I also went to the stores expecting to find Genesys (Tyros will not be available in the US for a while), but the two GEM dealers told me that they are not planning to carry it (as there is no demand for it - apparently I was the first person who asked them for it).

Instead I found a KN7000. I am not going to post a long review here - this would only promote the opinion prevailing on the Technics discussion pages that the people in this forum are anti-Technics.

I should say that the individual sounds are very clean. However, the styles are too organy for my liking. I could see how this keyboard would suit some people, but for my music the stock styles do not work. The other problem for me - I usually play with the left hand sounds (like bright piano) in pianist left-hand mode (three notes trigger a chord, while one or two notes played only play the LH sound) - this works really well on my G1000. In Technics, once you turn on the arranger chord, the left hand sound stops playing, or so the salesman assured me. By the sounds of it, the Technics is designed as a replacement for the accordion. The shiny buttons look chintzy, and for all its heft, to me the keyboard felt rather plastic-y (Not that I am against plastic, but to me it did not have a feel of sturdiness I'd associate with metal).

The other note - the display of the 7000 looks spectacular. Unfortunately, it does not seem to convey any more information that did the smaller display of the 6000, or then the monochrome displays of the many competitors do. The bottom portion, which displays mixer bars in default mode, disappears during various operations, like sound, style, mode selections, and you are still limited to multiple pages of only TEN entries each. Of course the graphic icons with instrument pictures look great, especially in color, but they add little to the usability of the instrument. The whole display business looks gimmicky - this feeling was exemplified when the salesman turned on the dedicated DEMO button and the keyboard started playing pre-recorded music along with animated movie playing on screen - I wonder how much of the instrument ROM is taken up by this sales demo.

Regards,
Alex