Gary, if that's all you are taking away from my posts, you aren't even bloody READING them. I guess you see something less than positive about your baby, the blood rushes to your head, and you start to pen this utter fabrication.

I don't suppose you want to acknowledge the sentence where I said I HAD played an S950 right next to my BK-9. It fits this diatribe so much better if you don't, doesn't it? The only person on this thread speaking from an utter lack of knowledge is YOU, my friend.

The claims that I make about Yamaha equipment are based on facts, direct comparison, and are reasoned by using better than 'my audience likes it' opinions. If you want to argue how YOUR opinion is so much more accurate the the majority of people who chimed in on the shootout, you are going to have to come up with better than that!

In fact, so far, I haven't heard anything that disproves what I have pointed out. Just that you like it, whether it has faults or not. Along with the excremental action, which so far only Donny and you have anything positive to say about it. The rest simply grin and bear it, as Yamaha only put decent actions on their low and mid priced WS's, NOT their mid-priced arrangers. Tellingly, Ian was gushing about the S910 action until he got a Yamaha arranger with a REAL action, and now he loves that. Let's face it, I haven't heard word ONE from Ian that he hates the T4 action and wished it had the S950 action on it instead. Which he was all over while he had an S910!

This is the Yamaha fanatic playbook... totally lose your mind about any criticism of your personal arranger, until you move on up to a better one. Then do a quiet about face.

You also find it convenient to forget the many times I have criticized my OWN arranger for some of its failings. But that is because I have NO great love of my keyboard. It is another tool, and if someone makes a criticism of it that has its basis in FACTS, I have no issue with that. Unlike you, I don't feel the need to 'defend' my poor, maligned multi-million dollar corporation when they fail to get something right.

I'm sorry that the shootout we had here didn't confirm your love of the Yamaha's drum sound. I know it can be something of a shock when something you seem to hold as self-evident fails in a public poll. But overwhelmingly, Yamaha was considered the bottom of the heap when it comes to the overall drum sound.

And sorry, but if the drum sound is bland, the only way to make it all sound so 'balanced' is to make everything else so bland too. Which was basically mine and my friend's (who owns the S950) opinion after we tried them out side by side.

Look, don't get me wrong... There is much to like about Yamaha's. Their OS is quite smooth and mature, some of the sounds are quite good, and the style selection is probably the largest in the business. If you want to pen complete fabrications about my opinion, try to read it and remember the good with the bad. But I, and TBH, the majority of people that choose another brand of arranger, and quietly, subtly, by many Yamaha owners that always post they would like to see more drum kits whenever a new model is being speculated about before its release (which, if the drum sound was that good, you wouldn't think they'd say a word, would you?), we all think the Yamaha drum sound fails to impress.

And even Yamaha themselves seem to be thinking that, or why the audio drums and them trumpeting how 'realistic' they sound?

I disagree with the solution they have decided to use to address that issue, being in favor of better kits myself, but that doesn't change the fact that they recognize the need.

Unlike you.

Now, having been a professional musician my entire life, not having come to it late after a career in other fields, I think that you bandying phrases around like 'if you are so smart, why ain't you rich?' and "reviews from people who claim to know everything there is about arranger keyboards because they slept in a Holiday Inn Express that was within 20 miles of the nearest dealer" is treading on dangerous ground...

But carry on if you want this to keep going downhill fast.