I went back and spent some more time with all the boards I listed. I tackled the Tyros 2 again. I was pissed off at where they had the Tyros 2. Here's all these lower end arranger keyboards costing pennies, and BAM a $3500 arranger. It just seemed out of place. I told the keyboard department they're freakin crazy for not having the Tyros 2 back in the "pro" section.

Again I'm just blown away by the SA voices. OH MY GOSH those saxes are just mouth watering. I also spent some more time with the drum kits, and YES several of them are a big improvement. I think the one's that stood out were Power 1 and Power 2. I still wasn't impressed with the electronica kits though.

The keys on the T2 just feel down right great! I really like the key action on it. I felt very connected to the sound with those keys. I still feel the styles are more "CD" quality rather than "live" quality. That's not a bad thing either as we all have different opinions in terms of what tickles our pickles in styles.

I still feel the construction of the Tyros 2 does not reflect the price. For the life of me I can't understand why a $3500 arranger has painted buttons. The screen, and the overall layout is very nice, but the construction wasn't up to par IMO for a keyboard in that price range.

I dug into the entire Motif line again while I was there. What really sucked is I wanted to spend more time on the unit, but ended up answering questions for the crowd that gathered while I was playing. It pissed me off because the sales rep was goofing off somewhere, while there were customers with real questions. So I got drowned in questions related to all the damn synths back there.

I will say the chord recognition on the XS is SPOT ON! I messed with it yesterday, but didn't get to dig in as deep into the chord rec. as I wanted to today. However, it really felt like playing an arranger at times. I didn't get to get too deep into it as I said because I ended up explaining and showing features to others. I didn't want to be rude either. These people had serious questions and not one person there to answer them. Very sad.

I will say again the SA voices on the Motif XS are amazing. The acoustic sound still blew me away. The XS is gonna be a hit for sure. I don't know how buyers are going to take to the things left off this model though....