With the Yamaha your’re getting updated operating system based on Genos. Plus...color touch screen. Sound engine seems to be improved as well. The Roland is a deep keyboard and somewhat complex. The biggest decision is probably based on whether you like Roland styles versus Yamaha styles.

Like you say...Roland EA7 is 5 years old and Roland has seemingly backed away from introducing any updated arranger keyboards.

Good Luck

Yep, it’s all about the styles and overall sound. Yamaha are unlikely to update the SX700 significantly, so you are basically in the same boat in both arrangers.

If it’s your first pro arranger, and intend to stay with the genre for a significant time, maybe Yamaha may be the better choice as you have an upward or forward path over the next few years, although a used BK-9 could be a nice way to step up from the EA7 without learning a brand new OS. But they’re getting hard to find, and don’t have multipads or a sampler if you use them a lot...

About the one thing I’d definitely give the edge to Roland’s EA7 for is if you are from the Far East or Middle East or other non-Western areas. The EA7 is chock a block full of ethnic sounds and styles from all over the world and set up well for non-Western tunings.

With all the hype on SZ about E a7, I have been tempted to buy one. I think it might some things that are desirable. My Sx900 Yamaha has many, many things that are desirable. But that is only my opinion.

Start here:
Step back, what are your needs???? How will you use it? What type of music will you be playing? Price is always a dciding factor-- what do I have to spend???
John C.

I stopped at Guitar Center to buy a pair of small powered speakers for my Sx900. The salesman, my friend, said that the Sx900 had great speakers, one of the best.
John C.

The SX900 speakers are excellent. The SX700 has a different system but I believe still pretty good.

Whilst I'm not a huge style user the ones I've tried so far have all been fine.

Ultimately you really need to try both keyboards and see which best matches your needs.

I now have the SX900 (replacing Tyros 3) rather than the SX700 because I needed the sub outputs and external video, the sound quality on both is excellent.

Yes, this would be ideal. I recently had the same dilemma with some guitars I was interested in. I purchased three guitars from the store with the understanding I would just end up with one and return the other two. Maybe you could make such an arrangement with a shop?

Good luck!

They are both toys for beginners, get a KORG PA1000 and that will cover everything for you up to a pro level, that's a few hundred bucks extra and aftertouch and touch screen.

So what was the guitar you bought? I love guitars.

The are both in the same league of the PA1000. So this too is a toy for beginners (according to your reasoning, I do not agree with).

The truth is that if you blindly listen to a Sx700 and a Genos you cannot probably tell the difference. Let alone the casual listeners that do not even know what an arranger is and what are the companies that manufacture them.

What everybody for sure can tell the difference is when a pro plays a 20 years old keyboard and a beginner plays a, let's say, Genos.

Everybody will tell you that the 20 years old arranger sounds MUCH better!! Because it is the player that makes the difference. Never the tool.

I got a Lucero nylon acoustic electric. I compared to an Ovation, Ibanez and Yamaha, and to my surprise, I liked the feel and sound of the Lucero best. I’d never heard of this brand before! Probably my new guitar would not impress a guitar connoisseur such as yourself, but I’m happy with it. I can see how the guitar search could never end though. I’m already have eye on a steel string acoustic-electric.

For the money the PA1000 is still better, let's not forget again, AFTER TOUCH, which Yamaha and Roland made a big mistake.
You opinion is biased if you are a Yamaha player and you are biased if you are a KORG player but for me and for the money KORG PA4X is better then the over priced GENOS that costs 2x more.I had them all including the EA7 and a PSR-OR700, nothing beats KORG for me, HANDS DOWN.

“For me”.... and there it is in a nutshell, folks.

One person may think aftertouch is the deciding issue. Another may like 5 insert effects and 3 send effects.

Personally, I find it easier to do without aftertouch by using delayed LFO’s than it is to only have one insert effect for all three keyboard Parts... that’s something you can’t work around!

