Ok .. read the reviews and comparison.. read the review in Keyboard Magazine. Ordered it (not available locally). Some nice features .. but the backgrounds still sound cheezy to me -- like what I always thought a Casio sounded like. Certainly NOT a professional arranger sound. When playing in full 'keyboard mode' for chords - it didn't follow very well ... which made the background parts sound like they were in a different key or something.

Was hard to adjust things on the fly -- tempo and accomp. vol ... where as on the Yamana psr you could use the keypad entry for quick adjustment.

All in all -- disappointed. Am sending it back for a refund and keeping my PSR.

Ok, well your entitled to your opinion. For myself, I played the thing for 2 or 3 hours before I decided to buy it. When I got mine out of the box I wasn't as imptressed with the sounds that I had heard in the music store. Then I started adjusting the master DSP settings, and tweaking the voices, and voila, I liked what I heard. On the contrary, the MZ has many pro features that a 740 or 640 doesn't. Ok, it dosent have multipads .. but on the 740 you can't adjust the dsp settings on the multipad anyway, and I think they are the cheesiest sounding thing I ever heard.. way over quantized. It doesn't have a vocal harmonizer. Another feature that's nice on the 740, but to me doesn't sound pro at all.
The one thing that shines on the 740 though that even the 9000 doesn't have is the " groove " function. But the sequencer is virtually useless and aggravating to worl with. On the contrary, on the MZ I can compose an entire song, ( or pattern from scratch or a n smf ) step edit what I want, adjust the dsp for each voice, and send it on it's way without having to use an external sequencer. To me the menu is just as easy to use once you get the hang of it.
there are only 64 registrations, opposed to the 128 on the Yamaha, but they are easier to change in real time ( unless you want to use 4 only at a time )
Hey, I'm not knocking the 740, I own one and like a lot of things about it. The pianos are better, but the guitars aren't even close. Then there is the synth on the MZ, the main feature ( other than a real sequencer ), that sold me on the MZ. Work with that, layer some voices, adjust the dsp ( master eq hi+ loud works REAL nice ), and then maybe you would like the sounds better.
Or maybe you won't. For me , they are just right, and with both boards together, I have a nice system. If I strictly played out with my board, maybe a Yamaha would be better for me. But I mainly compose, so the MZ far outshines a 740 in that respect.
Al M