This might be old news for Tyros owners since the board has been out for a while already but i thought i'd add some of my own comments.

I'll try to compare it side by side with the VA7 since this is the other keyboard that I currently own.

Bootup: definitely fast, Tyros boots almost instantly as oppposed to the VA7. Va7 takes forever to come up, especially when you have a zip disk inserted.
Zip disk vs hard drive ? doesn't matter to me.

Ease of use: tons of buttons on the Tyros, definitely beats the touchscreen on the Roland. The navigation on the Tyros is awesome, very easy to use, very convenient and provides a very fast access. Big hat to Yamaha for the interface, impressive color lcd. I even hooked it up to a separate display and it still looked good on my Sony.
After all this time owning the VA7, I'm still uncomfortable sometimes with the touchscreen.

Sounds: still leaning towards Roland for the sound. Just my opinion though, Roland sounds more 'realistic'. I still like the VA7 grand piano, synth brass, v acoustic guitar, sax. I think VA7 has a lot more sounds than the Tyros (around 3,649 something for Roland vs 1149 Presets for the Tyros). Megavoices do sound fantastic and impressive though.

Styles: I love the ballads/pop on the Tyros. Dances styles are a lot of fun on the yamaha as well but for everything else, VA7. I have to explore more in this area though since i've only had the Tyros for a few days.

Key feel: Roland.

Overall, I'm having a lot of fun with the Tyros. This is a great board, with a very modern and stylish look. The weight makes it very attractive to take it anywhere. However, I wish the Tyros had a D-beam controller since this is a feature i use quite often. VA7 is quite an old board now and it might not be a fair comparison with the Tyros but it still sounds very good and I'm not ready to give that one up just yet

Claude

Claude, if this means anything at all, Andrea Rotolo (user member: Dreamer) had owned the Roland VA7, 9000pro, and Ketron SD1, but after purchasing the Tyros, he evenutally sold the others.

Speaking of: Hey Andrea! WHEN are you gonna post your latest 'new' Tyros produced Brazilian song renditions? ('Bahia' & 'Amor em paz')? I was lucky to get to hear them and think they sound terrific.

Scott

Wow, I didn't know your VA7 was long gone Andrea ! Andrea and myself were one of the rare VA7 owners in this forum for quite a while... Who else still have a VA7 in this forums ?

Claude

Me!!

BTW, there isn't a current Yamaha that I feel could replace the VA-7, and do the things the way I want ..
The VA-7 just might be the most under used [feature wise] arranger on the market..
The upgrade features of the Version 2 update alone, is worth keeping the VA-7..

Personally, I do not like the key feel of the PSR's and the Tyros.

Sounds , I am on the same page as Wizboy.
The acoustic grand is my favorite of all the arrangers..likewise the acoustic guitars...and the Scat is a given..no one is close to Roland's SCAT..

On the positive side the PSR3000 has a lot of features for the bucks, new, but compared to a used VA-7 at half the price of a 3k..the choice is easy for me....VA-7..

[This message has been edited by Fran Carango (edited 09-22-2004).]

This may change everything..