But that’s just me... 🎹😎

Perhaps it’s time to stop calling other people’s choices ‘toys’, or at least back it up with some music that makes us go wow! Trust me, I’ve heard plenty of music from less than pro gear that made my jaw drop! And I’ve heard ‘music’ from any pro keyboard you could name as the best that sounded like dog doo! 💩

I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be happy having your pet Korg called a ‘toy’ because it doesn’t have 28 separate insert effects processors, like a Genos does. Or 256 voices. Or an 8 part chord sequencer. So how about you dial down the elitism?! 🎹😎

I don't usually get upset on this forum but describing the Roland and Yamaha as toys is a huge disservice to both keyboards.

Sorry! to hear you got upset, life is too short to take an opinion to heart, I hope you didn't lose any sleep, but that was somewhat a figure of speech and they are toys for me, I really don't want to get into what experience I have and how many years I have been in the business because I really don't have to prove anything to anyone, hope the stock doesn't go down because of my opinion LOL! but I think I can express my opinion whether someone likes it or not. My feeling is that companies are playing us for fools reinventing the wheel every year and adding more bells and whistles so we buy every so often cause we have a sickness and they have the pill,that has to stop some time for me.

John, opinions are good, as long as we do not forget that they are only opinions. For me, I think every keyboard has it's place in our enjoyment and business.

Be well my friend, John C.

There is nothing as good as comparing guitars side by side in person. It sounds like you found the one that suited you best.


My most recent guitar is an electric guitar from New Zealand made out of 35,000 year old wood that grew during the Ice Age and remained buried for 35,000 years which is what preserved it. They even have prehistoric insect amber embedded in the wood. Doesn't affect the sound of course but looks very cool.

try instead, Yamaha arranger from the seventies...

Congratulations on your beautiful one-of-a-kind guitar!

No worries people, no sleep lost!

It’s not hard to tell the difference between a figure of speech and a not even thinly veiled insult. And I have a feeling that the stock will pay as much attention to your opinion as it deserves! If you can’t make great music on any of the arrangers you call ‘toys’, that’s down to you, not the gear!

As I pointed out, there are plenty of ‘toy-like’ features on Korg’s. Or they would be toy-like if I felt about musical instruments that way. I don’t. Like I said, if you can’t bring yourself to admit that there are at least a few features on a competitor’s arranger that you wouldn’t LOVE to see on your arranger, you have a lack of imagination...

Just try this next time before you post... try applying those ‘figures of speech’ towards your own arranger, and see if it would upset you to have others use them. Trust me, they COULD... There’s no one dominant arranger. You don’t own it, I don’t own it. We all own flawed tools. 🎹😎

it is a matter of taste. to my eares EA7 sounds like a begginer arranger especialy in the styles departments ' SX700 sounds more like GENOS and for me it means that the quality of the sounds is much much better , and the styles sound like a proffesianal sofisticated band.
but thats me.

Exactly. It's a matter of taste. Personally, until the Revo drums started appearing in Yamaha's (and there aren't that many in an SX700) I always felt that Roland and Korg were much more punchy and 'live' sounding, and Yamaha's felt very 'CD' like, compressed and flat.

But a lot of that depends on whether that's the sound you are going for or not...

This is a debate that has raged since they first came out, and it always basically turned into a 'mine's better than yours'. I believe the truth is, sound for sound, no arranger has an across the board superiority. There are some exceptional sounds in every one, and some clunkers. How you feel about an arranger, whether you use it or not, largely depends on whether the great sounds are ones you use all the time, and whether the clunkers are something you NEED a lot!

This also applies to the styles, perhaps even more so to the styles... Korg's smooth jazz styles were always exceptional, Yamaha always nailed the oldies and worship styles, Roland's were the go to choice for rock. Once again, how you feel about an arranger has a lot to do with what genre you principally play...

Here's the truth (IMHO!):

THEY'RE ALL GOOD!

We live in amazing times...