My Pa4x failed last week. How reliable is a made in China Genos?

[bluali]

My made in China Pa4x failed last week . it does not produce any sound anymore. unfortunately its warranty has been expired on November. I have to take it to the Korg repair center and pay $50 for evaluation and repair cost estimate. Now I have to go all my live gigs with my (made in Japan)Tyros5 which has been working good in my studio since 2014. I used to own many models of Korg(Pa80, Pa1x, Pa2x) and all of them worked solid with many years. my old Pa1x which I gave it to my nephew is still working with no problem. this incident of keyboard failure made me worry about reliability of a made in China Genos which I plan to get it as soon as it is available in January. I am not used to pay extra money for the extended warranty since I expect a pro keyboard must be reliable enough for once or twice a week usage.

[Pianoman]

Hi Blueali.

Almost everything we own and use nowadays comes from China.
They were making firearms when we were still living in caves.
I won't go into all the achievements of the Chinese because I think Gary had that covered in a previous post on the same subject.

I would suppose that even though they are made in China, they will do so under Yamaha guidelines and supervision.

I discovered that my Samsung S8 Plus was made in Vietnam.
It works beautifully and I've dropped it 3 times by accident.

The last time was when I was reading in bed and fell asleep.
I found it on the floor the next morning. Not a scratch to be seen anywhere.

But the Genos owners will be able to elucidate more on the subject.
I still don't have one.

The dealer had skipped town with his family in tow.
There was a five day long weekend here.
They're on holiday somewhere in the Sierra Nevada.

He should be back on Wednesday.
With luck he may break a leg or something.

Best Regards,
Pianoman.

[Toril S]

Hello Bluali. Failures can happen to all electronic gear. I assume that you have checked the power adapter and done a factory reset.
I wished your keyboard a speedy recovery. Not fun when this happens!

[Lee Batchelor]

Bluali, there's an old saying, "Speed of the leader, equals speed of the group." Translated, it means, "As long as Yamaha is paying the bills they will watch quality control like a hawk." Just as soon as the Chinese screw up, Yamaha will pull production, I'm sure.

I just bought a brand new 2018 Honda Odyssey. Honda has been and will always be one of the best autos out there, but these are made in the good old U.S. of Trump. It has the worst build quality I've ever seen. Fenders out of alignment, doors that won't latch unless you slam them, pulls in the carpet...I could go on! I've owned several previous Honda cars, all made in Japan. They were flawless. Honda is NOT watching the quality control in their Alabama plant, and my opinion, Honda needs to fire all of them and go back to making cars in Japan.

A Chinese built Genos will be fine as long as Yamaha doesn't mimic the Honda build quality model.

[bluali]

thank you all for the comments. I hope that whatever you are saying about Yamaha quality controls is true. This is a hope based on our good experiences with Yamaha products. Although I expect that Korg as another well-known Japanese company have the similar quality controls, I was shocked when I visited a Korg forum and learned that there is a noticeable difference of the hardware quality between the  Pa4x and  pa3x. I downloaded these two pictures from inside of the two korg keyboards. obviously the Korg Pa4x board looks without any EMF shields or protections  . I just circled the power filter boards for a quick comparison. I expect the new China made Genos works solid and well protected with a high quality components.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Robert van Weersch]

My made in China Pa4x failed last week . (...) this incident of keyboard failure made me worry about reliability of a made in China Genos (...)

When I bought my (Japan made) T5-76, it had a defect within one week and the dealer (and Yamaha) replaced the entire unit with a new one under warranty. So "Japan made" products can and will also fail

[Pianoman]

I don't remember where I have read it or heard it.
But isn't the Korg PA4X made in Italy?

I could be wrong of course, but it is something I must have read somewhere.

My Tyros didn't power up one day just after setting up my gear for a gig.
After sweating and thinking something is wrong with the keyboard, an event manager came up to me and suggested that I try another power cable that he had.

And the Tyros immediately powered up. It turned out that my thick indestructible looking power cable was the culprit.

Best Regards,
Pianoman.

[Lee Batchelor]

When I bought my (Japan made) T5-76, it had a defect within one week and the dealer (and Yamaha) replaced the entire unit with a new one under warranty. So "Japan made" products can and will also fail

Unlike Honda, at least that's only one T5. You sure don't hear a lot of stories about T5 failures. You should visit the Honda forums and read about the huge numbers of American-made nightmares, one after another. If Yamaha had the same track record as the American-made Honda Odyssey, none of us would be gigging. Our keyboards would be in the shop constantly.

