Can the psr2000 play the new styles and sweet sounds that are in the new psr2100.Arent some of these from the Tyros? If so how?

The PSR2000 can play the new styles from the PSR2100, but they won't sound quite the same. All of the notes will be the same, but not the instruments. For example, for the MediumJazz style, the 2100 uses a Live!GrandPiano and a Live!JazzGuitar in the accompaniment. When read into the 2000, these voices are read as the GrandPiano and JazzGuitar (the 2000 doesn't have these two voices.) Yamaha did use some of the new voices in the new styles, but not in the older styles. In addition, the OTS will also be a bit different. For this style, A used a Cool!Jazz Organ sound for main; the 2000 replaced this with a Drawbar Organ. B used a Live!GrandPiano and a Vibraphone; the 2000 showed a GrandPiano and a Vibraphone. C used Sweet!Flute & Cool!JazzSolGT; the 2000 used Sweet!Flute and JazzGuitar. Finally, for D, both instruments showed Sweet!TenorSax and BrassCombo. But even when the same voice is called for, it doesn't sound quite the same on the 2000. I have found that replacing the instrument with the preset instrument significantly improved the sound on the 2000. That is, replace the Sweet!Flute from the 2100 style with the Sweet!Flute in the 2000. Essentially, this is replacing any modifications to the instrument sound from the 2100 with the sound as it comes directly from the 2000. The Live!GrandPiano sounds feeble on the 2000, but putting in the regular 2000 GrandPiano and the sound is fine. This was also true when converting Tyros styles for use with the 2000. The Tyros voices were improved when replaced with equivalent 2000 voices. In some cases, such as the Harmonica, which was probably meant to be the Sweet!Harmonica, the normal Harmonica was often not as good as simply putting in some other main voice. I haven't had a chance to do much extensive testing, but it is my bet that the Tyros styles when played on a 2100 will not need any voice conversions. That is, the Sweet!Flute from the Tyros style will sound just fine when played on the 2100. Ditto for the Sweet!Harmonica, which IS on the 2100, but not the 2000.

Thanx Joe for the great answer to my question.
In your opinion is the upgrade to the 2100 worth it?

I enjoy the sound of my new 2100. The Live!GrandPiano is very nice, more mellow than the 2000 GrandPiano. I also like the new Live!JazzGuitar and the Cool!JazzOrgan. The new Live!ClassicGuitar makes a very good left-hand accompaniment voice. The new Sweet!Harmonica is a voice I will use a lot. Sweet!Violin sounds very nice as do the Sweet!Oboe, but for the music I play, like Beakybird, I won't use them that much. I'm not impressed with the Sweet!Flugelhorn and the various Sweet Brass sounds. Why we have Live Harpsichords is beyond me. I never think of the harpsichord when selecting voices.

Some of the additional styles are nice, but these keyboards have a large number of styles available that can be loaded direct from floppy -- and the floppy versions can be adjusted as desired by the user and saved that way. So, I give less weight to the internal styles.

I believe the extra memory will be useful. Instead of having only a couple of dozen styles in the USER area, I can put perhaps twice that many there. Adding that to a floppy disk full of "favorites" and that will provide for 50-70 external styles easily available -- quite an improvement over the 3 USER styles in the earlier keyboards. I haven't hooked up the USB port yet -- the manual gives all kinds of cautions about the order of turning things on with that port in use and I don't know if there is much of an advantage. A midi cable connection can be used to connect to a PC. As for copying files, there isn't a hard drive in there, a floppy can transfer files to the available USER area easily and quickly.

So what's it all worth? The keyboard cost the same as the 2000 and has more features. The 2000 was a great buy for the money and the 2100 is even better. If you have the 2000, and sell it, you can offset the cost of the 2100. So you compare that cost with the new features. If Yamaha had provided significant new capabilities -- like a "smart card" capability or hard disk capability, many owners would "upgrade" from the 2000. But they didn't. I suspect if you are ready for a big step up, then the Tyros would be the option. I have never heard a Tyros live, but the mega voices should add more realism to the voices & styles, it has lots more styles and voices, it has a hard drive. But it also has many voices that are available on the 2100. My guess is that the common voices will sound much the same -- again a demonstration of the value of the 2x00 series. And, the Tyros costs three times as much. Since I am maintaining the psrtutorial site, which focuses on the 2000, I felt somewhat obliged to get the 2100. But it is not at all like my previous upgrade (from 540 to 2000). My bottom line, as a 2000 owner, I'm happy with the new 2100, but not overly impressed.

I thought the current low street price for the Tyros is around $2,300, and that the street price for the PSR2100 is $1,200. Price difference: $1,100.

This comes to the Tyros being 1.92 times more expensive (NOT 3x) than the PSR2100. Even with the Tyros speakers added, the street price of the Tyros would still only be 2.04 times more than the PSR2100.

Scott

I wasn't trying to make a detailed price comparison between 2100 and Tyros. Ads for Tyros are generally at $2,800, including stand, speakers, etc. Granted, that's not $3,000. And the 2100 will be over $1,000, so three times is too much. How about "more than twice as much"?

[This message has been edited by Joe Waters (edited 07-02-2003).]

hi Joe:

I'll agree that the street price of the Tyros is about twice the street price of the PSR2100. The only reason I responded to your post was because I thought it important to make sure people weren't being scared away from or being mis-informed into thinking the Tyros was 3x more expensive than the PSR2100.

In regards to the Tyros stand and speaker option. I personally DON'T recommend purchasing the Tyros keyboard stand. It (imho) offers 'no advantages' over other brand stands of similar quality & features, and which sell for substantially less than the Tyros stand. I paid about $135 for the Tyros MS01 speaker system.

Though I still feel that both the PSR2100/2000 are terrific sounding 'bang for the buck' keyboards, the many additional features & improvments of the Tyros make it's additional expense, in my opinion, 'well worth' the price difference.

btw: Joe, are you still sponsoring the Tyros $2,300 group purchase?

Scott

Hi ScottY

Joe never had anything to do with the Tyros group purchase. That was Bob Gelman the moderator from the Yamaha PSR style forum on Yahoo. Yes, he, Bob, still has that great group purchase available.

Best

ScottL

Sigh..... Such Envy. Everyone's got these great PSR-2000's and 2100's. Me.., I've got a PSR-550. Anyone mind if I stop by and google over your keyboards? I promise not to drool on them--I'll wear a bib...

Squeak

Don't fret squeak D............I started saving my PSR2000 bankroll when the PSR550 was just out! It will take 3 more years to save for the next level.........maybe a Yamaha TyrosIII? You can come over and play my PSR2000 anytime! -charley