A U.S Customer who brought an instrument from synthplanet:

"I shopped around for a while to find a good digital piano. This same model KR-177 (IDENTICAL) sells for $2,800 at our local Roland dealer, which I thought was a BIG price, so I checked the internet. I found this piano, brand new, at Pianodepot.com, for $1,260 plus $180 shipping (it took only 2 days to get it from Europe to North Carolina via UPS!) (Yes, it's 110V and the plug is correct and the manual is in English) This site is out of Belgium, and their website is very segmented, but I ended up saving more money than I spent!!! The local dealers had pretty lame arguments why I should buy theirs for $3,000 as opposed to one from Europe for $1,500 with shipping (no warranty, no bench). Is the warranty worth $1,500 extra? I could buy another for that. I am very pleased. The US dealers are making a big killing on these things. I would have felt screwed if I had paid 3 grand. I guess that's why I saw a Mercedes parked out front of the local Yamaha dealer in Greensboro. They wanted $3,995 for a CVP103 Yamaha that you can get from Europe for less than half. They said that was a sale price. That's about twice the list price from Belgium."
A customer from USA

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Well, there are similar Questions over at Motivator.com, who are paying over $2,500 for a Motif 7 a hundreds of Dollars or so LESS will get you a Motif From synth planet....a Motif 8 that is.

Suppose it does break down? - suppose you break a key on your Yammmy 9000? would you expect to pay many hundreds of $$$ to get it right?. We are talking the worst scenario here By the way, since I have been having keyboards for over 20 years, and not a hitch with one of them (well over 20 boards).

O8

I have never had a problem with any of my instruments while under warranty. Once I had a stuck key on one of my older keyboards, and ended up replacing it myself. However, at one time I did have a problem which I thought had to do with the ZIP drive, for which I was going to take my instrument in. Boy, was I in for a shock - I found out that my local Roland dealer, a very reputable store, which I know occasionally participates in this forum, and has gotten good reviews from other users in the area, would require me to leave my instrument in their shop for two weeks just to have their tech take a look at it. This is before he could order any parts if needed. The way they presented it to me, I would have to part with my keyboard for well over a month to have this problem fixed. I have no idea what it would cost me, but I dare say that if a store in Europe could have guaranteed quick repair, I would have been better off shipping it off there and getting it fixed and shipped back to me.

Incidentally, when I bought one of my computers, some 4 years ago, our local CompUSA had a very similar policy for repairs, even under warranty. But I managed to reason with their service department. There was no one to reason with at the music store.

Regards,
Alex

Do you know where I would be able to purchase say a VA-76 or 9000 Pro a the lowest price. By the way it is only logical that the warranty is not worth half the price. If it breaks down you can buy a new one, even a newer model. Usually no matter what the manufa. covers within the first year anyway. If not again for half you can buy 2.

Hello arranger guru's,
Let me try and help you .......
There are 2 types of music stores in USA.
One that sells piano's . The other sells
professional keyboards ,guitars ,drums etc (MI) The profit margin is completely different .
What SYNTHPLANET is doing is selling Home digital pianos for a small margin (like what you would find in a full line music store)
like GC, MARS , Sam Ashe , Kayeland Music etc.

If a GC , Mars or Sam Ashe was permitted to carry these type of home digital piano's you would not see Clavinova's a for $4000.00 . The price would be 20 to 30 % lower. Making it more competetive with synthplanets prices !
MAKE SENSE ? Dano from Guitar Center

About warranties...

I, too, have owned quite a few keyboards. And, just like Alex, I've never had a problem with any of them while they were under warranty. In fact, I've only had two problems at all.

On a Technics organ, I had an intermittent problem that didn't prevent playing. Technics wanted me to drive the organ to their service center (25 miles away). I guess I was supposed to rent a truck. For the cost of a mere $125, they would tell me what was wrong. Of course, that didn't include parts and service charges.

And, on a Roland PMA-5, I had a screen "upgrade" performed at Roland's expense. I took it to my "authorized" Roland repair place. They had it for 6 weeks. They said the job took 20 minutes, but Roland took a long time to send the part. I asked them to order the part in advance so I could keep the unit until the part arrived. They said, "you're dreaming".