Amy,

This will be my last post in this thread for whatever that is worth to you.

Your comments that 'experts' here don't know what they are talking about is entirely unfounded.

Your claims about what Sweetwater experts told you is very hard to believe taken on technical claims to begin with.

Sweetwater Music is likely the best source of over-the-phone assistance as it pertains to music gear recommendation and sales. However, what they tell you and what we 'experts' type here is only as good as the information you provided. If you provide them misinformation, then they will respond in-kind. As does any expert. When they question a claim that you make, you will have to eat humble pie and admit you don't know with certainty about the capabilities.

You have shown time and again through this thread that you have misunderstandings about the various technology aspects for which you have questions and claims of expertise of those not in this typed thread; whether it is the electrical engineer that you referred to or the Sweetwater salesperson which you referred to.

Your misunderstandings and outright claims that others from off of this forum back up your misunderstandings have centered on the following - at least these are those that I can recall:

1. The USB capability of the PX-130 as being bi-direction with both MIDI and Audio, when in fact it is MIDI only, and for that matter, appears to be uni-directional MIDI.

2. Your idea that the audio passes via MIDI (this was way back when you talked about the keyboard 'grabbing' VSTi sounds, and further confirmed with your misunderstanding of what a digital snake would do for your church's situation).

3. The preconception that a digital audio snake will solve your issues - which it will not - it will not pass audio back to the PX-130, but only back to an outlet on the snake, to be used by some digital to audio conversion.

4. Balanced audio as being the technology present in any audio connection with a TRS type connector on a plug.

All of this stated, I was truly trying to help you out. Some of that helping out is pointing out clear contradictions of your claims and results which come from advising on the claims. I never claimed expertise. I do have decades of experience with audio and MIDI as well as a cheapskate approach to getting the maximum value out of any level of gear that I'm presented with.

As jazzmammal pointed out, it is difficult to read body language through the internet or through any asynchronous communication.

I am through with helping you here. You can send me a PM and I can provide you with the name of the salesperson that I have used at Sweetwater music since 1993. His tenure goes back longer than that.

Here is what you will have to be prepared for in dealing with Sweetwater or any other legitimate music and audio equipment sales company: You will have to stop claiming things that simply are not true, it will only exasperate them as it has done with several persons here - adding my name to the list. They can only help them if you let them and part of that is stating in the most clear terms the gear involved so far, and your desired future state. Then get out of the way. Put the hypothetical arguments aside. When you claim that a manual states one thing, when it is basically the opposite - don't expect to get informed answers. I took the time to go download the specific Privia manual and pointed out your absolutely wrong claim of what the capabilities were. Don't expect the Sweetwater folks to be as extravagant with their time. If you tell them that the USB on a piece of gear is both Audio and MIDI - they have no reason to argue with you and they will end up selling you something that doesn't work as a result.

I was hoping to help you avoid that. Hours were spent trying to clearly understand your situation and desired end goal and typing out thoughtful, and informed answers without getting into the name calling.

As you go forward with Sweetwater, keep these FACTS in mind:

1. The USB capability of the Privia PX-130 is MIDI only via USB. It has no DIN MIDI ports. This severely limits it's ability to communicate with dedicated hardware sound modules that only have DIN MIDI connections.
2. If you are unhappy with the sounds of the Privia PX-130, you will need some other sound generating device; whether it's a different keyboard, a PC functioning as a sound module, a hardware sound module that can communicate MIDI over USB, etc. You will not get any other audio directly out of the Privia PX-130. Period. That said, I think some of it's sounds are perfectly fine - but you've not stated what is wrong with the sounds of the keyboard, other than you don't think the headphone output will be sufficient to deliver a quality sound.
3. Digital audio snakes will not feed the PX-130 with the swapped out sound. Period.
4. If you insist that a piece of gear has a certain capability that it doesn't have, you will get the wrong answer for what to connect to it, replace it, etc.

Best wishes.

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