[Tommy 73]

I believe the PA4X is assembled in Italy (components manufactured ?)....i had two faulty PA4X before the 3rd stable one... both the first and second units had faults on the mother boards and suffered episode's  of freezing and locking up and unfortunately others on the korg forum where also reporting the same issues... so after  18 months of problems all now seems to be well with the 3rd unit with some time over ground coverd ..... manufactures in the west have to keep a very strong grip on quality Procol when using Chinese manufacturing facilities...I know two pro audio manufactures out side this thread that have pulled the plug on China because of issues...i own products from both these company's and have talked at length about this with them...BUT...Yamaha are a big company and one would like to think they have covered this ground considering most on the inside of manufacturing genraly know what can go wrong when turning to China in the Pursuit of Profit where this can be double edged sword and a fine line to walk.

[Will49]

I don't remember where I have read it or heard it.
But isn't the Korg PA4X made in Italy?

Hi Pianoman,

Korg and the 'Italian connection':
"Korg Italy operates independently under the Korg brand name, with its own dedicated Research and Development department that handles not just the electronic and musical part, but also all other aspects of product design, including the mechanics, hardware, industrial design and everything else that goes into a new product", says Jürgen Schmitz here:
http://www.solidthinking.com/pdf/CS0902_E001Korg_eng.pdf

Kind regards,
Will

[Pianoman]

Hi Will.

I have an American made car. A Chrysler PT Cruiser. Made in Michigan I believe.
Everything  was fine till one day, at 37,000 miles, the timing belt snapped.

I was driving on a highway on the Atlantic coast of the Spainish mainland when I heard a strange knocking noise.

Before I realised what was happening, the radiator had burst and stuff inside the engine, like the valves got damaged and bent, and the cylinder head was damaged as well.

The car was still under guarantee as it was 3 years old, and I had been driving an average of about12,000 Miles per year.

Chrysler gave me a cockamamie story that it wasn't the fault of the timing belt itself.
That it was the fault of a loose water pump that was eating away at the belt.

And just like that, denied guarantee responsibility in this particular case.

I just wanted to get home after 3 months on the mainland and still had a month to go.
So I paid 2272€ to be able to get back home.

The lesson to be learnt here is that no country, or company, has a monopoly on making good or bad products.

Every now and then, even a reputable manufacturer will have a few bad products slip through the cracks.

Best Regards,
Pianoman.

[DonM]

My PA4X is going into the third year and stable as a rock.  The 3X and the 900 before that had zero problems either.  They are both still in use by the people who bought them from me.
There were a very few that had problems with the tilt screen ratchet on the 4X, but they were covered under warranty, and it was actually easy to fix yourself if you were so inclined.  No worry about that on the Genos since it doesn't have a tilt screen. 
Over the years my Yamahas have had very few problems, but there was the infamous screen problem on the S950.  Or was it 910?  I know they were replacing them at no cost, even after the warranty was up, so you can't beat that as far as service.
The Tyros line has had a history of buttons sinking into the keyboard.  That was starting to happen on my original Tyros 1, but I sold it before it got worse.  It's still in use in Mexico after all these years!
As a rule all the arrangers seem to be well built and last a long time if you don't abuse them.  The primary culprit is beating on the keys too hard.  It isn't a piano and doesn't get louder if you hammer the keys!

[Marcus]

Not sure if there is a difference between products "Made in China" verses "Assembled in China", but my understanding is quality components can be simply assembled for the completed product in a Chinese assembly factory with cheaper labor costs. As long as a high quality control is maintained, there shouldn't be an issue. Most of these modern factories are mostly automated anyway.

I haven't got my Genos yet, but from photos from present owners, the packaging specifies "Assembled in China". So most likely, most of the components are made from the usual Yamaha sources. I just purchased a new iPad Pro 12.9 Gen 2, and surprised the shipping label states, "Assembled in China". Everyone was saying that Apple products are made in China, but does that mean 100% made and then assembled in China? Obviously the Apple product is of high quality (and price). I won't pay +$200 for the Apple brand iPad cover, that's for sure.

