Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

I would advise checking out the keyboard section of your local music
store, such as Guitar Center. Play around with their demo units and
see what fits best. If you're after a decent piano sound and
realistic sounding instruments, then a sample-playback type synth
would work best. Alesis QS6.2 and Roland Juno D are examples of 5-
octave sample-playback keyboards under $600. An 88 note keyboard with
weighted piano-type action, such as Alesis QS8.2 or Yamaha S08, is
closer to $1000. The An1x is a VA (virtual analog) designed to sound
like older analog synths. VA's have a good classic synth sound but
no realistic piano or orchestra type instruments. Most synths are
fairly easy to learn to operate. Workstations such as Korg Triton,
Yamaha Motif, Roland Fantom, have a much steeper learning curve and
are rather expensive.