havingfun

Yes, the PreSonus R65's appear to have a tweeter design similar to the Adam Audio monitors. Can't say anything about a sound comparison - no store in my area carries either monitor to audition. And as I mentioned earlier, it has been hard for me to compare monitors via YouTube audio recordings. The most accurate audition seems to be by connecting the monitors up to your specific keyboard and giving them a play.

My monitor quest is a somewhat long story. My goal was to improve over the sound from the keyboard's speakers for playing in a bedroom-sized room. I started with PreSonus E5's after hearing them auditioned with several other name-brand monitors on YouTube. However, I was disappointed with them once connected to my keyboard: the concert grand samples had poor base and the mids sounded hollow. I juiced up their response a bit with the keyboard's 3-band DSP equalizer and a sub-woofer, but could still not overcome the hollow mids. Next came Kali Audio LP-6's based on the many favorable reviews on the internet. Unfortunately, I tested them for only a short time with my keyboard since both monitors distorted badly (like they had brokens speaker cones) on specific notes from the keyboard (each monitor distorted on different notes). They played fine on other notes. Finally I upgraded to PreSonus R65's in hopes that the thin folded membrane tweeter would improve the mids, and that the larger woofer (6.5") would fix the base. Once I hooked these up, one of these also distorted on specific notes from the keyboard and was returned. The replacement sounds fine so I finally have two decent-sounding monitors which sound similar to the sounds I get out of headphones with this keyboard. They are only rated at 150 watts and I use them just for personal listening, not gigging. I can't compare them to the 1000 watt QSC's you mention.

"Good sound" is very subjective - everyone will have a somewhat different opinion. I agree that the sound from the on-board PX-S speakers is not great - makes the Concert Grand piano sound hollow and "tinny" to my ear, and does not do justice to the nice samples stored in the keyboard. However, in my view, the sound is not awful, either. Given the price point and the small dimensions for the keyboards, the sound production is OK. But to get good fidelity from the keyboard, you will probably need to upgrade to decent monitors. My limited sound testing resulted in upgrading the monitors twice before I was satisfied. Unfortunately, I found that I had to audition the monitors-with-keyboard in person; the sounds recorded in videos did not seem to correlate well to the live sound. For example, PianoMan Chuck put out a video where the on-board speakers sound pretty good:

No problem at all for me. With a light positioned to illuminate sheet music on the music stand, any glare bounces sideways or back away from my eyes. Plus the blossy surface is easy to wipe clean.

I have an 88-key spandex cloth cover from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CZTOPSG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It is very stretchy and even fits over the music stand if needed.

A Guitar Center store nearby finally got in a new stock of Casio PX-S1000's so I had a chance to compare the concert grand samples on their store keyboard with mine. As suspected, the "twang" was the same for the three notes I have mentioned in earlier posts. The store salesman was interested in my comparison experiment, so he came over to the keyboard to listen for himself and readily picked up on the unpleasant resonances. He guessed it was too much tremolo, maybe from the "Acoustic Simulator"? And to Mike Martin's earlier point, the twang is audible starting at least a second after the notes are played so long as the notes are sustained (either by holding the key down or depressing the sustain pedal). Releasing the key quickly (no sustain) eliminates the twang on my keyboard (all notes sounding great). And as Brooster stated, the S3000 has very good sounding acoustic pianos on 84 notes, and I still find mine very enjoyable to play.

So is there a list somewhere with the definitions and characteristics of each of the 92 "amp cabinet types" to use as a starting point? Seems like without that, it will be a big effort to wade through each of the cabinet types and variations within the cabinet types to see if any implementation of this DSP could improve my monitor sound. Maybe this DSP cannot even be used for this purpose?

I could use some help with the AMP Cab DSP. I am guessing by the brief description on page EN-89 of the User's Guide that this DSP can be added to a tone to modify the sound from my monitors. The keyboard sound played through my headphone amp and headphones is dramatically better than through my monitors, so improving the monitor sound would be nice if possible. So if that is the intent of this DSP, how do I choose among the 92 "amp cabinet types" listed in the Guide, and what do the Display names (FD-PRNST through AC-SIM) mean?

Mike: With my keyboard, Damper Resonance provides a beautiful "after tone" which sounds almost like a whispery echo in a large room after the key is struck. This is in addition to the sustained note. When I turn the Damper Resonance off, the sustain pedal still sustains the note as before, but the whisper is gone. Neither Damper Resonance on or off effects the unpleasant "twang". And by the way, all notes on my keyboard sound great with the sustain pedal not depressed, so apparently the samples of the 9 foot concert grand are indeed very good. I feel like I am beating a dead horse here. No one else is either hearing the sound I hear or if they are, are not annoyed with it. Setting the Hall Simulator to N.Y. Club helps a little. I can live with that. The rest of the Concert Grand notes sound wonderful, particularly when sustained. Thanks for your patience on this.

