Korg Forums

1jordyzzz wrote:thanks all!
well i'm kinda scared now... there have been lots of complaints for kronos..
i just hope that i will be as happy as you oasys owners when i got kronos
and looking at your experience, i'm pretty confident with it..
wish me luck!

Remember that only people having problems report them (and sometimes in multiple threads). People which are happy don't tend to write that their synth is ok.

1jordyzzz wrote:thanks all!
well i'm kinda scared now... there have been lots of complaints for kronos..
i just hope that i will be as happy as you oasys owners when i got kronos
and looking at your experience, i'm pretty confident with it..
wish me luck!

Well you got 2 options....


Buy a Kronos,and take the risk of it perhaps malfunctioning you get all the same technology and a then some not as good build quality but still a great synth(and reports of probs are over exaggerated and just cause widespread panic for no reason)You get a warranty should anything go wrong

Buy a secondhand Oasys,and take an even bigger risk(you don't have a warranty)but you do get slightly better build quality,and bigger screen,looks better cosmetically and so far seen less problems or reports of such,but remember the Number of Oasys's made against how many Kronos have sold is not really a fair comparison for ratio sold to complaints/probs,I suspect the Kronos has already far and beyond out stripped the number of Oasys made and so theres always going to be more reliability reports

Korg have just had some teething problems with the Kronos,and their a reliable company otherwise I've been buying Korg synths since 1989 and never so much has ever needed to call on the warranty,I'd have every faith in them that the known issues will been stamped out.

if it was my decision and I was going to choose and hadn't got the Oasys already,I would certainly opt for the Kronos for the price of a 61 Kronos your not going to get an Oasys for that much less given recent values of the Oasys(UK Pounds,they've been going for between £2000/2300)so for a warranty and a little bit more peace of mind a few hundred extra for a New Kronos is the probably more sensible option(unless you can bag a 2nd hand O for a bargain price)

Kontrol 49, a very insightful post. A great perspective on the subject. I know that I still enjoy my Oasys so much that I get a smile on my face while it is booting up. The Kronos is also very enjoyable.

Kontrol49 wrote:...Buy a secondhand Oasys,and take an even bigger risk(you don't have a warranty)but you do get slightly better build quality,...

...Slightly better build quality

This is the greatest and most shameless understatement I've ever heard in my life...

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Dany wrote:

Kontrol49 wrote:...Buy a secondhand Oasys,and take an even bigger risk(you don't have a warranty)but you do get slightly better build quality,...

...Slightly better build quality

This is the greatest and most shameless understatement I've ever heard in my life...

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+1!

Listen.....

Slightly better build quality....ok maybe an understatement but I didn't want to be linch mobbed by Kronosites by saying its got über fantastical fantasmagoric superior build Quality over it

Now look what you made me do



Ssssssh let's keep this to ourselves

Actually if I were you I would opt for a used Oasys until Korg gets their act together on the Kronos,

I have made several trips to different Guitar Centers trying out the Kronos and sad to say have been dissapointed with not the sounds (they are wonderful) but the build quality.
Having gotten used to the Oasys 88 that is a big issue for me. The other problem I have is the screen is very hard to read with someone like myself that uses glasses.

The irony of it is that the Kronos at GC had keys that were sticking.
This is not months ago. This was like 2 weeks ago!

Korg is really missing the boat on this product. And don't get me wrong, I am fatihfully a Korg supporter and love my Oasys88.
Never had any issues with it except a note sticking a few times (not the key but the sound....). This happenning couple times in 4 years is not a big deal to me.
It has been flawless for the past 3 years.

It is disengenuious of owners to steer newbies towards a Kronos saying it's build quality is only a "little" less than the Oasys.

As an Oasys owner I would gladly pay Korg to get the two extra engines that the Kronos has for my Oasys but sadly, their marketing arm has not deemed that to be a worthy project for Korg to do.

minnkorg wrote:As an Oasys owner I would gladly pay Korg to get the two extra engines that the Kronos has for my Oasys but sadly, their marketing arm has not deemed that to be a worthy project for Korg to do.

I think we all would But your statement is so accurate that I am having to resist expanding on it! I will satisfy myself my saying simply that Korg's marketing arm has got EVERYTHING wrong since dropping the OASYS, to dreaming up the Kronos, to its marketing, to its execution and to its handling of the SEVERAL specific and real issues. (and then they say it's less than 1% - jeez). Oh, yes - there's the editor which seems to be the biggest non-event in editor history...

Edited to add - then there's the bug that Stephen Kay has acknowledged in Kronos karma but no statement from korg AND our own mod, X-trade, is finding new bugs - and thats with OS v1.6!

@Sina and @mikeconway

The spray Sina mentions is not available on the UK website - do you think I can use WD40 instead for the buttons?

cello wrote:do you think I can use WD40 instead for the buttons?

I did about a year ago and it did help.

Hi,

although I never had issues with my Oasys I also would recommend a Kronos:

- warranty
- more engines
- development going on
- sound banks and third party development

I think the quality issues shoulb be solved by Korg and you have the warranty for that.

best regards
SoulBe

Korg just left us customers with a paradoxon: Either you have a super expensive and completely reliable piece of hardware gear, using the best synth engines on this planet, but without any further support and developments, or you have a normal-priced but completely unreliable piece of hardware gear, using the best synth engines on this planet, with support and new developments today and in the future.

Even if KORG will solve the quality control issues, they cannot change the current fundamental inferior Kronos design, without creating a completely redesigned version of the Kronos.

My honest recommendation: Don't buy an OASYS (second-hand purchase is always a great risk) nor a Kronos (great risk out of the box) and use your current hardware and software synths, until Korg will be able to release a reliable and much better designed successor of the Kronos...
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Dany wrote: until Korg will be able to release a reliable and much better designed successor of the Kronos...
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well... the SPARTACUS in 2015 , no no just jokin´

but have in mind that also an sucessor will have problems when it is introduced ........

best regrads
SoulBe

Good luck!

Has anyone tried buying a KRONOS and swapping out the internal components into the OASYS chassis? Not sure if it'd all work as the technology has moved on a lot but being based on the OASYS software, the hardware drivers for things like LEDs on the faders, may still be present. and the more solid case may improve the reliability concerns. Considering I think a lot of problems may be down to mis-seated RAM or such.
Or maybe I'm just crazy. Starting to sound like it. But that is one 'mod' I'd love.

Alternatively, korg should offer an OASYS class instrument identical in software to the Kronos, except perhaps a faster processor to allow higher polyphony. I do wonder what they could build today under the same budget and target market.