Hi All - new to the forum and have enjoyed reading everyone's posts as a guest for the past few months.

As I have recently purchased a Casio Privia PX-330, I was hoping we could have a thread where Privia owners could connect and collect hints, tips, and tricks. It seems like there are a number of threads referencing the Privia line, but no central repository.

I'll be happy to try and answer anyone's questions the best I can, and I'm sure that I'll have a few questions myself.  Anyone considering acquiring a Privia should feel free to ask questions as well.  

Here are some quick links to get things started:

The Casio Privia Website:
http://www.priviapiano.com

You can find links to Owner's Manuals and other support info on this page:
http://www.priviapiano.com/support

Looking forward to participating and helping others out as this forum has helped me.

Mods - please feel free to move, merge, and/or rename as appropriate to fit the rules of this forum.

ajstan99

ajstan99, welcome to the forum.

You may also be interested in the following thread:

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1265894

Cheers,
James
x

Hi James - thanks for the welcome and the link.

ajstan99,

Nice Idea. I just purchased a PX-330 last weekend. I'm really happy with it. But I do have a complaint. I hooked it up to my home stereo amplifier and the sound was very poor. Nothing like what I hear with the headphones on.

Also the on-board speakers continue to produce sound. I have read that this is an oversight on the design part by Casio.

My question is, what is the best way of hooking up the PX-330 to a stereo amplifier?

Thanks

Hi Dino. I've found the output from the line out jacks to be low compared to typical AV devices. Just guessing here, but I suppose it's due to the fact that they have to account for a larger dynamic range with a musical instrument and have to keep the average volume lower to accommodate peak output level potential.

I have an Onkyo TX-SR606 receiver and I got what I thought was very good quality sound by connecting as follows with some Radio Shack adapters I had lying around (there are other adapter combos that will work, just take the mono out of the PX-330 and connect to stereo inputs on your receiver/amp):

1. Connect a 1/4" patch cable to the L/Mono output on the back of the PX-330

2. Attach a 1/4" Female to two 1/4" Male adapter to the other end of the patch cable and add a 1/4" Female to RCA Male adapter to each of the 1/4" tips.

3. Plug into the RCA inputs of the receiver/amp

4. Plug a pair of headphones or any 1/8" adapter into a headphone jack to kill the sound from the built-in speakers.

You will need to crank the volume control on the PX-330 as high as it can go to send the best signal possible to the receiver. I used the "Full Mono" setting to send the same combined signal from the L/R inputs to each of the speakers.

As I understand it, when headphones are connected, some type of stereo spatial processing is applied that also gets send to the line-out signal, so that is why I only used the mono output and didn't seem to notice any unwanted effects.

Hope this helps, but if anyone has any better suggestions (or corrections) please feel free to chime in.

ajstan99,

Thanks.... More questions:

1. What is the "Full Mono" setting? I don't see it in the manual.
2. How does going mono affect the sound since the PX-330 has "stereo samples"

Thanks again

Dino

The "Full Mono" setting is on the amp, not the keyboard. As for stereo vs mono output, give it a try both ways and see what you like better. Just get a second patch cord and run from both Left and Right outputs of the keyboard to the L/R inputs on the receiver - no splitter needed. In fact, I may give this a try myself.

Got it... Good luck with the "second patch cord" method. That is what I originally tried and wasn't too impressed. I think the "stereo spatial processing" stuff got in the way.

I will try the mono strategy and let you know how it goes.

Thanks

I have read somewhere that the PX330 switches the frequency response automatically when a headphone is plugged in.
I dont know if this is true, however if it is true then a (dummy) plug in the headphone outlet could be important.
It can also be of advantage to connect the amp to the headphone outlet instead to line out. Test it by trial and error.

Best,

Peter

Thanks, Peter. I gave the headphone jack a try this evening and didn't see very much difference vs. using the output jack in the back of the unit. That being said, I didn't notice any distracting ambient effects although the keyboard is positioned against the left wall and not in a great place to hear stereo/spatial effects.

I also tried running the PX-330 into a Harbinger APS-15 amp I got last year from Guitar Center for under $200 on sale. Strangely enough, I actually preferrd the sound through the Harbinger - not that it was better quality - probably because I expected a "DP through a PA" type sound, and for that, it was pretty good, all things considered. Changing the Brilliance to +1 made it sound better to me.

At this point, my preferred method is using the built in speakers at moderate volume. If I want to amp to play along with someone (or just to be loud) I'll use the Harbinger amp. Here's a link to the amp if anyone's interested:

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Harbinger-APS15-15--Powered-PA-Speaker-105122774-i1430143.gc

I have an issue with the output jacks on my PX330 - there is no signal! The piano is under warranty, but it is odd that the output jacks just quit working. Luckily, I was fooling around with my rig and discovered the fault instead of just taking the thing to the gig tomorrow night. Anyone else have this problem?

They were working and just died, right? There have been reports on this and other threads of very low signal output on the line out of the Casio. Also I think the volume slider affects line out.

There must be a broken connection inside, I'm thinking.