Mike: thanks for your response. It makes sense that what I hear is in the note samples since these specific keys play fine (clean resonances) with all the other piano tones except the five I noted. Also, I would expect that a keyboard sound problem would impact more than just 3 keys. Sadly, the twang or resonance I hear on these 3 keys does not seem to complement the tone of the notes played as do the many other sympathetic resonances that are audible with other notes. If I learn any more about this issue, I will report back on this forum.

Here is a second attempt at providing a video of my keyboard "twang". This time I recorded with my phone close to the left on-board speaker. I plan to do an audio test of a retailer's PX-S1000 to see if the same problem exists in a second keyboard, but currently their Casio's are out of stock. 20190529_155600.mp4

I appreciate your help, Jokeyman. I have applied a stereo 3-band equalizer DSP to my keyboard to try to remove the "twang" with no benefit. The Grand Piano Concert tone has a default monaural 1 band equalizer DSP assigned to it, but Casio has it turned off, so I assume it has no effect on the sound. (Grand Piano Concert tones are in stereo). I am guessing that Casio assigned this default DSP just as a place holder, since it makes no sense to transform the tone to monaural. When I turn it on, it plays all keyboard notes in monaural as expected, and as expected, it sounds bad compared to the stereo version. If I understand correctly, there are 26 other DSP modules (beyond the 2 mentioned above) that can be assigned in place of the silly default DSP. It will take a while for me to wade through those to see if any of them reduce the twang I hear. When one of these is substituted for the default DSP and turned on, it apparently adds some sound effect on top of the basic tones (i.e. post-processing the original samples). Each of these additional DSPs has parameters that can be adjusted individually. As far as I can tell, there is no way to adjust the basic tone samples themselves. So to be clear, the Grand Piano Concert tones with twang are in stereo. And also, they are audible (to me) via the on-board speakers, my monitor speakers, earbuds, and my headphone amp/headphones (with all speakers turned off).

I raised the issue of note "twang" a few days back (see above). I should emphasize that it is a peculiar sound that occurs a full second or two after specific keys are played and only when the sustain pedal is depressed - so maybe not easy to hear at first. I have experimented with the Equalizer DSPs but as expected, they broadly change the frequency response of the keyboard but I can't seem to find any settings that reduce the twang on these 3 notes. I see that this topic has had well over 100 views to date but no other PX-S3000 owners have commented on whether they are hearing the problem with their own keyboards. So is no one else having this problem? If not, this may strictly be a problem with just one keyboard . . .

Yes, I agree. Grand Piano Concert has its default DSP as Mono 1-Band EQ (not sure why), but it is turned off. If I turn it on, it collapses the stereo samples to mono (and sounds terrible).

Video (above) does not seem to include my text. That is a video of my keyboard with the "twang". Frankly, the speaker on my phone did not seem to pick up the problem sound very well. Not sure if you can hear it.

20190523_155304.mp4 20190523_155304.mp4

I have detected an unpleasant "resonance" or "twang" on several keys of my PX-S3000: namely G2, G#2, and A2. The "twang" only occurs with the sustain pedal depressed, and only occurs on 5 of the 28 piano tones (001, 002, 003, 005, and 006). Unfortunately, 001 is the Grand Piano Concert tone which is mostly what I play. The twang becomes audible about 2 seconds after the note is played, and lasts as long as the sustain pedal is depressed and the note plays. It almost sounds like a slightly flat version of the note played. It is most evident when the notes are played through the on-board speakers, but can also be plainly heard through my monitor speakers and my good headphone amp/headphone combo. It is very slightly worse when Hall/Reverb is set to Berlin Hall, and very slightly better when set to N.Y. Club. I have turned off all the Accoustic Simulator options (string resonance, damper resonance, etc). Chorus Type and Brillance have no effect on the twang. To address this twang, I have started to play with the DSP settings but I am skeptical that this approach will work since the problem is audible on just 3 keys. I am also a bit overwhelmed with the variety of DSP adjustment options and the difficulty in hearing what they change. From my first dabble in DSP settings, I think the default DSP for Grand Piano Concert is Mono 1-Band EQ. There are 5 other equalizer DSPs, a Tone Control, Piano Effect, and Amp Cab DSPs that might be reasonable to substitute for the default and adjust. By the way, I won't be mixing or recording with this keyboard so there will be no down-stream DAW or other electronics to adjust instead of the keyboard. So is anyone observing the same "twang" on the keys mentioned above? Is adjusting the DSPs a reasonable approach to improving the sound?

