I had a Yamaha PSR550 keyboard, 61 keys, about 3 years old. I liked the basic piano sound a lot, and the light synth touch, but I wanted 76 keys for lower bass notes. Looking around on-line, I thought a Yamaha DGX305 would fill the bill. Every music store had it for $399. I expected it to be similar to what I had, only better. I bought one without playing it very much in the store. They made a big deal out of their "portable grand," but when I set it up at home, I was shocked at how bad it sounded. I had to return it. I tried out several Yamaha keyboards, and all of them sounded like crap to me. From middle C down into the low end of the bass notes, it had this overly-resonant, metalic, nasally harpsichord tone quality that I found repulsive. What has Yamaha done? My old cheap PSR550 had a wonderful piano, as well as hundreds of other voices. I don't know what they were thinking at Yamaha to go with that kind of tone on their newer keyboards.

I blamed myself for going cheap. I tried out a lot of other keyboards over a couple of hours, trying to find a sound, feel, and price I liked. I always thought Casio was a cheap-toy brand name, but they have put out an electric piano that I like a lot. The model is the Privia 400R (no stand) or 555R (with stand). It's 88 keys, weighted, with real piano feel, and close to real piano sound. The tone is a little too pure, it lacks the natural phasing of real 3-string keys, but the overall tone is very nice. The touch can be set to light, normal, or heavy (or off). Nice Stereo Piano, and an assortment of other piano settings, some great electric piano sounds, lots of other stuff. It's good looking as well. Fairly simple interface, not all cluttered up with extra crap. I love it. $799. Great deal.

Obviously, "real" keyboard players go for more expensive, exotic gear, but I'm not much of a keyboards person, more of a singer and guitar player, but I've been writing all my songs on piano lately so I wanted better than what I had without spending $1200/up.

My only complaint is that on certain notes, the speaker covering (fabric over a gridwork of some kind) resonates and buzzes, sounds like distortion but it's not. If I push down on the speaker cover with my hand, it doesn't buzz. I can work around it but I wish there was a way to fix it...

I will always disappoint people who expect me to be ordinary.