There are two great organs on ebay both priced at £6995. Yamaha Stagea ELS-02C and Wersi Sonic. I have heard both but played neither. When Max Takano plays I presume anything would sound good but the Yamaha sounded amazing. The flutes were hardly heard but the ochestrals were fantastic. The Wersi as expected has great drawbar sounds but since V2.0 the Orchestrals don't compete with the Stagea in my view.
Anyone heard both? What is your view? Which would you buy?
Can't see the Wersi - the Yam is a nice organ but to my ears has always seemed very shrill and brittle when i have heard it in concert but you must consider the wonderful fun you might have if anything went wrong. Don't think you would find Yamaha UK particularly interested in helping you out.....! Maybe buy a Yamaha Genos TRX from Musicland instead at around the same price and know that you have UK back up should anything hiccup - Regards
If organs are your forte then Yamaha is not for you, (The Genos has the best organ sounds ever from Yamaha but it still falls short of all the competition) if orchestral is your thing then Yamaha have always been good at this, as to the Sonic, if you can get it rolled back to the V1.51 software it is the one I would recommend as you can add VSTs for anything you don't like.
Wersi support in the UK is OK if things do go wrong, and I would think Yamaha UK would not be averse in pointing you in the right direction for the StageA.
If you go for a TRX system then remember the Genos was never designed as an organ, and while the work-arounds used in the TRX system helps smooth things over, it is no substitute for a proper organ OS.
That Stagea must have moved immediately since there are no now. I would have gone for the Stagea but it's probably a hard one to choose. Organs sounds are easy to add as the HX-3 or the KeyB modules.
One signinficant drawback on the Electone vs Wersi though i less keys.
That Sonic is the same one that's hung around for a while, failing to find friends at £7K. It will be interesting to see what it finally changes hands at.
I understand what Bill is saying about Yamaha. The absence of real drawbars is dissapointing but thats been the case with Yam for about 35 years or so. However, the great thing is that now 3rd party products can be linked up to it to give great drawbars. Im particularly thinking of the Keyboardpartner.de HX3. 5 module which U tried in Germany. This module has Hammond/Wersi/Bohm and Conn sounds. Its so good that Bohm is incorporating in the Sempra and calling it Real organ. I must admit Im tempted by Yamaha and HX3.5 as a good solution. I understand abou the backup help in the UK probably not being here but when did a Yamaha go wrong. Im pretty sure they wont have any of the Wersi issues.
That Sonic seems like a good buy to me at its new price but what do I know? I'm not in the market for it but I'd feel a bit cautious about buying a Wersi at the moment. Very likely a misplaced concern but there have been some worrying comments posted on this forum.
I like the organ sounds of Wersi but what are it's orchestral sounds like? You don't generally hear them, apart from accordion for which I believe there is an expansion pack.
I think with OAX V2.0 the orchestrals have taken a nosedive. Yes I agree with you, why does that Wersi OAX 500 on ebay not sell whem its less than half the price of a new one. No money around, no warranty or are people being very cautious about Wersi?
Well it now has seven watchers and because of the high number of messages received the seller is unable to answer questions right now. So perhaps things are looking up for him. It's offered with external amp and speakers and I was going to ask if that meant it did not have an internal sound system - just to satisfy my curiosity. I didn't think no internal amp and speakers was an option for the 500.
I think there are probably enough serious punters around for it to sell at the right price and I suspect it would be quite a bit more if sold with a warranty at a dealer.
From what I've heard nothing competes with the orchestrals of the Stagea.
Last edited by RogerM; 01-26-2019, 03:46 PM.
Reason: Added last paragraph
I'm one of the "watchers" and have no intention to buy, so my guess is there are a few merely interested in seeing what it goes for. As for not answering questions, that makes me deeply suspicious of both the provenance and the working state. I wouldn't read too much into the external amp and speakers, however, as the internal ones are infamously dismal and most buyers have been forced to use their own external ones instead.
The 500 does have internal speakers, but they are awful and distort at even medium volume, just like the ones on the 600LS, 700LS, 800 and Pergamon. Wersi can't do speakers. I have internals in my 800, but have bypassed them and have Adam A8X externals, and even when I have my Verona, I had external Kef speakers. Speakers were fine in the Beta spinet model I had originally, and I assume the Spectra/Gala generation were ok too (as whilst no direct playing experience, I never Had any complaints when hearing others play them). Feels like they lost the plot with speakers when they moved to the open cabinet with speakers in the base unit and not behind some baize in front of you with a large speaker box.
Never had any speaker concerns with our early Yamaha's, and can't believe they would issue a new product with poor speakers, after all they are also a hifi manufacturer, and would be pretty poor for their reputation if they did.
Provided you had ears, I think you would notice. Problem with the Verona was the sound was very boomy, whereas in the Sonic they were boomy and distorted (as per factory settings). You could get rid of the distortion by reducing the output levels in the OAX mixer, but that then just made the organ not very loud.
I took the view that if they deemed that acceptable, then the Wersi Vocalis were going to be equally as poor, so gave those a wide berth, and based on some very good reviews, went with the Adam A8X - they are so good, that if I crank up the volume on them, I can actiually shake the house, with no distortion - needless to say we are detached, so no neighbour issues, but I only run them at half volume. V2.0 made some changes to the sound engine, the sensitivity of the expression pedal, and the output levels - probably to fix the factory setting distortion issue. I had to modify my output levels back up again to restore to as before.
Sound is definitely cleaner with V2.0 and their new sound engine, and most of the sounds better, however what I think it has done is highlighted weaknesses in the quality of earlier samples. In general everything is crisper, but now that there are more sound controls, you can of course adjust numerous elements of the sound to personal taste.
As part of V2.0, they also adjusted the positioning of some of the sounds in the on screen selectors, I am guessing to tidy things up for future additions, which did result in some of my favourite sounds not initially being there, however, go to the master sounds list and there are many more sounds than on the selector buttons, and you can easily pull those back in to the selectors, modify to taste and save as a user sound.
My Wersi Orion has fane speakers inside. Im not sure if they are original but I do know that Klaus Wunderlich insisted on them on his tours. There is a guy trying to flog two fane speakers for £275 on ebay. I got a working Orion with brilliant AOC (not Wersichord which is crap) for 99p. Delivery on top but well worth it.
I think the OAX500 on ebay must be one of the early OAX because the perspex music rest doesn't light up. Bohm first brought out the lighted music rest soon copied by Wersi.
The other thing Ive just noticed is the odd position of the expression pedal. Usually on 17 note pedalboards the pedal is raised up at about eflat position. On this Wersi it is low down and way over to the right. Is this the position in any other organ or a Wersi oddity.
I think the warranty issue maybe putting punters off this organ. £5999 is a lot of money for something that does not have the greatest of reliability records.
The expression pedal on my 20-note pedalboard Yamaha AR-100 is at the Eb position, if that's of any relevance. It is too on the 17-, 25- and 30-note boards of Böhm instruments, whose illustrated catalogue I just happen to have handy 😊
On closer examination the expression pedal is further to the right, at the end of the pedalboard, on Böhm's 17-note board Sempra SE20. I think that's because the SE20 is essentially a 2-manual keyboard with add-on pedal case, even in the version with wood stand. I don't think you can say the same of the
Sonic 500, or the Verona GS500 which is configured very nearly the same in the pedal department.
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