The PSR740 represents one of the best value for money lightweight "portable" keyboards on the market. I emphasize portable, since the PSR8000, 9000 and 9000 pro can hardly be deemed portable "jump on a plane with one under your arm" keyboards. In terms of sound quality, the PSR740 has the same sounds as the PSR8000. The big workstation keyboards, i.e. the 8000, 9000 and 9000 pro add aftertouch, larger flash storage of styles, harddisk and scsi options, voice editing, sound sampling, more powerful editing functions, high resolution display, extra voice layering and dsp effects, better vocal harmoniser features, individual outputs, extra midi ports, more intros and endings per style, more registrations, easier style programming and editing, more powerful organ drawbar sounds and editing and bigger more powerful onboard amplification and speakers.
The Pro model is essentially a 9000 but with a 76 weighted note keyboard, superior piano voices and cool voices, better organ sounds and the ability to take plug in sound/voice expansion boards.
The PSR2000 is likely to replace the 740 and offer much of what the 9000 currently offers, but in a lighter more portable package. It's unlikely that the 2000 will feature the expansion options such as harddrive and scsi of the 9000, nor the 128 polyphony, but with an entry level price set at the initial RRP of the 740, its going to be a superb machine for its price. The 1000 will replace the 640, and again offer a lot for the money, but losing such features as the 64 note polyphony, organ flutes, vocal harmoniser and a few other cherries on the cake.
It's surprising that someone has attempted to draw direct comparisons between the 740 and the 9000/pro, but I can see your point. Almost all PSR keyboards from the 540 upwards feature very similar voice sets, infact the XG set is identical. This of course is why psr communities have become so popular, because users can interchange song files between others without difficulty. You might think your getting the same voices on the bigger models, but listen carefully and you notice the overall quality, effects and definition improves remarkably. The Sweet!, Cool! and Live! voices are really outstanding on Yamaha psr keyboards and are almost unmatched by any other keyboards in this range. Again, moving up the scale you get more and more of these for your money.
Styles across all models will sound very similar, because these often use XG only voices and have to be compatible with Yamahas sff or style file format. This means though that you can take a style from a 540 and use it on a 9000 pro, and vice versa. Hence why you may not hear such a significant difference between models in this range. However for performers, the larger psr models offer the kind of features essential to comfortable live performance. Yamaha have clearly defined the intended targetted audience for their models and hence theres something for everyone.
Hope these few words help..........

Regards
Simon
SVPworld



------------------
________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
________________________