The problem occurs as oversupply of used arrangers means the trade in prices will drop, making it more expensive to buy a new model, which it turn means less will be bought and the manufactures will be less inclined to develop new models. This is what happened to organs and why Yamaha pulled the plug for the US & European market. (If enough sales could be proven Yamaha would have no problem re-introducing organs to US & Europe)

At the recent Hemsby keyboard festival I was talking to the manufacturers and dealers, and (Off the record) all said that arranger sales were on the slide with the main market being to the 70+ who themselves only usually use about 2% of their current instruments. (All manufactures were also looking to diversify into a different type of instrument to current arrangers, although I couldn’t prise any further details out of them)

Another point I noted was on the demonstrations of new features (The new Yamaha ensemble voices as an example) as even though well explained (Including showing how they worked on large projection screens) looking round at the number of blank faces in the crowd was shocking. (Talking to a lot of those that attended (Thus I cannot confirm its accuracy) I was informed that a lot of T5 buyers had actually sold them and gone back to T4 as the T5 just went over their head)

Enjoy arrangers while you can, as if the trend continues in future years they will become a niche market just like organs did. (Niche markets (Small sales) means they become expensive to produce and thus prices become expensive)

Bill