Hi all,
I am a long time technics devotee. Every technics board I have had I have loved. I made a couple of brief forays and had a Roland EM2000 for a while and then a Korg i40m but soon went back to technics and bought the kn6000. To be fair I had already decided (before I heard it) that I would not buy the 7000 purely for financial reasons.

Yesterday I went to my local dealers to bug him about a deal on a 9000 pro. He had the 7000 in stock so I had a play with it. I like it very much and it is an improvement over the kn6xxx but not enough of an improvement. If I had the money to buy any board I wanted I still would not buy the 7000.

Now people like Johnnie will question my objectivity I am sure ( after all I only played it for an hour) but I have owned technics for years from the 1500 to the kn 5000 and 6000 with a miriad of inbetweenies. Technics is my brand of preference no question but the fact remains that the 7000 is not enough of an improvement to warrant the price. I was more than annoyed that they did not even attempt to address the haromizer issue. It was laughable on the 6000 I could understand them not changing it on the 6500 but to leave the exact same TOY on the 7000 is an insult. I KNOW they had nothing but complaints about it when the 6000 came out. Nice to know they listened. Even if they had left it off completely (because it is no earthly use in any form whatever) it would have shown at least some intent to listen to their loyal customers. The PSR 8000 which is now three generations back had an adequate Harmonizer and Yamaha have consistently improved the offering with each subsequent keyboard. Technics have done nothing about this issue. There are some excellent setup menu's to attach a digitech or voice prism to my 6000 but it annoys me that I have to faff about with this. It also shows a lack of faith in their own onboard harmonizer that they had to provide such extensive menus.

Technics do some things better than anyone else. The sound system on the 7000 is indeed amazing ...something that technics improve with every board. However in this day and age if another company can offer me an all in one quality package I won't stay with technics just out of loyalty anymore.

I played the Yammie 9000pro again yesterday while I was there and there is no doubt that I will buy this board. The styles are not as 'full' as technics but sometimes I think my 6000 forgets I am there as well....you can't hear me for it!. I will probably keep the 6000 because I do love it but I can see it being played less and less once I get the pro.

ttfn
Tony

[This message has been edited by Tony W (edited 09-15-2002).]