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Guns, Germs, Steel and the CDP-230R


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So I get out of my piano seat at the Casio to go to the kitchen and grab a steel thermos of cold water. I couldn't feel any condensation on the thermos, so I figured it was safe to place it on the deck of the digital piano. I set it just to the left of the right speaker, so it was just to the right of the HALL button. Immediately (not later when some condensate could theoretically form and drip into the piano) the tone of the piano changed. I put the thermos on the floor and powered the Casio off/on. Still wrong sound from Casio on all of its voices. My best description would be that the voices now lack some overtones. Timbre has changed. Some voices are way lower in volume for the position of the volume knob.

 

What is going on underneath the deck at that spot that would be sensitive to steel being moved close to it?

 

(I couldn't resist the reference to a book title  in my topic title.)

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Is this sound change evident in headphones, or just through speakers?  Very strange....could be moisture got into some circuitry in there and is affecting some of the ICs-without a schematic I couldn't be sure. Let it sit for a da-to dry inside and see if it reverts back to normal. Good thing it wasn't tomato soup-that really wreaks havoc on Casio keyboards.

:hitt:

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I have had the headphones plugged in for months. I just now pulled the plug and listened through the speakers. Same problem with the sound.

 

I live in a notoriously hot, arid climate, so I can't imagine there is any moisture left even if there had been some on the thermos 12 hours ago when this happened--which I doubt was the case, since I made an effort to run my fingers under the thermos before setting it down.

 

There wouldn't be any good reason for the thermos to have been manufactured to be magnetic, but I suppose it might happen to be for some reason. In that case, it could have produced some transient currents in some circuitry as it was set down on the deck The piano's power switch was on at the time, since I had just walked away for 15 seconds.

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Just another guess-it may have nothing to do with the Thermos. The headphone jack could be the culprit. If you've had the headphones plugged in for long time-this might have (I'm only guessing) in some way affected the connectivity of the circuits in that panel. Since this is a fairly complex circuit (in my PX's there are 7 connections for each jack) if one is connecting when it shouldn't, or the circuit is breaking when it shouldn't, I believe the tone of the CDP changes based upon whether the headphones are plugged in or the speakers are being used.  I'm not sure about that but try cleaning the connection to the headphone jack-some isopropyl alcohol and a pipe cleaner or whatever you can come up with. I don't like using q-tips due to lint but would probably be ok. I've been studying, trying to understand why the CDP pianos have such low impedance for the headphones-almost like an ipod or smartphone output impedance. i still haven't found an explanation.

 

Try a few different 1/8" headphone plugs too. could just be some corrosion or tarnish and a different shaped plug might behave differently. again, I am only guessing long-shot. And have you factory reset this?

 

Most integrated circuits will not be seriously affected by any ferrous metal being nearby-even if magnetic unless it is an eeprom (erasable programmable but Casios don't generally use those from what I have seen inside). Check all your user panel buttons too. If any are sticking, this might be doing strange things. spontaneous failure of a circuit is pretty rare, possible but 50/50 it might be mechanical. Keep us posted and yes I'd like to hear this too.

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I did the jack cleaning and the factory reset, but no changes in the sounds.

 

I am trying to install some music-studio-type software from a disc I bought weeks ago in order to record the Casio's sound, but am stymied by a cyclic redundancy check error popup.

 

However, I saw that a music store within a 10-minute drive of me was having a sale on, um..., Brand X digital pianos   🙃, and in fact I got what I thought was a pretty good deal on one. So I am back to plinking away on piano and don't know whether I will pursue solving the problem with my Casio.

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  • 3 months later...

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