Dave, for a 61 key instrument 41 lbs IS heavy. I believe, many manufacturers are guilty of ignoring the needs of gigging musicians, and making the instruments unnecessarily heavy - I am sure that it is possible to make a metal-cased instrument with 76 keys that weighs no more than 35 lbs - just look at Ketron, and a 61 key instrument should be lighter than that (ever heard of aluminum?). As even the younger users of the arrangers are growing older, weight becomes more and more of an issue. True, many used to lug around 100lbs+ organs in the 70s, but the times have changed, and compaing today's electronic instrument to a 40 year old one not reasonable. There is value in encasing the instrument in steel, but these days it is not an indication of the instrument's durability - it is determined by the electronics inside, so if five years down the line an instrument becomes unserviceable due to obsolete electronic components, it will have to be thrown away just like the one with a plastic body.

To address some of your other comments: I have been to "small" specialty stores in my area which stocked arranger keyboards of particular makes (G70, and before that, Technics). I received the similar service to that in the GC - the salesman was all sales and no knowledge. The main difference was that they were insulting me with the car-dealer like pricing (e.g. list $7000, but buy today and I will give you a whopping $1000 off) - is that what you call "fair price"? I am not saying that all independent dealers are like that, but this has been my experience on multiple occasions. I came close to buying the Technics, but their pricing outraged me so much that I had cancelled my order. I must not have been the only one, which is why they are where they are now.

The poor sales are not all fault of the dealers - the manufacturers are in large part to blame. As earlier posts here stated, the newer models of the keyboards are my and large repackages of the old technologies - while the Korg may be using the Triton chip, look how many years it took Korg to incorporate this chip in the PA1X. Heck, your own company touts Drake technology as the cutting edge of sound generation. Yet your GEnesys does not use it, even though it was introduced way after the Drake? Why should the user plunk their money into something that is using old technologies from the start?

Of course, it is not enough to simply include the latest chip - an arranger is a different instrument, with a different user interface requirements - a good UI is much more important than in a synth, as the player is trying to control a virtual band, and not just the solo voices. The touch screen, which may work for off-line configuration in Triton does not work as well in an arranger (like the PA1X or G70), and I am not even going to go into the polyphony issues.

A cursory search of this web site will yield representative list of features which the users deem important. I don't know what kind of market research the arranger makers do, but there are very few instruments on the market today which include most of the features that the users need. While there may be a disagreement as to needing 76 keys, or only 61, there is argument that important thing is keeping the weight of the instrument as low as possible. Most posters advocate having 61 keys mainly as a way of keeping the weight down. Still, if you check the newer offerings, Roland G70 is heavier than its predecessors, Korg is heavier still, and Genesys it competing to outweigh them without even trying to offer the advantages of 76 keys.

I believe that the main problem is not just the poor marketing, but that manufacturers think more about protecting their markets, than making what the players need/want. They deliberately hamstring their instruments, keeping the latest in new technologies as the selling points for their future supposed offerings, rather than maximizing the value and features of the current ones. And that is the real reason that (with few exceptions) the arranger keyboards are relegated to the real shelves of the obscure little stores.


Regards


[This message has been edited by Alex K (edited 03-27-2006).]