Korg SV2-SP 88-key Stage Vintage Piano Reviews

This is one sweet piano! I love every part of it! The presets on it are spot on! The sounds are authentic! This is perfect for the building size, skill set of the musician, and the need that we had for an up grade! Thanks Skylar!

I wanted a keyboard that had that 50's-60's Rock, Blues vibe. I am a guitarist and wanted to learn how to play some of the coolest music on the planet! Not know a lot about keyboards I went and saw my rep at Sweetwater and he walked me through it. The item was on back order, but it was worth the wait. First thing I did was check out all of the voices and then I saw I could plug my MacBook in to the back and have tons of more voices.

For me, learning a new instrument needs to be fun and keep my interest. The Korg does the trick!

I have the SV-1, so I'm gonna talk about it compared to the SV-2. First of all, the SV-1 is just classy looking! It will turn heads! But than you have those beautiful electric pianos! I won't lie, I bought it simply for the electric pianos. Bought it used but it was in perfect condition! This beats the Nord Grand in my opinion because of looks, ease of use, electric piano sounds, the key bed, and overall portability!! In my opinion, the looks of the SV-1 and sounds are slightly better than the SV-2. But they are pretty similar. Not much has changed in 10+years. But why change something that doesn't need it? If it's not broken, don't fix.

My old key board was damaged in a drop. That resulted in my trying to repair an old baby grand workout success and a long hiatus from playing. I decided it would be best to upgrade.

I wanted a good quality piano/electric piano that would motivate me to play more. It makes the basic sounds I like. Two Piano and 2 electric piano and a few others and had options to change some of the effects. That is less important to me than a complicated synth I wants for regain my sight reading after years . Sounds and tones are excellent and there is some adjustability.

It's also more reliable than my baby Grand which has stuck keys and slow to return keys—and also cannot be moved.

My ability to read sheet music is retuning. For that you can't beat the motivation provided by a great sounding and reliable keyboard. People give away pianos these days and you could have a dozen if you care to move them. Those are impossible to move without 2-3 helpers. I can move this on my own at 65.

I have the version with built in speakers, which came in handy as I needed to move it to another location for a few months. It was still heavy and not easy to carry.

I have a folding Ultimate Support Keyboard stand I bought used 15 years ago. It too is very heavy albeit it folds up nicely and is full adjustable on two levels. I show it with the top level not in use but extended for clarity. You can see the arms can extend out telescopically another foot in the depth.

So the whole thing can be moved for performances if you need to, but some sort of case and a cart would be handy. Mine is for home use only.

I don't intend to move it much more. It will all go back into my studio at some point and probably stay there. The combination of this keyboard and this Ultimate stand is near perfect IMO. They don't make these stands any more. The new versions are lighter and less strength. A reasonable trade off I suppose.

I digress. This Korg is very heavy. Mine is the 88 key versions with speakers, in white—the 88 key version with internal speaker version is probably heaviest. So you do need a strong stand for it.

Note this this a ultimate stand I'm using a full 88 key keyboard works best if you want to extend the arms out some— which I prefer as it offers more legroom if sitting—to clear the folding legs at the base. Smaller keyboards work up to 38" on fell extension and 30" width of the arms are telescopes in to the shorter arm length.

What do I dislike about the Korg?

1)The tube take time to warm up to turn it on. I'm used to it now.

2) the sheet music tray is cheap and tends to slide back. It doesn't match the quality of the keyboard. If you like to use sheet music, or an Ipad then you have to consider other options. I'm looking into opening it up and bolting on a couple of RAM balls to mount my iPad. I am also considering laying a piece of plywood are a section of solid wood shelving on the upper shelf of the stand and hanging my iPad off that.

Final thoughts. It's a nice looking piece of furniture. It looks as expensive as it is. Displayed in a living room it would add to the room much like a baby grand piano. I chose the white for this reason also and it looks lovely with a two tone effect, compared some some of my others which had cheap looking plastic enclosures.

I'd be interested in a case for it, even a soft case well padded with a shoulder strap would nice for moving it around.

I am very impressed by the SV288s.

The speakers are very good quality, and the sounds are impeccable. Numerous factory presets that sound fantastic themselves, but can be altered however necessary with the extensive on-board controls.

Super intuitive - has no screen, and a quick breeze through the manual will already make you feel like an expert with the easy-to-use interface.

The action- even better than I thought. Very light. I've heard negative things about the RH3, but it truly is by your preference, as I find the action on this keyboard to be incredibly realistic.

On top of all of this, the keyboard looks beautiful. The knobs and buttons feel really high-quality.

Only drawback for me- weight. If you plan to take this gigging on a very frequent basis, I would recommend just buying a hard case with wheels to make life easier for you.

Overall, fantastic design, easy to use, great sound, great action.