Yamaha has always maintained a high quality product. I did notice from upgrading to my Tyros 5 from my Tyros 4, or it could of been my Tyros 4 upgrading from my Tyros 3, but the only quality issue that I noticed physically was the on/off power button and the 1/4 phono jacks (input and output audio connections) in the back seemed less robust to the earlier Tyros model. Didn't affect anything, just lacked the quality feel of the earlier model in regards to the power switch and the audio jacks.

What I do like about the Yamaha product, is the lighter plastic design of these arranger keyboards. It allows more refined engineering in the outlay and design of the final product. Some may criticize the plastic build and look of the Tyros series and some would say lacks the more pro look of some metal cabinet designed keyboards, but I loved the look of my Tyros boards. The Genos proves that a well engineered plastic designed arranger can look very professional looking and keep up with innovation and look modern. My number one priority was that Yamaha maintained the quality Tyros keybed on the Genos, which many users reported being even a little better touch and better surface feel. 

As far as the Korg, my understanding was that the PA3X was made in Italy, but the PA4X was changed to being made in China. Difference in quality, hard to say, but obviously a corporate decision to keep costs down. Again, is there a difference between made in China verses assembled in China, I don't know, but I agree that as long that the quality control is of a high standard, there shouldn't be an issue. If anything, hopefully some of the savings reach the consumer.

Marcus

   

[pjd]

Yamaha has always maintained a high quality product.

What I do like about the Yamaha product, is the lighter plastic design of these arranger keyboards.

Marcus

Thanks, Marcus.

I've been gigging with my "Made in China" Yamaha MOX6 for five years without an issue. Even though it's "made out of plastic," it is usually the acoustic guitar that steps away worse for wear when one of the guitarists clunk into me. 

Then again, I try to take care of my tools and toys...

All the best to everyone -- pj

[travlin-easy]

Keep in mind that very little of the actual construction is done by hand anymore. All of the printed circuit boards are constructed by robotics, and the only had assembly that is done is screwing the boards into the keyboard, then plugging in the connecting cables.

As for the plastic case, most are now made of ABS plastic, which is just about as strong as steel, but does not bend or dent like steel and it is only a fraction of the weight. ABS plastic is also heat resistant and you can hit it with a ballpeen hammer and not break it.

All the best,

Gary 

[Joe H]

This video (which was posted before) is intended for children... but it is quite informative. This was produced by an Indonesian Organization that
makes videos on manufacturing processes of different kinds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFV5xbfbV1U

As Gary has said, most of the electronics is done by robotics and the assembly and testing of the keybed are done by humans.

Joe H

[Will49]

Everything  was fine till one day, at 37,000 miles, the timing belt snapped.
Chrysler gave me a cockamamie story that it wasn't the fault of the timing belt itself. That it was the fault of a loose water pump that was eating away at the belt. And just like that, denied guarantee responsibility in this particular case.

Hi Pianoman. What an awful experience with the timing belt scenario! And even if it had been the fault of the loose water pump (i.e. still part of the same engine/same car/same warranty cover), and provided it hadn't been tampered with by anyone during the term of the cover, how on earth were they able to get out of it?! Mind you, I can well believe it too, as many of these big companies will try their very best to avoid the costs of a repair!

Kind regards,
Will

[Spirit of the old South]

Build in China is not a problem.
Everything these days is build in China.
As long as the quality control is done to Japanese or Western standards.

Even Apple builds most of their products in China.
And you never hear anyone complain about the quality of those.

Actually i prefer build in China above build in Italy.
Had some really bad experiences with products build in Italy.
And so did the rest of the Netherlands.
Trains, helicopters, naval guns and more build in Italy are seen as the worst governmental investments of the last decade.

[Pianoman]

Hi Pianoman. What an awful experience with the timing belt scenario! And even if it had been the fault of the loose water pump (i.e. still part of the same engine/same car/same warranty cover), and provided it hadn't been tampered with by anyone during the term of the cover, how on earth were they able to get out of it?! Mind you, I can well believe it too, as many of these big companies will try their very best to avoid the costs of a repair!

Kind regards,
Will

Hello Will,

I was on the mainland and was just tired, tired of living in hotel rooms for months.
So I paid up. I just wanted to get home.

Once at home here, I went to the Chrysler dealer where I had bought the car and tried to claim my guarantee.

It didn't work.On top of that I have been having engine overheating problems ever since.

