This would actually be an opinion, not a fact..!

Most Roland users at the time (and Korg and Ketron too) considered the overall sound of the Yamaha’s to be very compressed and flat sounding. Something they have emphasized lately by bringing out the Revo drums and room ambience drums with the Genos line, and indeed, a lot of the earlier criticism of how compressed they sounded has gone.

But, in fairness, Roland’s ALWAYS sounded punchy and ‘live’.

What I think gave Yamaha the edge back in the early 21st century was that each model upgrade had very little difference in OS and features from the previous model. Older players could comfortably upgrade and have very little to learn. Sounds got better, but how you played it didn’t (much).

Roland, OTOH, seemed to want to completely reinvent itself every model change. The transition from say a G1000 to a VA7 to an E80 to the BK9 meant almost completely learning a new arranger each time. Features would get mysteriously dropped, then only brought back 20 years later. Data seldom migrated well (except the style format itself, which only got its first major change - multiple style drum tracks- in the BK9) and buttons and sliders were very different each model.

Add to that Roland’s stubborn refusal to embrace multipads (didn’t get those until the last Roland ever, the EA-7) and some other common arranger features (eg samplers), it was a recipe for failure.

But if you wanted a punchy live sound, back during the Tyros years, many tended to go with Korg and Roland, or the recorded live drums of Ketron’s SD series.

This is, of course, an OPINION… 😂