As an owner of a Tyros 3 I can say that yes Yamaha's house sound is less life-like than Korg. Tyros has a slightly warmer and smoother sound-some say CD like. I think the difference maybe due to compression. To my ears the Yamaha sound is more compressed with lower dynamics. However I find all Arrangers to be closer to CD sound than live when compared to workstations such as Motif, Kronos, etc. As to the individual voices it was a toss up for me except for Trumpet and Sax where IMHO the SA Yamaha voices were better.