Hey Ian,
I am not intending to make it a pissing contest, honestly Im not bashing Yamaha at all, cos I too am a Yamaha fan, I always have been (Still got my Motif XF)

Don’t get me wrong I am not saying there is a major difference in sound quality at all from PA2 to PA3. In fact I think there is NO difference bar a few additional voices added (probably about 20-40 if that) and those so called “ambience drums” which I have not seen demonstrated as yet.

What my point is in all this and the reason why I bought Yamaha into my post was a mere comparison in what people are looking for in a replacement arranger model.

My personal experience when I had my Yammys was that I always wanted more punch and ‘oomf’ which was found in Roland , Korg, ketron etc and therefore any incremental step to bring the Yamaha closer for example: Tyros 2/3/4 and so on is like absolute GOLD. It’s like Yamaha keep dangling the carrot over their customers… the new model is better overall sounding… and then better again, and again.

The vibe from the Korg community is somewhat different...

The urge for an overall sound quality improvement is not as demanding in Korg Land as it is in Yamaha Land from what I have seen and gathered over the years…

Im not saying we don’t need a refresh or a new model – there is ALWAYS room for improvement!

Regarding the sounds heard in that video demo: To me, that concert guitar DNC which was played in the bossa nova clip is excellent!. How can anyone disagree with that? I think you were referring to the acoustic guitar played about a minute earlier which was an older sample Guitar…

The electric guitar at the start sounds disgraceful and I think the reason why is because of the way the demonstrator is playing it. And also it probably doesn’t have any good effects applied to it which is an easy fix…

mate - happy to join you for a pissing contest offline via email

Nick