System Startup Failed; Brand New Kronos

[Derek Cook]

And my Montage 7 has been 100% rock solid so far......

It’s pot luck when it comes to hardware reliability, and we’re lucky to live in an era where hardware reliability is pretty darn good, but statistically speaking there will always be a few lemons out there..... What is sheer bad luck (Kronos or Montage) is getting two bad units in a row.

I’ve had about half a dozen crashes on my Kronos since 2014, but that is in my studio where I do not bother running a UPS, so all were probably power related (I hope). It has never let me down on stage where it is UPS powered. But it is well looked after and transported in the official Korg hard case.

[Derek Cook]

And my Montage 7 has been 100% rock solid so far......

It’s pot luck when it comes to hardware reliability, but we’re luck to live in an era where hardware reliability is pretty darn good, but statistically speaking there will always be a few lemons out there.....

[Euro73_]

Same here, just brought a new Korg Kronos. Received today 1st April 2021, turned it on and system failure.

Cannot believe it, waited half a life time, truth is I'm thinking of getting a refund and scrapping korg completely.

In the past 2mins I've past through the stages of really happy, shocked, anger and now gloom.

[GregC]

having that failure on a new keyboard is ridiculous.

Have your retailer/disti replace it ASAP

[Docflick]

Wow, that would be frustrating!

Was the box intact? Did it show any signs of being thrown around during shipping? If so, that could explain the start up error on a brand new unit.

As Greg suggests, I would return it and get a replacement.

I wouldn’t give up on the Kronos, however. I’ve owned three different Kronos units over the past six years, and I think I had a start up error maybe twice (actually, on one of the units, I’ve never had any error).

I would be equally ticked off, though, if I had it right out of the gate with a new unit.

[Musicwithharry]

I am surprised that Korg has let this go on this long. This thread started in 2018 and it is now 2021. This is more than enough time for Korg to find/fix whatever problem that is causing these issues for the Kronos users...

I wonder how many users sent a direct message to Korg about this and simply chose to go through the place they purchased it at instead...

With that said, Korg should have their finger on the pulse of their equipment and with Sweetwater, Chuck Surack (owner/founder) would haev probably contacted Korg directly as well (I believe). SW is the leading sales/service company out there for us.

I did not use SW for a long time but that was back when they were not selling their products at the prices the other stores were. It was only after they changed their sales model that I started buying from them. I pretty much use them myself for just about everything, unless I can find a better deal somewhere else or they do not have what I want in stock.

In fact, I just bought the Nu:Tekt this morning from them and plan on using it as an EFX processor for my Reface CS (that I also got from them).

I would not abandon Korg completely just because a product is defective. EVERY company has something wrong with a synth every now and then and yes, it is extremely inconvenient and frustrating when it does happen. Maybe, for whatever reason, Korg has not been made aware enough of this issue with the Kronos.

Grace,
Harry

[Docflick]

I would not abandon Korg completely just because a product is defective. EVERY company has something wrong with a synth every now and then and yes, it is extremely inconvenient and frustrating when it does happen. Maybe, for whatever reason, Korg has not been made aware enough of this issue with the Kronos.

Yes indeed. Even the mighty Yamaha, who (until recently) have had a stellar reputation for product reliability. I have owned many Yamaha keyboards over the years. While I had no issues with most of them, my Motif 6 needed a PCB replacement (the buttons on one side of the front panel suddenly stopped working) and my brand new Montage 6's touchscreen went haywire after about 16 months (and the Montage only occasionally left my home, and always in a Gator case).

So this is not a "Korg problem," as you point out. That said, the Kronos is the only board currently in production that is built on what is essentially PC tech – with all that goes with computer reliability. Not sure what Korg could do address these types of boot issues, given the overall design of Kronos.

[GregC]

[q

That said, the Kronos is the only board currently in production that is built on what is essentially PC tech – with all that goes with computer reliability. Not sure what Korg could do address these types of boot issues, given the overall design of Kronos.

theoretical discussions are not easy on defect fact finding. We don't have enough data and never will. we don't have sufficient data on defect occurrence, either.

All I can add is that Kronos is an assembled key board. Thus, Korg relies on the reliability of 3rd party components. And this reliance does not allow for a sketchy bunch of components.

It simply should not be the owners headache. Its a Korg problem- an owner should take steps to allow Korg to own their problem. Obvious the retailer and disti plays a middle man role.

New Kronos owners have a 2 yr standard Korg warranty. They should use it.

[Docflick]

[q

That said, the Kronos is the only board currently in production that is built on what is essentially PC tech – with all that goes with computer reliability. Not sure what Korg could do address these types of boot issues, given the overall design of Kronos.

theoretical discussions are not easy on defect fact finding. We don't have enough data and never will. we don't have sufficient data on defect occurrence, either.

All I can add is that Kronos is an assembled key board. Thus, Korg relies on the reliability of 3rd party components. And this reliance does not allow for a sketchy bunch of components.

Right. As others have pointed out — and is obvious from human nature —owners who have problems are much more likely to report them on forums than those who experience no issues at all. We really do not know how prevalent any defects really are. We simply do not have the numbers, only anecdotal evidence at best.

