From raisindot@yahoo.com Mon May 05 12:44:05 2014
Subject:Re: Kronos CX3 vs Kurzweil KB3

With all due respect back atcha, Jukefox, you're clearly biased against Kurzweil based on your experiences with long out of production equipment. I own a PC3 and the quality is absolutely superb. The action on the semi-weighted keyboard is fantastic and I have never had a single problem with it in all the time I have owned it. And, to correct you, the PC3 is a legacy product only because it is not being manufactured anymore. It is now, however, a "step behind" the current PC3X variants available. The PC3K is, for all intents and purposes, a PC3 with sampling memory added on. And the "LE" versions are simply more limited version of the PC3 with fewer bells and whistles. And, I'll reiterate that the number of knobs and sliders alone don't make one MIDI implementation better than another--it's the programming inside that makes the difference. And the PC3 has so much flexibility and power as a controller that they could probably remove the sound "guts" and just sell the great keyboard and MIDI controls as a dedicated controller. Now, all that power doesn't mean it's easy to use--it sure as hell isn't. Perhaps the Kronos is much better at making it easier to configure MIDI setups. I would imagine a big touch screen can help a lot in the area.

Certainly for me Kurzweil's biggest fault in not coming out with anything new over the past few years. The PCx architecture is certainly getting very long in the tooth and the new Forte and Artis stage pianos seem to be "holding pattern" keyboards designed to bring their best new sounds to the market now while they're still developing a workstation successor to the PC3.


And back to the OP, the most important thing in the decision should be one's personal preference for the sounds. It really is important to do a head to head comparison of the PC3x vs. Kronos X if you can. For me, other than the EPs, where the SV-1 and Kronos generation of Rhodes and Wurlies have totally placed Korg at the front of the pack in this category, I still prefer the "older" PC3 sounds on every front. But that's me. As it said far too often, YMMV. I don't think anyone can wrong choosing either one.