Once again, the COMPLETE refusal by Ian et al. to admit that Yamaha DO make 76 arrangers... Talk about beating a dead horse! That argument, once you admit the very existence of the DGX. YPG and NP-80v (arguing whether they are arrangers or not is pure semantics) is OVER...

What Yamaha have is a VERY poor product line-up... Overlaps and gaps, not a smooth transition from one end of the spectrum to the other. And the MOTL 76 falls into one of those gaps. They have low end 76's, they have high end 88's (mind you, not as high as the 61's), but no MOTL 76. And while other companies find profit in selling MOTL and TOTL 76's, no amount of 'market research' bullsh*t is going to convince me that Yamaha have even TRIED to plumb this market. They simply have gaps in their product line-ups (that other companies don't have) because they split the one market up into two competing divisions. One makes the 76's, the other gets the current technology.

No other reason for it than this arbitrary corporate structuring. Any attempt to put a logical, customer related spin on it simply has to disregard SO MUCH factual evidence, it starts to border on religion!

The arranger division develops the technology, and guards it as jealously as they can for as long as they can, and the 'home piano' division (the one that makes the 76 note arrangers) sits around, twiddling its' thumbs, waiting for the meager dregs the get eventually tossed to them. The fact that Yamaha's TOTL 88 Clavinova, FAR more expensive than a T4, has technology in it barely the equivalent of a T2 shows exactly how much emphasis Yamaha put on 'market research'... Do you honestly think that someone who payed THAT MUCH for Yamaha's TOTL 88 arranger is actually HAPPY they got shafted?

If Yamaha had ONE division that dealt with ALL arranger sales (calling a cheap plastic unweighted 76 arranger a piano doesn't make it one in the slightest), I have absolutely no doubt they would be producing MOTL and TOTL 76's exactly the same as everyone else.