The PC2R was designed by Kurzweil to provide fans of compact 1U rack modules with the capabilities of their popular PC2 series. One of the reasons why this is such a popular unit is thanks to the exceptional high quality sounds that it is able to deliver. With a brass section, harpsichord, marimba, organs, acoustic basses, percussion, super dynamic stereo grand piano, and much more, there is a lot to like here.

In total, the PC2R provides users with 400 preset programs, consisting of 256 regular programs along with 128 Orchestra ROM programs and 16 KB3 programs. Of course, if you are not satisfied with any of the programs you can edit them to make changes to LFOs, timbre or envelopes before storing them to one of the 256 user locations. The 64 voices of polyphony is also very useful, but if this is not enough for your needs, there is also the option to expand these to 128 voices. It even has support for 128 new preset programs and 32 new preset Setups if you add the optional Classic Keys ROM.

Although the PC2R has four programmable knobs that can be found to the left of the display, it is more convenient to control its sounds using a physical controller. On the rear panel of the PC2R, you will find the power, audio, as well as MIDI connections. It uses a specialized external power supply, with a standard electrical plug on the one end and a keyed four-pin plug on the other. The front panel features the 40-character LCD in addition to a set of "performance" buttons and knobs, a section of "edit" buttons and a section for the "modes" buttons. The four knobs found in the "performance" section can be used to control 12 different functions, but as mentioned earlier, this can also be accomplished with any physical controllers on your MIDI source. Finally, the front panel features tri-colored LED for each section, which displays their current setup. This can range from red, which means it is a soloed zone and the only one playing, to green, which means it is the active zone and amber, which means the section is muted.

Overall, the Kurzweil PC2R is a great sounding synth, with its piano sounds in particular drawing lots of praise from users. Another highlight is the KB3 tone wheel organ sound modeling technology that it uses as well as the duel effects processors.