One of the reasons it may have flopped is the astronomical price Yamaha wants for it. Reality sets in when they want people to pay upwards of five Grand i.e. up to $5,000.00 for a keyboard that probably costs Yamaha $1,000 max to build. Yamaha has assembly line tactics and construction down to a science thus eliminating cost overruns but Yamaha is still making them in Japan currently thus high labor charges are being passed on to consumers unfortunately.

If Yamaha ever decided to make the Tyros series in China again I think the price could be substantially reduced as a result in my opinion. Instead of a Tyros 3/4 costing MSRP $4,599.00 (plus tax) as it stands currently, Yamaha could theoretically drop the price down to around $3,599 instead most likely. Japan's notoriously high labor costs (plus Yamaha's own greed sorry to say) is killing people's desire and incentive to buy Yammie's astronomically priced high-end keyboards if you ask me.

Korg, on the other hand, has been able to keep the Pa2xPRO's cost down to acceptable levels and I think a big reason for that is they are a much smaller company than Yamaha and as such they have to be more competitively driven to stay in the game as a major keyboard marketing force and company. And consumers win as a result.

Yamaha, on the other hand, puts the ultra high cost "bait" in front of you and is in no hurry for you to bite the baited hook and/or for them to reel you in once they have devoured your once hard earned cash. In other words, take it or leave it - we're still "king of the hill" and we'll do "whatever it is we want to" in the meantime. But with an attitude like that I could envision more and more people looking elsewhere for their high-end arranger keyboard needs. Although most likely NOT in the direction of Ketron either of course. Except perhaps for the few, the rich, the gullible?? We need to revolt against these ultra high prices that, in my opinion, they try to gouge consumers with. If we don't, they will continue to keep selling them at higher and higher prices to us until we do... 'nuff said. >> I'm sure Yamaha will now begin to bend over backwards to try and please us right? Oh!... how I wish it were true!

All the best,
Mike

PS: I so looonnnnggggg for the days of Tyros "1" fame! I paid roughly $2,499 for my Tyros in 2003. A little over 5 years later the cost for a Tyros3 had essentially DOUBLED when you factor in the tax - for basically the SAME keyboard with slightly better sound realism?? Who would have thunk!