I know all the marketing people at Yamaha and Roland and can tell you that both companies would love all the dealers to have a demo model on each stores sales floor, but reality is that most stores choose not to stock a high end arranger because of slow sales on these products. This is the reality here in the USA. If they could sell them, they would stock them. There are many reasons. Poor sales help, a high learning curve and most often heard, not as many musicians interested in high end arrangers vs studio workstation type keyboards like Motifs, Fantoms and Tritons. Again, I go back to the average age of musicians working in big chain stores. Most of the sales guys are under 30 years old and don't want to play styles but rather tweak sounds in a Synth keyboard. The manufactures are not at fault here.......the store managers hiring people to work in stores. Yes, I sell a lot of arranger keybaords, but I'm 56 years old and I choose to stock and sell these. Yamaha, Roland and other manufactures come to me and know I will stock their high end arrangers. They try to get stores all around the USA but often hit dead ends from the dealers. We all must buy our demo keyboards and invest our money to stock them and if they aren't going to sell because of all the reasons mentioned, then they won't show up when you look for them.
So, don't think all the blame lies with the manufactures. The blame lies more with each independent or chain store management.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California