I figure.., what heck.., I'll give a quick review on my impressions of the PSR-S700 thus far. I've been at this board for hours now, and feel comfortable sharing some opinions at this point

Design: Love the design. Very sleek looking. Looks much more professional than previous models (would love to see these babies in black though.., maybe the new models will be....)

I'm VERY pleased to see buttons that are not painted (Yay Yamaha!)

Panel Layout: As usual (with Yamaha arrangers) the panel layout IMO is very good. I think Yamaha has always had a very good layout with many of the controls in the right places for easy and quick access.

Build quality: I have to say that I'm actually quite pleased in this area. In a time where other makers are really starting to go completely sh--ty with the construction.., Yamaha seems to keep building them a little better than the previous models. My only gripe is the same old pitch/mod wheels they're still using.

**As much as I like Roland.., I gotta give them a big fattie middle finger on the construction of their recent lower line models. I had my Juno-Di for just a year and had to send it back for a warranty repair**

Sounds: Gotta hand it to Yamaha. These newer/more recent PSR's are getting better. In general I have to say that the sounds are quite good. Of course there are a few duds (but that's with any keyboard today).

An area I think Yamaha really needs to be commended here is that they "actually listened" to consumers regarding the drums on the PSR line. They're not top notch.., but WOW.., there are some pretty darn good acoustic kits on the S-700. What's impressive is to finally see Yamaha using more velocity switched samples too. Even the dance kit is improved.

Styles: The styles are done very well. Naturally (with Yamaha) you get more of the CD quality styles (you either like them or you hate them I guess). I think they did a good job covering a wide range of genres. The more modern styles are certainly closer to today's music than previous models. It's obvious Yammie spent a little extra time in that area.

Speakers: I think the speaker system is very good. I'm surprised at how much bass comes out of this thing.

Again.., overall I'm very impressed with the S-700. This weekend I'll be digging into the style creator and start writing some modern styles from scratch.

I gotta say that this arranger is an absolute breeze to operate. I've yet to crack the manual. I've dug rather deep into the editing menus on this thing today. Created and saved numerous patches.., already figured out the style creator and sequencer. Just a darn ass easy keyboard to use

If you can find one used for a reasonable price.., I say go for it. It's well worth it. After this weekend I'll put up a more detailed review (I want to spend some more time within the editing menus to see how much juice I can squeeze from this thing).

Where would you put the s700 versus the PSR 3000?

As my 3k display is playing up I may need to get a replacement. The 9xx is seriously good but it also seriously more expensive.

If you're looking to replace your 3000.., I'd suggest you look for a used S-900. The S-700 is a great arranger and sounds very good.., but if you want to replace the 3000 the S-900 would be the best replacement IMO. In terms of the voices.., I don't know the patch list to the 3000 off hand. I'd suggest looking at the date sheets for the voice lists and compare the two. I would imagine the 3000 would give a better selection of Sweet, Cool, and Live voices.

Keep in mind that even though the S-700 is newer than the 3000.., you'll still be losing out on some features such as the color sreen, harmonizer, polyphony, ect.

You've read my mind to a large extent here.

The 3k voice selection is a little better. I could live with that compromise but I really fancy the SA voices.

Methinks if I really have to move fast I'd get along with a 700 but as you say the 900 looks a better fit with what I've got at present.

This has helped a lot, thanks.

The only problem with the S-900 was the display--they had a large number of them that prematurely died. The number was so vast that in many cases Yamaha replaced them at no charge, even after the machine was out of warranty. The S-910 has a totally different display and the problem has gone away.

Gary

If it was my money (but, I know...it ain't), I'd go with the PSR-S910...well worth the bit more, and, as Gary has said above, no reliability issues whatsoever.

Plus, it uses the new style engine as in the Tyros3/4.

Personally, I found the S910 quite a substantial improvement sonically over the S900...the sound just had more punch and yet was sweeter as well.

Ian

I think I need to start saving and negotiating!

Squeak...good luck on your new acquisition...dig deep into it you'll be surprised what you find
now go make some fantastic music!