I believe I get to be the first person to review this keyboard! First off this is by far the coolest looking board I have ever seen! Beats Nord for panache, imo. It's not just white, it's a darker warm white and the paint has nice texture. The shape and design, well it belongs in MOMA. Certainly compared to the average slab. The action is very nice, not too heavy not too light. Lighter than the average I'd say. Is the action perfect? Well, it could be a touch quicker and lighter even still, to my taste. Still overall the best action on a pro stage piano in my opinion. I have been told by Korg that it's identical to the Korg Grandstage. I have played the GS extensively and I feel that this action is slightly lighter and faster than the GS, better. Could be my imagination though. Sounds- piano number 2 and 4 sound very balanced and natural, though there is a slightly compressed effect in the two highest octaves, which I did not hear on the Grandstage. I suspect that the piano samples memory on the SV2 are more limited than on the GS, somewhat. It's subtle. Still very satisfying and more natural sounding than other brands I have tried, though the GS takes the prize for sound. Play around with the eq before jumping to conclusions. Electric pianos? Eh, never had any use for those except as layers, so don't know anything about those really. They sound like... electric pianos... Speakers -Wow, totally not expecting such quality. You could easily play and entertain a small group of people with no additional amp and be satisfied. Nice bass response once you crank up the bass using the eq. Not tinny sounding like the old speakered boards used to be. Don't know how well it would work in a large hall. Still, not the same as having a nice pair of monitor speakers and a sub, but then those will weigh far more than 2.5 lbs extra. Could Korg improve on this? Sure, I can't wait until keyboards have the sample capacity of computer based virtual instruments. What's taking so long?

Great keyboard with a few minor flaws. All the different e piano/piano/etc tones are awesome. Sounds so good and is a joy to play. Keybed feels good to me too.

My problems with it are that the knobs feel super cheap, very plasticky and wobbly. They also respond a little strangely. If you spin the knob fast, the visual indicator goes up 1-2-3-4-5 like you'd expect. But if you don't spin it super fast, there's actually 9 "clicks" of the knob turn before the visual indicator changes. This is to give greater adjustment of settings, but is weird to get used to. And do we really need 100 adjustment "clicks" on each knob?

Next are the speakers, they aren't great but they're OK. if I did it again I'd go with the non-speaker version and buy some studio monitors. The volume tapers off *significantly* as you go further down the keyboard. At higher volumes, C8 is almost earsplittingly loud and c2 is still close to inaudible, even with the volume maxed out.

I think this is just a function of speaker size, because it's a non-issue when plugged in to an external amplifier.

I bought this model nearly two years ago, after much waiting and anticipation. I had it down to this one and Yamaha's P515. The 515 was nowhere to be seen due to covid, and so after playing the korg for around 30mins in-store, I succumbed and got it.
The one mistake I made was not cranking the speakers up in-store, but rather using only headphones, so as not to annoy other customers
When I got it home, I realised the speakers weren't that loud, not nearly as loud and powerful as my old korg SP 250, and that was a bit disappointing. I could easily outsing them, and the other major minus was the acoustic pianos. They are good, but not great, esp when you really get into aggressive rock n roll type playing. One other minotmr gripe is the reverb, which gets really wierd sounding at higher settings.
However, the eps are great.
In the end, the yamahe miraculously arrived, only one in the country at the time, apparently, and after being called up about it, I went and tried it. After 2mins I knew that was the one I should have bought.
So, in the end, I sold the Korg and bought the Yamaha, and have zero regrets
Conclusion; if you play acoustic piano mostly, get the Yamaha, if eps, get the Korg. It's really that simple. Korg is great looking, and a fantastic ep machine, and that's it's core strengths, and to that end, I would say Well Done Korg.

At first I was thrilled with this. However it is so heavy that it is nearly impossible for me to move. I'm a big guy 6'3.4" and fairly strong. The rounded corners make it hard to grip plus it is extremely heavy. It more like a grand piano when it comes to moving it. So I set it up and left it where it is. As much as I'd like to move it upstairs the idea is so daunting I have left it where it is for the last 18 months.

Well in less that two years I have one key that is not fully depressing and sounds weak.

Note I kept it covered when not in use.

So I will have to move it and I no longer have the box. It will be a two man job moving it and what was a really fun keyboard has become a nightmare to own

Sweetwater is great. They are looking into warranty service for me. Even so it will be a nightmare.

I bought this so I'd have a relatable piano that did my need tuning that I could move myself. I had no idea how heavy it would be when I purchased it.

I also tried contacting Korg and can't find any information on service locations. Because they insist on a product name to do a search and mine is not listed. Let me take a moment and urinate on KORG. They won't allow me to even search for a service center? Unbelievable.

Bottom line is I loved it when it worked and when I put it where I use it. I would never buy another. I'm completely disgusted with this product. If fails just sitting there untouched. I'd take a sledge hammer to this if I did not have so much money into it.

Once it is repaired I will be selling it. I'd rather have a GoKey's than this.