Ah, so there is an Upper 1 and an Upper 2 for a registration even though that registration has no layers or splits? So I tried your suggestion: set the concert grand registration with Upper 1 at Volume 127 and Upper 2 at Volume 40 which matches the volume of the strings in the second registration. Bingo. The transition from the first registration to the second and back are both seamless! Also the first registration plays at volume 127 over all keys despite having an Upper 2 set at 40. Thanks, Brad!

Maybe i don't fully understand the definition of Upper 1 and Upper 2. I want the concert grand to play at full volume (127) so I did not set any additional volume levels for it in the concert grand registration. I want the slow strings to play quietly (volume 40). So I set Upper 1 to Volume 40 in the layered registration (concert grand plus slow strings). Doing this, each registration plays at the desired volume and the transition between the first registration and the second is smooth as silk. But coming back to the first registration is when the jump in volume for the strings occurs. If I set the volume of the concert grand registration to 40, I presume the transition back would be smooth, but then there would be no difference in volume between the grand and the strings. If there is no solution short of adding an expression pedal, this seems like a software bug for Casio to fix.

After more testing, I discovered that the transition back to the first registration is not fixed by releasing the sustain pedal, just improved. So long as there is still some resonance on from the strings, even with the sustain pedal off, the quiet strings jump to full volume (briefly) when I switch back to the first (no layer) registration. Not good.

I have encountered an issue with Layers in my PX-S3000: I created a layer with concert grand and slow strings. To lower the volume of slow strings, I adjusted "Part Volume" in the Keyboard directory; namely Upper2 Part. I stored the layer with the quiet strings as a registration. When I play a song starting with just the concert grand registration, I can transition to the second registration with the grand layered with the quiet strings, and it sounds great with a smooth transition. However, when I reselect the first registration (non-layered concert grand) to finish the song, the slow strings continue to play while the sustain pedal is depressed, but now at the max volume of the concert grand. The jump in slow string volume is unpleasant. The only way I have found to prevent this is to release the sustain pedal before switching back to the first registration. Is there another, better, way that makes the transition back smoother?

After many hours of playing with no problems, my keyboard jumped back into a split "state" all on its own (twice in one day). Each of these occurred during power up with no keys or sustain pedal being depressed (and no power outages in my house). I selected one of my stored registrations and that was successful, and the unwanted split state disappeared. So it is easy to get out of the wrong state, but still bothersome if it occurs while playing. As before, there is no indication on the LCD screen to indicate the unwanted state when it occurs. I have not checked all 96 registration setups to see if one of them has a split with the split point and tones of the unwanted state, but if so, it is not a registration I made.

I am not so lucky. I just got a USB Type A female to female adaptor so that I could connect a USB Type B cable with a Type A male end to my android charging cable (i.e. Type A male to USB micro connector). Chordana for Piano STILL will not recognize the Casio PX-S3000!!! Any other ideas on how to fix this? Is there some other way of verifying that I have conductivity from the PX-S3000 to my android phone?

My PX-S3000 jumps into "strange states" every so often. It jumps into Layers, Splits, and Auto Accompaniment all on its own. This happens as I am playing and usually when many notes are being played simultaneously (has happened 6 times over about 15 hours of play time). When it happens, the volume of the layer, split, or auto accompaniment seems very loud, so it is startling. I have not been able to recreate the problem so I don't know a precise sequence of key strokes and sustain pedal that causes this. When in these "states", the Display does not show the new "state" nor are there any Rhythm lights indicating something is selected there. There are no error messages on the screen. Depressing the Layer button or the Split button does not turn off the erroneous "state" but simply adds another layer or split on top, If I cycle power on the keyboard, the problem resolves itself. If Auto Resume is on, the only way to get out of the erroneous "state" is with a keyboard reset. Help!

Thobert: I just got my PX-S3000. I don't like the tinny sound of the tiny on-board speakers so I connected my line-outs to a 100W stereo amp (I used the "video" RCA inputs on the amp). My bookshelf speakers get driven well with this set up (and sound much better than the keyboard speakers). I have the keyboard set at about 3/4 volume and the amp at about 1/2 max volume. If there are any other tests you would like me to try with my set up, let me know. Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to measure the line-out peak to peak voltages.