danmusician wrote:
Summers2, you are exactly the type of musician many of us have worried about on these boards. Yes, there have been problems. But they have been exaggerated on these boards. For a potential buyer researching as you did, you get a false impression of the quality of the instrument when you come here.
In my case, I bought a 73 last summer. It was damaged in a car accident. I received insurance money to replace it. I could have purchased anything. I got another 73.
My first one did NOT have the keybed problem, the second one did. Neither have the fan problem or any of the other issues listed here.
But have they been exaggerated?
The only reason I held off getting a Kronos and went the s/w route was because of my doubts about it's quality gained from amongst other places, here.
I think I'm correct in saying Pianomanchuck had 3 different Kronos before he got one that worked?
You had the keyboard problem on one out of two.
That to me doesn't look like any problem has been exaggerated.
Personally I get the opposite impression that those with no problems are the ones exaggerating. Well that might not be the correct phrase to use, to put it another way when various problems were being discussed and various people said they had doubts about it's quality, some of those with no problems would come down on them like a ton of bricks, driving many away from the forum and generally making a discussion turn into a slanging match.
I think that especially in it's early days, those people saying go and buy one the problems are exaggerated, were the ones exaggerating as from person after person who did buy one, far far too many did have problems of either noisy fans, key bed or both.
Some people do want a good editor that works properly in their DAW, those that complain about the Kronos editor have often had the same group of Kronos owners come down on them sometimes even accusing them/implying they are stupid (who on earth buys an instrument purely based on it's editor ...).
The Kronos is a superb machine, I know that, I've played one. But with the unreliabliity of the problems I could not warrent 3K on one until I knew for a fact that the reliability has been fixed.
The fact that some appear to be fine and others don't, only make me think their quality control cant be that good, or else something else is seriously wrong.
Why did some boards have the problem and not others? I would expect either a bad batch or all to have a problem if there was a problem with the parts. Is it a case of the earlier ones could get the problem if something moves slightly ( don't know, just guessing)?
I was in my local music store a few weeks ago talking about the Kronos, they didn't have the 88 on display that time (did the previous time I was there). I asked him about the keybed problem and he said it was weird, sometimes they could produce it on the 88 Kronos when they did have it on display, other times for days at a time, it didn't seem to be there.
Why are some fans almost silent yet others need replacing? I'd expect that on a cheap CPU fan, but on a 3K piece of kit, that is simply unacceptable and while personally I'd have no problems replacing the fan for a silent one, its things like that that make me hold on to my 3K (I don't expect to have to do this on a piece of kit costing 3k)
For me (and the vast majority of home users that aren't very rich), a 3K outlay would be the most I've ever spent on a synth and for that money I expect the BEST, not just in creativity from the point of the sound development, streaming from SSD point of view, but from the care put into and the quality of the build too.
I am very disappointed with Korg over the Kronos.. When I say these things, some people say as I don't own one, I should shut up, others tell me they don't understand why I still keep going on about it.
The reason I go on about it so much is that I really really want one (and would have been an owner by now if it wasn't for these things) but I also want a good editor with it and I also want guaranteed build quality too.
Yes all electrical goods can suffer from failures, I'm well aware of that. But a random failure from a part that breaks is different from a fault many people are experiencing.
I don't want to spend 3K on a board with the assurances that if known problem X shows up, Korg will fix it for free, I want to know that as Korg is aware of problem X, they will make sure no retailer sends a Kronos out of the door with that problem present. It's not a lot to ask.
I honestly get the impression that had the Kronos sold in the numbers the Xbox 360 did, it's problems would be on the scale of the 360's red ring of death (I still have one of the early original 360's and have never experienced any problems with it, but I'm not going to defend them when there obviously was a big problem). Sure some of you with no problems will come along and tell me I'm wrong, yet many people know many other people that are well aware of the key bed problems etc and have been put off buying a Kronos, and those people have never even visited the Korg forum.
Things like a professional musical instrument don't get a bad name for no reason, if it was just a few people experiencing the problem,, there would be far far far far far more people (and music store workers) making this well known and those few complainers would be ignored. Fact that the other opinion has got around (and from my conversation with my local music store), and that I'm still reading of people getting the Kronos now with problems, I don't think it's exaggerated at all.
No korg should be being sent to customers by any authorised retailer with either a noisy fan or the keybed problem.
I did have hopes that maybe the new editor would be better, but if I understand what I read in another thread correctly sound quest are writing this one too, Going from what and how they have responded to the comments about the existing editor, I don't hold much hope for the new version to be any better at all and I really really really hope I'm proven wrong.
