Hi, I have played the Compact series double manual, guessin is a C2. Massimo Ghirardi (head chief of MAG) came yesterday to my house for a couple of hours test. We hooked up a KeyB Duo MKIII and the MAG into a Leslie 710 trough a Leslie combo preamp. Honestly I never being completely satisfied with my KeyB but I used on tour many different clones and I found the KeyB still the best one. I can tell you the difference is huge between the twos, the last high octave and half of the KeyB is very thin no matter what drawbars setting you're using, on the MAG is W A R M and screaming I just love it! The feeling on the MAG is like playing a real Hammond, same balance between the two manuals, same sound aspected from the drawbars, same EQ on the bass pedals, same warm tube distortion. On the other side, the KeyB is beautiful on the low octaves with a clean Jimmy Smith sound 88800000 with perch on. What I can say briefly is that the MAG sound more alike my A100 played by Jimmy McGriff and the keyB more like a B3 played by Joey DeFrancesco. That said, I'm mainly a blues/soul/gospel cat and I prefer the MAG sound! There's more punch ( a lot!!!!) and what I liked most is the real hammond balance between the two manuals, I mean that I can use exactly the same presets that I always set on hammonds. With the KeyB I always have to work hard on the drawbars to obtain the sound needed. MAG CONS: I love the chance (on the KeyB) to double the left hand manual with the pedals sound very helpful when I play funk-style, but I think they will work on it; the vibrato (C-3) is less aggressive compared to the KeyB but Massimo worked on it with the programmer and we had a beautiful C-2, V-3 and C-3 finally. MAG PROS: better keyboard manuals (even if both are made by Fatar), way better overall construction, better drawbars (compared to the very cheap and longer ones of the KeyB) the look is awesome, better on board reverb, 6/9/11 pins custom out for Leslie direct plugging, high octaves ready for shouting! The controls and H/L dimensions are the same found on a hammond with just slight differences, beautiful and real wood side panels. I'm waiting for the big model with presets keys!!! well done MAG (Y)
