Most interesting video and you won't be surprised to learn that having played Korg for the last 20 years I do think the PA arrangers are pretty superior to the PSR and probably even the new SX series.

I have been truly astounded to see how many of you overhere are considering to order or have already ordered the new Yamaha XS900. Nothing that I have heard so far in the myriad of demos of the new Yamaha has convinced me that is it far superior to the PA700/PA1000, let alone the PA4X. The video posted by Mike is a bit long but speaks for itself.

Nothing much has changed over the years and the Yamahas still have the edge out of the box ( big edge in fact !!) and they still sound more polished, cd-like or whatever you want to call it. I know a fair amount of home players who are quite content with the factory contents of their yamaha PSR, tyros or even Genos.

And it has to be said, again, that out of the box most Korg arrangers sound like crap to me. Many of you, Donny leading the bunch, will agree with me that you DO need to personalize and tweak your arranger keyboard to your heart's content. And even then in the end there will be certain sounds and/or styles in which one brand excels.
The remark that Korg sou
nds more like a band and Yamaha more like a finished product, CD, or whatever has been raised over and over again and still holds swing. Incidentally, it strikes me that many of the live performers overhere tend to mute their ACC. tracks in favour of just Drums, BAss and a good right hand sound, in which case KETRON outshines them all and there would be hardly any need to having either Korg or Yamaha.

As to value for money I must agree with the guy in the video that the PA700 outruns them all. Personally I opted for the PA1000 in 2018 and have never regretted it. I have meanwhile personalised it beyond recognition ( still on offer my JS Resources for those interested) have added the German Musikant Stick and recently the V3 Sonority sound module (Austria).
It has left me with amost impressive and versatile set up without even bothering to have a second arranger on top, which I used to have.

I am sure that the new Yamaha is an impresssive keyboard and will shine in its wellknown departments ( ac. guitars, piano,
songstyles, etc), but apart from its touchscreen ( finally) and some other minor improvements I still have to hear things that would make me think it being far superior to its predesessors the PSR 970/975 etc.

Nonetheless I do wish all of you who are in the process of purchasing one or who already have one like Danny and Rikki all the best with their new arranger.

regards
John

Thanks John, for a well laid out observation. Since you are better on the technical side than I, your opinion is valued.

Bernie

Jeremy See is surely doing a great job as a YouTube blogger, he's nice to watch and knows his stuff.

Yamaha's marketing strategy is indeed rather cruel. I was going to mention, that Korg PA700 should be compared to PSR-SX700, not to PSR-SX900, but now I see that PSR-SX700 doesn't really have a "chord looper" function. It makes me say "what the... did you, Yamaha, take time to intentionally put away some parts of a code, just to make the difference between two models more obvious?".

But in the same time, watching the videos I heard Jeremy playing saxophone on PA700 and I'm not sure that I liked it as much as I like saxophones on Yamaha, and after all the sound of voices is more important to me than all the unique things showed about PA700.

Currently I believe that it's more useful to have a collection of various keyboards, as I see that sooner of later any keyboard may end up in a service for several weeks, so you may need a backup and even a backup for your backup, and it seems silly to have like PSR-S950, PSR-S970 and PSR-SX900 instead of products of different brands.

I would say have you fully utilised the keyboard you already have and is it worth spending £'000s on features the you may / may not use.

A lot of the demos are out of the box, with out sounds being eq'd or the overall sound for the speakers. Which can make quite a difference.

My next step will be the Korg pa700 not the Yamaha psr sx700. Enough said.

what is the reasoning for that selection?

Yeah I saw this yesterday whilst browsing through YouTube.

I like Jeremy; a very articulate guy, however whilst watching his video I just found it negative towards Yamaha, although of course the Korg is a fantastic instrument (hell I have the Pa1000 which is going nowhere), I just found the tone of the video having an element of bias, not factually, but just in presentation and feel, as if he's got something against the SX900 simply because it's getting a lot of headlines, but so it should, it's a new instrument and it's pretty awesome too. So what if Yamaha choose not to put all those "missing" features in immediately, to Yamaha if customers weren't bothered about all those additional features then they wouldn't have reason to add them. So over time, they've had the feedback so they've put them in. Its a little like mobile phones, Samsung are always one step ahead of Apple, but Apple eventually add the features in - once they think its worth it and not a gimmick feature, and always sells better than any other phone.

Opinions are always welcome; they give us a broader view. There is a long list when deciding which keyboard one should buy. I have bought many Arranger keyboards over the past years, and most were bought unseen. I am running 90% satisfaction. Although I value the opinions given on this forum, I find that the search for the best arranger keyboard can steel some of my joy.

I love arranger keyboards, and I am excited with the thought of buying one. I have watched many demos, building on my excitement. A new Technics, a new Wersi, a new Tyros, a new Korg, and now a new YamahaSx900. Digging too deep into which keyboard is the best steels part of my joy.

Donny has made so many moves, I don’t know which keyboard he has missed. Cheers for him, he is enjoying something that is precious, I hope he does not stop until it is all over. Life is short.

Please, no offence, just sharing my feelings, John C.