Anyway, my point was to show that, even manufacturers like Chrysler or Yamaha or Korg or any other,
will occasionally have a bad Apple in a basket.

I had many other important issues to deal with at the time.
I just didn't fancy going into a long litigation process, that will milk whatever money I had left, after having paid them that exorbitant sum.

This is the first, and the last Chrysler I will ever own.
I will buy European from now on. They have service facilities on almost every street corner and don't sell the exclusivity badge that Chrysler has been attempting to do here.

A few years back, I played in a hotel where they insisted that I should buy a civil responsibility insurance.

The first gig was a try out, after which I said I didn't want to continue working with them.

The person in charge of entertainment asked me if I could hang on a bit longer, till they find a replacement.
So I did 4 more gigs.

Then they refused to pay, saying that I didn't have the required insurance.
I set a lawyer upon them, and after 60 days they paid up. Most of the money I was owed went to paying the lawyer.

Anyway, I'll return to my point that no manufacturer is perfect.
Whether it's Keyboards, Cars, Toothpaste, or home appliances.

Best Regards and Merry Christmas,
Pianoman.

[Ingar]

My made in China Pa4x failed last week . it does not produce any sound anymore. unfortunately its warranty has been expired on November. I have to take it to the Korg repair center and pay $50 for evaluation and repair cost estimate. Now I have to go all my live gigs with my (made in Japan)Tyros5 which has been working good in my studio since 2014. I used to own many models of Korg(Pa80, Pa1x, Pa2x) and all of them worked solid with many years. my old Pa1x which I gave it to my nephew is still working with no problem. this incident of keyboard failure made me worry about reliability of a made in China Genos which I plan to get it as soon as it is available in January. I am not used to pay extra money for the extended warranty since I expect a pro keyboard must be reliable enough for once or twice a week usage.

Some companies here in Norway are starting to flag their production home again because the quality of the products made in China does not meet the requirements we have for durability. Complaints are being listened to and they promise improvement, but nothing happens.

[markstyles]

95% of all capacitors are made in a foreign country, and everyone buys from them..  I have an engineer friend who works at a very high end audio company..  They have to test every capacitor, because the variation in the charge they can deal with is immense.  So in the long run, at least with electronics, point of origin, does not mean a whole lot.

The most economical model in the last few years, is to build the product, and replace in warranty items. Far cheaper than to test every component in a piece of gear.  unfortunate, but that is the reality..  Depending on the item, I sometimes pay for the extra warrantee if offered.. Other times, the improvements and updates happen so fast, you're just forced to replace your broken item, with the new version..

Sorry to hear of your situation.. 

[Will49]

Anyway, I'll return to my point that no manufacturer is perfect.
Whether it's Keyboards, Cars, Toothpaste, or home appliances.

Hi Pianoman,

That's very true, nothing is 100% infallible! Even Rolls-Royce cars are known to have malfunctioned occasionally. But I remember hearing or reading somewhere that the term 'broken down' was never in the company's vocabulary, and that they much preferred to say that the Rolls "failed to proceed". Similarly, in the extremely rare event of a starting problem, a Rolls-Royce could be said to have "elected to remain stationary"!

So perhaps a time will come when people reporting to Yamaha that their keyboard has broken down, or won't power up, they will hear this reply... "no it hasn't sir, your keyboard has merely elected to remain silent"!!!

Kind regards,
Will

[Pianoman]

Hi Pianoman,

That's very true, nothing is 100% infallible! Even Rolls-Royce cars are known to have malfunctioned occasionally. But I remember hearing or reading somewhere that the term 'broken down' was never in the company's vocabulary, and that they much preferred to say that the Rolls "failed to proceed". Similarly, in the extremely rare event of a starting problem, a Rolls-Royce could be said to have "elected to remain stationary"!

So perhaps a time will come when people reporting to Yamaha that their keyboard has broken down, or won't power up, they will hear this reply... "no it hasn't sir, your keyboard has merely elected to remain silent"!!!

Kind regards,
Will

Now that is funny. I will have to borrow those lines from you.

Best Regards,
Pianoman.

[markstyles]

Wait my shrink just told me the new term,  a 'reliability dis-function'...

[Toril S]

And when the keyboards get an AI on board, it will have to go to the shrink as well

[travlin-easy]

Wow! I must really be old. I remember when all capacitors were made by Sprague Corporation, which was US based. Amazing!

