A vast change in sounds of earlier arrangers to current models... and I don't mean, in a good way

Take a Korg PA1x or maybe a PA2x, and compare to the PA series today.

Take a Roland G70 , and compare it to BK's or E-A7..

The older models have a more analog feel to them, more punch, not as thin sounding as the newer models..

There may be many reasons but my guess would be the samples themselves, but mostly ac/dc converters were of better quality on flagship models of yesteryear.

I have had the chance to compare the above often, and know there is a difference.

What do you folks that have owned both think?

Modern DACs are way better than in the older models, and providing the associated components are of good quality and design you get less distortion, wider dynamic range and less noise, the downside is that they show up inconsistences in voices that the older versions masked, hence some of the older voices that have not been reworked have their flaws exposed, but newer voices have a quality of sound that older models cannot compete with. Yes, it can make some voices sound thin when compared to older models, but in fact it’s the older models that are muddy.
It’s like comparing vinyl to CD, the vinyl has warmth that the CD lacks, but when you compare them both with real instruments, you realise that vinyl is not as good (Accurate) as you thought it was, whereas the CD (If correctly recorded) sounds virtually identical.

Bill

Its the other way around...
The more analogue sound is in general created by {unwanted} harmonics
The newer dacs are much better and so are cleaner not creating those harmonics
And not just the dacs... also the samples.. they are much cleaner because of better technollogy

Bachus I know I am in the minority but I think the older more analog sounding instruments are more live sounding, and for the most part are more realistic.. Sounds like listening to a band.

Yes the new instruments have a lot of detail, but I find them more brittle, and lack warmth..

Cost of DAC's have come down in price... I wonder why?

When I referred to samples of the old/new instruments I am talking about initial sample size and less resampling to fit the newer instruments.. I don't have the answer , but almost anyone that has the older instruments I mentioned will attest to that.

Since memory and processing power are much more affordable today, there's no technological reason why sound quality should go down. That being said, the G-70 was a TOTL board and technology was ALREADY quite advanced by 2006. So any further improvements since then are incremental.

Where you really see it is with the low-end boards, which now sound almost as good as TOTL from years ago. Listen to some demos of Casio AiX, or Jeremy See's comparison between the Roland X-30 (not a real Roland BTW) and the Yamaha EW-410 (Ew! I know ;-) Don't like the feature sets on these, but they both sound good.

If the sound quality seems worse on today's TOTL, I suspect it has to do with effects, mastering, and EQ (all of which are user-adjustable), not the base sound samples or the DAC. My $.02

At one time Yamaha saxes, trumpets, and guitar were made so perfect, so clear, but they eliminated some of the overtones which gave the instruments its warmth. It is the same with a piano.

Fran may have a good point, John C.

I think there was a similar discussion when Tyros 5 came out and some said Tyros 4 had the better sounds (to which I wouldn't agree as far as I heard comparisons).
The older samples sometimes sound more direct, newer ones sometimes have more off-mic ambiance, pp and p velocity layers and things like that, which can make them sound more indirect.
I remember when I got the Roland Juno Stage in exchange for my old XP 80, I had some problems getting the Juno Stage pianos sound direct enough compared to the old XP 80 "piano", which consisted of a very short, looped fortissimo piano sample, but sounded very direct via speakers (however in no way realistic).

Here is a video talking about the same thing we are discussing.

In this example, the samples are obviously the same...
I wouldn‘t be surprised in the case of Roland E-80 vs BK-9 if Roland Europe even took the stupid step to compress some samples. The last years of Roland Europe were surely marked by some strange moves. But it could also be a different eq mastering...

i've been saying this since i went from the korg i series to the pa series. on my cds i use a horn section from the korg i5s . it sounded like a real horn section of a band. never could duplicate that sound on my pa600. i came close but it never had that warm soulful sound. and the drums (although tweakable) doesnt have that
warmth or soulful funk. i was told then its whats you are use to hearing. its been 12 years and my recording still sounded better with my old roland D-20 and korg I5s. maybe "the latest is not always better". im considering going back to the older stuff.

I would need more sound demos to be sure what it‘s about. In the example Fran posted we have two arrangers released about 6 years apart, which is not a long time. As Roland Europe squeezed about 2,000 sounds into the BK-9 and the company was already on its last legs, I‘m not completely sure they didn‘t play tricks with compression here, but the Tyros 4 vs. 5 case is a totally different one again.

Get some real instruments plus an older and newer keyboard (From the same manufacture) and play the same songs on them and you will find in 99.9% of cases the older model falls well short of the newer model when compared to the real instrument, even though from your memory the older one appeared to sound better.

Bill

Bill I am doing this now.. I uploaded the real thing from youtube and I will follow with a version from E-A7 and G70.
There are no effects or mastering on either keyboard, and as close as possible..


https://app.box.com/s/ek9mm6haug2uzkofn99imbqhcdnz9e9k

https://app.box.com/s/f4x2cael8u7rtkqlyiyvl60d4k29zsg1

E-A7 will certainly have compressed samples compared to BK-9 and probably G70, consider the price tag.

YouTube audio is not the best but one thing is clear, both of the audio samples fall well short of the real thing, however I would say that No.2 (MyRec 052) is the closest.

Bill

Bill, what real thing? Sax? Drums? Bass? Rhodes?

BTW: You favored the E-A7 over the G70

The Rhodes on the E-A7 is perfect(hard to beat).

I thought #2 was better because it reproduced e- piano and string levels more accurately (strings softer in background); slides/glides on sax was smoother and breathe sounds more evident. Very surprised to find out it was the EA7...now give it to me with one screen please....

Originally I used acoustic piano, and a mello/breathy sax. After I watched the video, I changed the Piano to Pure Rhodes on E-A7 and Studio EP on the G70.

Sax was changed to the Super Tenor on the E-A7 (was also available on the G70) but thought that the Honky Tenor was more like the video, so used it on the G70.


Maybe because I have both keyboards and play them daily.. I still prefer the G70 for reasons I mentioned..

So glad I own both