Perhaps it is the "assembled" nature of the Kronos that makes it more susceptible to quality control issues than other boards. That said, my new Fantom – which is built on proprietary, Roland-produced BMC chips – had issues with crashing and weird parameter freezes until I upgraded the OS.

This might simply be the case of, the more complex you make a system, the more susceptible it is to failure.

[GregC]

[q


theoretical discussions are not easy on defect fact finding. We don't have enough data and never will. we don't have sufficient data on defect occurrence, either.

All I can add is that Kronos is an assembled key board. Thus, Korg relies on the reliability of 3rd party components. And this reliance does not allow for a sketchy bunch of components.

Right. As others have pointed out — and is obvious from human nature —owners who have problems are much more likely to report them on forums than those who experience no issues at all. We really do not know how prevalent any defects really are. We simply do not have the numbers, only anecdotal evidence at best.

Perhaps it is the "assembled" nature of the Kronos that makes it more susceptible to quality control issues than other boards.

This might simply be the case of, the more complex you make a system, the more susceptible it is to failure.

Kronos has a brief list [?] of components that are from 3rd parties:

power supply
TFT LCD
factory SSD
RAM
cables and connectors
motherboard

but this is not to assume they are likely to 'fail '.

What makes accurate diagnosis on Internet sketchy is we don't have all the data- did the keyboard fall off the truck ? Is it truly Factory sealed A stock ?
Was it exposed to extreme temps ? or high humidity ?

Did the new owner use a sketchy outlet or funky power strip in his home ?
Are other devices, PC, midi instruments attached ?

For sure, Kronos demands steady power.

[Euro73_]

Just brought a new Korg Kronos, delivered yesterday 1st April 2021. What better timing, I took the week off especially for this arrival.

First boot up OK, pressed one single key and a high pitched noise coming out through the monitors. Everything froze.

2nd, 3rd and 4th boot up came to system error detected.

5th boot up tried another sound, and that high pitched noise with all frozen.

I have waited a long time for this machine, and am beyond angry now.

I've contacted Thomann through the day, one reply to make a video of the problem.

Too late its packed up and I want it out. ASAP.

[Musicwithharry]

Just brought a new Korg Kronos, delivered yesterday 1st April 2021. What better timing, I took the week off especially for this arrival.

First boot up OK, pressed one single key and a high pitched noise coming out through the monitors. Everything froze.

2nd, 3rd and 4th boot up came to system error detected.

5th boot up tried another sound, and that high pitched noise with all frozen.

I have waited a long time for this machine, and am beyond angry now.

I've contacted Thomann through the day, one reply to make a video of the problem.

Too late its packed up and I want it out. ASAP.

This is frustrating, indeed. I would get your $$ back and find another retailer to get a Kronos from.

Maybe there was something in shipping from the factories that caused this issue. Maybe it is a hardware issue. Maybe it is something else. In either case, I would send a message to Korg explaining your problem, IF ONLY to learn about the problems you had. I would even link to this thread in the forum in your message to them so they can read about the other users too.

In this day of technology and ease of information, I find it hard to belive they DON'T know what is going on, but it is possible.

I would attempt to get past the feelings of anger an such (which can be hard to do when you are invested in such a product) and look at things logically and clearly, because we do not know what the problem really is.

For all we know, there could be a bad run of PC boards or something that Korg uses that is causing this problem.

Another poster said that the Kronos is the only keyboard that is essentially PC tech. That is not completely true, because almost every keyboard these days is PC tech. Maybe they are not running Windows or Mac like we would think, but so many of them are at least running some kind of Linux kernel and then they add their own programming to it. EVERY one of these digital machines is running a computer of some kind inside to do what it is doing.

I remember back in the 1990's when I was in a band and my main keyboard was an Ensoniq VFX-SD. It was/is a magical synth with so much character and life - so much more so than the Korg M1, Roland D-50, and what Yamaha was offering back then. I LOVED that machine and learned everything about it. Because of all of the tech in that keyboard, it seemed like nothing could catch up to them.

Well, it had a problem with the polyphonic aftertouch keybed. Ensoniq used a water-soluable solder to join the three boards that made up the keybed and after a period of time, they started to fail. We sent that VFX-SD back to the Ensoniq HQ THREE TIMES, and they still did not get it fixed. In fact, they struggled to determine what actually caused the issue. It made it to where the keyboard was unreliable on stage and we had to control the keyboard from an external unit MIDIed to it. In my case, we were doing this huge show, the VFX-SD decided to not calibrate the keybed, and I had to hook a Yamaha DX7 up to it to play the sounds on the VFX-SD.

Ensoniq finally figured it out, but the problem had lasted through not only the VFX line (which were the VFX and VFX-SD), but also the original model of the SD-1 (which was an upgraded VFX-SD but with 16-bit piano waveforms). It was somewhere in the SD-1 line where they figured it out and ended up hard-soldering the keybed boards together, fixing the issue. After we sent the VFX-SD back for this final fix, it never failed. In fact, I have two VFX synths still in my studio (one is the VFX-SD) and I have performed the fix on the VFX and it works fine. The VFX-SD I have had the fix done and it has never given me any problems at all. I have owned that unit for about 16 years.

I am sorry you are having problems.

Grace,
Harry