Keep in mind that most electronic products are no longer bench tested before being released. The reason is that the failure rate of electronic devices is less than 1/10th of 1-percent. Bench testing before releasing would be cost prohibitive for most products, including keyboards and computers.

My first exposure to electronics was when I was just 10 years old. I used to gather old radios from the sidewalks on trash day back then, take them home, strip down the chasis for the parts, vacuum tubes, sockets, capacitors, resistors, coils, transformers, etc..., then sort them out into small boxes. I eventually collected enough parts to construct my own short-wave transmitter and receiver and at age 12 I took the exam for my General Class Short Wave License and passed. Back then, it was a very difficult examination, and you had to know how to draw schematic diagrams of transmitters, receivers, power supplies, etc..., all from memory and electronic theory in order to pass. Additionally, you had to be able to send and receive Morse Code at 20 words per minute. Not so today. Today's Ham Radio license is much, much easier, and with a few nights of studying, most anyone could pass.

How things have changed,

Gary 

[MarkF_48]

My first exposure to electronics was when I was just 10 years old. I used to gather old radios from the sidewalks on trash day back then, take them home, strip down the chasis for the parts, vacuum tubes, sockets, capacitors, resistors, coils, transformers, etc..., then sort them out into small boxes. I eventually collected enough parts to construct my own short-wave transmitter and receiver and at age 12 I took the exam for my General Class Short Wave License and passed. Back then, it was a very difficult examination, and you had to know how to draw schematic diagrams of transmitters, receivers, power supplies, etc..., all from memory and electronic theory in order to pass. Additionally, you had to be able to send and receive Morse Code at 20 words per minute. Not so today. Today's Ham Radio license is much, much easier, and with a few nights of studying, most anyone could pass.

How things have changed,

Gary 

Your childhood pretty much mirrors mine. Weekend trips to the local town landfill with my Dad, I collected radio and TV chassis for parts salvage to build various projects. Was also fortunate that a couple of local electronic manufacturers also discarded some of their parts and test gear at the same landfill. Didn't build a shortwave transmitter, but one that broadcast on the regular AM band and I played the part of a 'radio DJ' for a month or so until complaints of radio interference (harmonics) in the neighborhood led the local police to my doorsteps. I even remember the output tube as being a 6BQ6 from a salvaged TV. Heathkit and Knight kits were the usual Christmas and birthday gifts. First transistor project at about age 13 was using a Raytheon CK722 germanium PNP that my Dad had gotten for me. Worked a few summers part time for a local radio/TV repairman. Never went on to get the ham license as the code part was my stumbling block.
At age 69 I still collect a few old tube record players and similar occasionally to do conversions to low power guitar amps.

[mus07]

Korg PA4X is made in Italy but like just about every electronic device in your house there are very likely some components from China - nothing wrong with that at all. Often the reliability of musical instruments (especially electronic) falls back on the care of them (- road crew too!!!). I doubt there is much between the reliability of Genos and PA4X - two amazing instruments.

(One batch of Tyros 4s were faulty due to shipping conditions - so problems can be caused at any time)

Cheers

Pete

[tangothomas]

Please do remember that the quality problems with things from China in heavily dependent on us in the western countries. We want cheep goods so we can consume a lot. The more the better. The one who has the most things when he dies win! We are always looking for best prices. Thats why the "Workshop of the world" massproduces plastic toys, electronics, tools - you name it.

And many of the problems in China is related to consumers in our countries, pollution, working conditions an so forth. (I´m talking about you and me). And China can produce really good quality if that is desirable and can have really good QC. I have been there and there is High and Low just like in Russia and US. And I have had many cars during the years from "Over There" and the Chevys and Jeeps didn´t offer the same build quality as Volvo and Saab.

(I assume you know that China today has subcontractors in poor countries in Africa where the workers are cheaper than chinese laborer so they can push the prices further down.)

[Robert van Weersch]

(...) they much preferred to say that the Rolls "failed to proceed". (...) "elected to remain stationary"!

So perhaps a time will come when people reporting to Yamaha that their keyboard has broken down, or won't power up, they will hear this reply... "no it hasn't sir, your keyboard has merely elected to remain silent"!!!

Or, to use another quote: the keyboard is in an advanced state of non-functionality.