1st thing I would like to point out is that my observations below are purely of the demos, not the instruments themselves as I have not heard them live, so the demo may or may not be representative of them.

2nd thing is I am out regular listening to live music of various types and this is what I will be basing my opinions on. (Not in comparison with any other keyboard or recording)

Cool Swing and Acoustic Jazz

Korg gives quite a reasonable sound and certainly has a live feel to it; however the Yamaha is way out of its depth sounding very old. (There is no way it could be mistaken for a real instruments and players)

Piano & Strings

Both Pianos are different but neither gets above ordinary and boring, as to the strings then what have Korg done, as they are the worst strings I have heard in a long time, the Yamaha on the other hand is a more integrated sound but is 1 dimensional and lacks any of the expression that you get with a real string orchestra. (This is possibly because the player is not using an expression pedal though)

Unplugged Style

This is very nicely done on the Korg with quite good realism from most of the instruments and style used, the Yamaha on the other hand has no realism at all and the guitar in the style is diabolical. (Sorry Yamaha but you need a lot more work on this part of the instrument)

Orchestra

Good sounds from both with the Korg sounding the most live; however without an expression pedal there is no chance of either of them sounding remotely like a proper orchestra.

Country Strum

Korg sounds are ok but it sounds like the band is not really interested in what they are playing thus you don’t get the full foot tapping urge, once again the Yamaha guitars really let it down and the style just sends you off to sleep. (You can forget getting folks up to dance or to get their feet tapping with this one Yamaha)

Blues

Always difficult to pull off as there are so many variations, again the Korg sounded as if the musicians where not interested in what they were playing, while the Yamaha was once again very poor in comparison with more work needed to be done by Yamaha to bring it up to scratch.

Overall

The Korg shows good potential but lacks the tightness of the PA800 it replaces, however Korg usually bring out an update that addresses most of the issues. (The PA800 was also rather lacklustre when it first came out)

The Yamaha however appears to be just recycling its past, which means its falling behind in a lot of departments and in many respects is only a small update to the S910 it replaces. (Certainly wouldn’t be worth upgrading an S910 for it unless you were really desperate for the few updates)

Would I buy either from the demos? The answer has to be no, as neither of them float my boat.

NOTE: As I mentioned at the beginning my opinion is purely based on the demos and not the instruments themselves, as I have not tried them myself and so cannot confirm any of their sound & style capabilities.

Bill

In reality this demo means nothing, ....personally I can make any of the existing arranger Kbs on the market of ANY brand sound great in my hands playing,...cocky? No,...just confident in my abilities and experience as a pro player. Too much emphasis on what it sounds like in a demo vs your own talent and what you can make it sound like as a player and your talent to do so. There is no substitute for playing talent period, And thats all that matters first lets be honest here.

It's not really a very good comparison. Once again, it does demonstrate that whether something sounds good or bad is entirely in the hands of the player. Just about any modern MOTL arranger CAN sound great... but only if you PLAY IT GREAT!

This, sadly, is just OK. Admittedly, it's probably at the top end of ability for the vast majority of people who buy arrangers, and hence the demo will work OK for them. But I guarantee, in the hands of a Marc Parisi, or a Ralph Schenk, our job of deciding which is 'better' would be far more difficult.

TBH, I didn't like EITHER arranger very much. At least, not presented like that! Poor choice of styles (the blues one on the Korg was Mustang Sally, slowed down to the point that the style didn't work any more), poor choice of RH sounds (both those arrangers have better string sounds in them, I guarantee!) and dead square playing.

And what's with comparing factory OTS settings? To be quite frank, if you buy an arranger for how it comes out of the box, God help you! You honestly don't think you can improve on them? Time to crack the manual and experiment with the full sound set and effects...

I think a much better comparison is to give a talented player two arrangers, six songs, and a WEEK to find out how to perform them best. That's what most of us do. You don't just call up the first string sound you find. You don't use the first blues pattern you come across...

And, as usual, I'd prefer if these tests were blind. Tell us which was which AFTER you have played the back-to-back. Too many invested in their choice of gear, here, LOL.

In my experience owning both brands ( Pa3x and Psr s900) and having them integrated to play simultaneously I can say I keep swaying from one to the other. There are times I play basically the Korg styles and others the Yamaha's. But I play the psr styles with the Korg drums what makes the big difference. Choosing the best sounding board is only a part of the realism you can get. Yamaha leads on SA voices and smoother chord transitions. Korg leads far ahead on drums and modern styles.
Sometimes I think my ears get bored from one board's sounds and need a change, later I miss the former.

Hello, guys. I still love my S950, but there's curiosity growing inside of me about Korg's stuff (yeah, all men are the same...), I wonder if the screen of PA600/900 supports multi touch. I mean, will I be able to mute several tracks in one touch to the screen, using few fingers, or this machine won't recognize few touches at once? Hope you'd get what I mean.

I am sure you'll get your answer from those that already own the Pa900 or Pa600...
I just wanted to say I like the fact that you can actually drag on screen to adjust the faders, either for mixer (volume level) or for the drawbar organ. Sweet!

There is still no multi-touch capability on current arranger touch screens. One thing at a time.

In fairness, in the heat of performance, I think I am comfortable with that! Or I might get unintended results if a secondary finger accidentally touches the screen.

All Korg has to do is to go back to having a mute button at the bottom of each slider, as they did on the i30. None of their models since then have had this simple solution. Of course, none of this applies to the Pa600 or Pa900, but would be a godsend on the Pa3X and any subsequent multi-slider keyboards.

With the mute buttons you could knock out a single track, or a bunch of tracks simultaneously, if you wanted to.

124, thanks, but I didn't understand from that if it's possible to press several buttons on the screen of PA600/900 simultaneously. I read the manual, and saw there some mute buttons on the screen.

There's a big difference between physical buttons and touch screen ones. 124 was talking about the Korg i30, which had no touch screen, but physical sliders and real buttons.