I don't agree with the notion of not buying the demo. Because I believe if this guy cam get that out of the keyboard and its satisfactory t me. I know I can get that and more.
All the TOTL arrangers have excellent demo sits and sounds. A decision can be made based on them if one feels they are competent enough to play what they want to.

I found the Roland Namm Demo pretty lame. Especially the Guitar demo. But i would not discount the keyboard becasue of that. For me its all about the sounds first as I use a DAW for recording and am only using the arranger for ideas and like a real arranger would be hired to flesh out a song.

David Foster, Maurice White,Michael Omartian.....All Arrangers a songwriter/performer uses to complete their songs. I may only use the bass line of an arrangement. I can arrange strings so I would probbaly do my own string arrangements, But would use horn arrangements from those who can do that better in styles.

Yamahas do too much for my tastes including the final mastering. Their output is indeed compressed cD quality already. Which is great for someone who does not have or care to deal with Mastering.

Sorry, but that doesn't quite make sense. You are merely ASSUMING that the demonstrator IS getting the best that can be got from the instrument, yet later point out a demo that was extremely lame. Does that mean the feature is lame, or the demonstrator?

Hard to tell without playing one yourself. Trust me, there are some AWFUL demonstrations out there (MS wouldn't sell a single unit if those original demos were actually all it could do!), and I have heard PLENTY of different instruments demonstrated that behave FAR better when played by yourself than the factory slacker...

And, OTOH, if you feel you can outplay Peter Baartman (sp?) and make his demo sound lame, well, perhaps Yamaha ought to be calling YOU...

A REALLY good factory demo basically shows off what you MIGHT be able to achieve IF you are the best arranger player out there. Mind you, from what I've heard, Roland rarely EVER demo straight ahead arranger play on their website. They are, at least to my ears, arranger play, recorded into the sequencer, edited heavily, overdubbed, and basically turned into a VERY tweaked SMF.

On the one hand, it DOES show what you can do as a final result, but it sure doesn't show what the instrument sounds like out of the box...!

And finally, if you are only using the arranger as a songwriting tool, and replacing virtually everything in the DAW, what does it matter if Yamaha have a CD-ish sound? You are not going to actually USE it on the final cut, are you? One advantage the Yamaha's have is a HUGE library of styles, both factory and user created. When writing, it might be better to have a large choice of styles, than a smaller choice of styles but a better overall sound if you are not going to USE the sounds...

Just a thought...