..
The special ram sounds in the SD7 were great and on par with Audya , but there were only about 40 sounds..

Again I will pass on what AJ told me the SD series is not the Audya replacement..

There comes a time when specs are just that ... specs on paper. This is a good reason why (for an example) rating a Powered speaker simply by what the manufacturer puts down as the number of 'watts' quickly dissolves in today's world, especially when you find out that those watts are NOT RMS. SPL is the game changer ... for now, until manufacturers figure out a way around that too since this never measured under exactly the same 'conditions' for each manufacturer.

Having said that, when it comes to Arranger keyboards, technology does count for ease of use, operating system and such, but when it comes to sound and style, due to different techniques used to acquire good sound, the only way you can really compare specifications is if they are categorized in EXACTLY the same fields or using the same technology .... else (as an example) a manufacturer's 128 note polyphony against another's 64 note can only be 'true' if they both used the same sampling technique (straight recordings, un-compressed samples, PCM, AWM, FM, same combination of either ... etc).

KETRON uses live uncompressed sounds and samples so taking KETRON's Mexican Trumpet or Alto Sax (for an example), when you play it, if you were to try and re-create this same sound on another instrument within the same price point, you will find yourself having to 'LAYER/use multiple trumpet/sax' sounds just to obtain this 1 voice. Now, if you layered say 3 voices on your instrument to get this 1 sound, this means every time you played 1 note, you are actually playing 3 (3 polyphonic notes are being used for each key you press) where as on the KETRON, for this same rich sound, only 1 note is being used. So if you play a cord of 3 notes, you are actually using 9 whereas the Ketron is only using 3. So in general, the KETRON's 64 note polyphony (when translated to other manufacturer's) is about 192.... or more when you now add the style engine!

Now, remember too that when it comes to AUDYA, even though it has 192 note polyphony, most of this is focused on the lead/right sounds, 5/10 MIDI tracks of the style and manual left sounds (oh by the way, the Audya is capable of playing 2 Lower/Left sounds (determined by the style) plus a dedicated independent LEFT voice (3 Left voices in total). Now since most of the styles are AUDIO styles, the Drums, Bass and Guitar tracks (in most cases) are NOT using up any polyphony (where as in another arranger, the Drums and Guitars are each consuming about 30 notes at a given time (when you factor in SUSTAINED/CROSS OVER notes)! Add that up during an entire performance and you quickly realize how 'unfair' it is to compare another Arranger with AUDYA when it comes to Polyphony ... simply because the AUDYA has more 'room' to work with, with less 'effort' to create equivalent sounds.

Now when it comes to Hard Drive (Standard AUDYA) or Solid State Drive (Audya AJAMSONIC), here is a specification with a level playing field and whose advantage you can feel and experience regardless of which arranger you are using. The SSD is noticeably faster and more reliable, regardless of the hardware you are using. USB (1.0 versus 2.0) again is a level specification which is actually noticeable mostly when you're at home transferring huge volumes of data to an from your keyboard - on the stage during performance or in the studio during recording sessions, the difference between USB 1.0 and USB 3.0 is hardly/barely noticeable. As for memory, again the technology makes a difference. As far as AUDYA goes, since it streams AUDIO from the HD/SSD (Korg Kronos does similar), having a large memory is not as vital as is the case with other arrangers. But if you are someone who depends a lot on custom sounds, extra memory won't hurt.

At the end of the day, when you create your musical product, the specs are not what created it (be it a live performance on stage or recording in the studio). I have yet to hear someone shout out to a keyboard player on the stage ..."man, you sounded great because your keyboard has USB 3.0 or fire wire or Dante or ....", nor has anyone said to a studio Engineer "this musical recording from XXXX sounded great because the instruments used to create the track had a SSD and D-Beam.

When manufacturers get to the point where specifications can be standardized FAIRLY (e.g. as was the case with GM), then specs will once more be ... what they used to be.

Just my 3cents until that moment comes .... :-)

AJ the ketron sd9 pro specs say true 128 voice polyphony..
And 64 parts multitimbral(being able to play 64 instruments at the same time, korg pa4x is 16, Genos and T5 is 32)..

Is that a lie? Since we are now confirming there is only 64 voices of Polyphony?


Also don’t forget that in korg and yamaha synthesis, often other samples in a sound are used instead as at the same time.. altough some sounds indeed can really really drain polyphony.. like the hammond organ on tyros5 that indeed uses up to 8 polyphony for every note played depending on how many drawbars are out...

I think the sd9 pro has all the important features left from the sd7, complete with some new samples, it steps above the audya... if not, the AJ should explain where the audya still outperforms the sd9 pro(And where the sd9pro improves on the audya)