...er Terry...don't get me wrong, but... could we just shake hands?

Many good thoughts on this subject. I especially like the thoughts by Zuki that the 9000 Pro sells on reputation alone - that is quite true since most dealers feel the 9000 Pro is too specialized and expensive an instrument to keep on their displays. It's a special-order item in many places. Amazing the 9000 Pro sells at all in that light. I recall that many magazine reviews like Keyboard felt that the 9000 Pro was overly expensive. Even with the introduction of the Tyros, the list price for the 9000 Pro has not dropped and it still sells for more than the Tyros. Despite what Micco and others think (not a criticism against Tyros owners: we all like the Tyros too) the 9000 Pro really does have more features across the board than the Tyros, but possibly at a cost that may be above the breaking point. Is $3,000 the max limit for an arranger?

That still leaves the question as to why Yamaha has not given the 9000 Pro the support that it has given the Tyros. The fact that OPT voice editors come with the Tyros but not for the 9000 Pro either indicates that Yamaha's R&D is going towards the Tyros solely and the 9000 Pro is about to be discontinued, or they just haven't gotten around to developing the 9000 Pro voice editors yet (even though the 9000 Pro has been on the market since early 2001). Since Yamaha got burned by the "too expensive" label on the 9000 Pro, not only is it possible that there will be no "Tyros Pro" in the near future as Graham's sources say, but Yamaha may simply decide to only make 61-note arrangers from now on to keep the price level below $3,000. If that's the case then it's possible that the 9000 Pro may be the last of it's kind, at least from Yamaha.
If other manufacturers heed the lessone learned by Yamaha with the 9000 Pro, are 76-note arrangers an endangered species?

Andrea,
LOL.....good plan, my wife really frowns on me kissin' anyone else anyway.
Terry

Pro,
At this point for me $3K is my top limit of perceived value by me for ANY board and even that I have to talk myself into that amount. The only thing that factors in, is that to get the features, that's what it costs.

I too think for the $3k. they should have added some of the features that the 9k has. I actually think features wise all in all, the 9k is a better value from the expandability point of view.

For me to go above $3K, they are going to have to add, an arppegiator, a cd, slots for expansion boards at the very least.
jam on,
Terry

Regarding Voice Editing Software for the Tyros. I think the reason this is included is simply that the Tyros having USB to PC connection provides you with editing voices directly. however the programs provided on the CD are very basic. The USB connection is also very slow to download from Tyros to PC for what ever reason.

Graham UK

My feeling is that right now people at Yamaha are concentrated on the Tyros for obvious reasons; as soon as this frenzy is over, they will start to work on the 9000 too, in terms of support, etc.
Another feeling is that at least for the next generation of arrangers, Yamaha will not release another kb with all the features of the pro (sampler, expansion slots, 76 notes kb). This could be a good reason to buy one second hand, if you can find it.

Graham: you might recall that Yamaha released a series of voice editors for the plug-in expansion cards that go with the 9000 Pro, some of which were stand-alone editors but most of which were for use with the discontinued XG Works sequencer program. None have been converted to OPT yet. Also Yamaha's XGEdit program is a stand-alone editor which has no current OPT counterpart yet (I expect this to happen very soon though). Since the Tyros OPT panels are actually for use with programs like Sonar, I assume that you can do voice editing over MIDI as easily as you can over USB. So the lack of a USB interface on a 9000 Pro alone is not the reason that Yamaha has not adapted it's existing expansion card voice editors for OPT, or not produced one at all for the main voices or the XG voices of the 9000 Pro. I believe it's more that the Tyros support and development has been fast-tracked in all areas over providing OPT support for the 9000 Pro and even over producing generic XG OPT voice editors. Obviously selling new keyboards is more profitable than supporting old ones. I only question this in light of the fact that the 9000 Pro is a current model and it really should have the same support and OPT features that the Tyros does if it's to be sold along side it for more money. Who wants to pay more for a keyboard that doesn't have the support of it's cheaper counterpart?