If you are looking at the screen, you ain't looking at the audience!

Navigation IS a total PITA, even compared to non-touch screen systems like the PSR's. They at least have a plethora of buttons surrounding the screen, to allow you to select functions on the screen individually. But Roland's one wheel which ALSO doubles as the enter button is sheer stupidity.

So, for me, the G70 remains my live keyboard of choice. But all my solo and duo arranger work will be on the BK-9. I set all that up in advance, and have little need for complex navigation.

Also, to a fair degree, adding an FC-7 puts many of the buried functions at your feet (if you want them there) and there's a fair selection of functions that can be mapped to the 4 switches by the bender. So quite a lot of ways to work around the screen issues.

There's also considerable power under the sliders, which can now be mapped to live control of the voice programming, and, new to Roland, some of the MFX insert effect parameters.

Sadly, the current iPad offerings do VERY little to make up for the lack of a touch screen. If Roland want to make some quick cash, they ought to make an app that mimics the touch screen OS from the G70. I would happily pay some pretty good money for that (and happily buy the iPad - you don't need the full TOTL iPad, an iPad Mini would still be a larger screen than the G70's). But if you think buying an iPad right now gets you G70-like capabilities, forget it!

As usual with Roland, it's two steps forward, one and a half steps back. I honestly have no idea why they can't recognize the good and the bad of their OS's, and keep all the good and ONLY ditch the bad. The baby is constantly being thrown out with the bathwater..!

But I have my G70 and BK-9 sitting next to each other, running through the same mixer and Mackie HR824 nearfields. I can assure everybody, there is absolutely no loss of quality in the overall sound. Yes, there are a few sounds which are different... it doesn't include the entire G70 soundset (which included a lot of legacy stuff that even the E80 dropped), so odds are you'll find a couple of sounds you used to like gone, but there are hundreds of new sounds, some of which are quite spectacular. But overall s/n ratio, fullness of D/A converters and the like are identical, as far as I can tell.

I'm still a fan of the G70 for live band use. I don't think anything can or ever will beat it. It's OS and touch screen is the most logical, responsive, easy to use system of any keyboard made (and I've tried them all!). But the BK-9 will be my new go to keyboard for anything OTHER than live band use. You start digging into it, and it's quite deep and powerful, and has a live sound unequaled, IMO, by anything out there short of audio loops.

For a circa $2100 76 note arranger, nothing even comes CLOSE!