I too moved on from the PSR3000 to the S900 and at first I was distressed at the layout changes and small design faults, the 3k was a fantastic design, I would have been happy if Yamaha built the S900 into the 3000 casing....ok heres my angle on the not so good side of the S900...

1:- The screen is now further back and playing in a normal position it is not easily readable without leaning over the keyboard and if you use a second keyboard on top you will have problems.

2:- The rubber buttons are awful, they are not positive enough and if you press them in certain areas they do not respond, in some areas they are to small, the rubber will eventually perish with the acidity from sweaty fingers...who at Yamaha ok'd these rubber buttons to be used?...I'd give the S900 about 2 years before these buttons start to go...be warned.

3:- The area arond the screen is bristling with the normal PSR buttons (rubber) but they are Black on a Black background and are very hard to see on a dark stage, I have had to put flouescent sticky paper dots next to them to make them visible..terrible design!!!

4:- The 'fade out' button is periloulsy close the the 'Arranger Off' button...be carefull with that or you may find your volume disappearing if you dont realise you've hit it..

5:- The registration section facilitates the need to press 2 separate buttons simutaneously at times, once again the 3000 was so quick accessing the 'Reg' pages.

6:- The absence of any large scale 'on board' continuous storage is a pain in the butt, the 3000 had the 'Smart Medai' slot, which would hold huge amounts of data is now gone , all you can do now is use a USB pen stuck in the back which is ok if your S900 is kept in one place...if you are a giging musician you have to keep removing it after each performance which creates the situation where you could lose or forget your data pen and have no styles/registations available. We are in and age where memory is avaiable cheaply but Yamaha felt that 1.44mb inbuilt memory was ok...its not! its totally inadequate, a small closable compartment at the back to hold the data pen permanantly in would have been acceptable.

Ok there you have it...my thought's on the S900....you can't fault the sound but it has some serious design glitches....

Anybody feel the same?

Rgds
Pasa



[This message has been edited by pasadoble (edited 10-08-2007).]