So, a few of you may remember that I've reported some occasional distortion in the sound of my keyboard -- especially with the string sounds. Well, I've finally decided to get it looked at by an authorized Yamaha service center in my area.
I was inspired by the member here who has an E403 that had some bad distortion, and he said he took it to a repair shop and it ended up being a relatively easy fix by replacing the D-to-A converters (if I remember correctly). While my distortion is nowhere near as bad as what that member posted, I figured it's worth it to get it looked at. Additionally, a few of you may remember that I had brought my keyboard to my Dad's home several years ago, and I temporarily rested it up against a wall, but it was on a tile floor, and the keyboard slipped and slammed on the floor. I don't know if it was psychosomatic, but that does seem to be around the time the distortion started.
The shop is charging $50 US to check it out. I figure this will be a good step to see what to do next if the E473 comes out soon -- or even those new Casios being discussed in another thread (the E473 thread in the Yamaha Keyboards -- General section).
Hopefully, they find something basic and straightforward so that I can keep using this keyboard. Unfortunately, I have a funny feeling that Yamaha is only going to make incremental changes again with the E473, and if those live-control knobs are being moved away from the keyboard area, then that is a further concern. But, I'll just have to see what Yamaha actually does with the new model. Maybe they'll rethink where the live-control knobs go, and maybe they will improve the key feel over the E443-E463.