the PSR S970 is my latest addition to my rig.
I currently have a PA 3x and a Motif XS.

The PSR S970 in my opinion is a massive leap over the S950 and in fact it has more detailed editing features than the T4 - truth!

Here's my reasoning:

- SCREEN - The screen is amazing. Its the best screen on any yamaha arranger keyboard. Crystal clear, wide, great new colour scheme.

- EFFECT SECTION - All the effects are re categorized made easier to find. the look of the effects section is much more user friendly as they are all graphical (you can still edit them in fine detail).

- HD REVERBS - All the reverbs (Real HD Reverbs) - they give much more clarity than before. it just makes everything sound alot clearer and less "muffled"... and of coarse it has all the new VCM modulation Amp effects for the guitars and EPanios from the T5.

- DRUM MAPPING!!! - this is a feature than was not advertised or ever mentioned but It exists in the style create section. When you have a drum kit selected you can now do detailed editing of each individual drum part and assign different samples to the drum kit in (decay, pitch, filtering, volume, effects etc)... this is where you can really make the difference. I have taken alot of factory styles into the style create section and modified the drums to make them sound so much more live and unique. This feature is hands down the best feature on the board for me.

- MASTER EQ / COMP - Again another way to completely customize the over sound which is great to tailor it for different speakers. There are alot of detail you can go into with the master EQ. it is no longer a basic 5 band EQ. there are about 20 different settings you can modify to customize the overall EQ. then you have the separate master compressor from the Tyros line which I don't think has ever been in a PSR keyboard, and it works great!

I must say one thing - the onboard speakers are great, BUT to be honest they don't respond well after you have made EQ adjustments. to get the most out of this board you really need to play it through external speakers. I currently run it through a logitec Z2300 system and 2 x Yamaha HS 50 monitors. the sound is punchy and crystal clear. the basses are very deep. but when I unplug the speakers and go through the internal PSR speakers - it sounds terrible... so you really need to customize the keyboard for your external speakers. BUT it gives you far better results !!

REALTIME CONTROL KNOBS - AWESOME / Fantastic / extremely usable!!

definitely another awesome feature of this board. there is alot of different functions you can assign to the knobs which makes them very very usable!

SAMPLING - A massive FLAW / DOWNFALL
And I have confirmed this flaw with Yamaha corporate support.

The PSR S970 has 512MB of sampling flash memory.
The Flaw is that each time you wish to import a sample or a bunch of samples you need to re load ALL the sample flash memory... loading 512 MB of samples takes between 20-15 minutes.

For Example: if you have loaded 450mb of samples and you wish to load in say.. just one other sound or a modification to an existing sample via USB...it wipes and over writes ALL the sample memory so you MUST re load the entire sample data EVERY TIME... very very annoying. unfortunately there is no way around this...

KEYBED - Im sorry for any folks that believe the keyboard is improved over the S950.. it simply isn't.. its EXACTLY the same.. shallow, spongy and makes a loud hitting noise on the base of the keybed when you strike the keys hard. You either need to accept and live with it or buy another board. I personally hate it, but the board overs soo much at such a great price point which makes it "tolerable". if the PSR S970 had the Tyros/Motif Keybed it would be hands down a far better keyboard in my opinion.

BOOT UP TIME - wow a PSR that actually takes time to load up... no more instant ON... it takes about 15 seconds now from when you press the ON button to be able to play and hear a note. (Still far better than my PS 3x which takes about 2 mins).

DJ STYLES - Even though this is my favorite music genre, I find this section useless because they have pre set chord progressions that you can not change. so unless you have a song that works with the pre set chord changes they are just gimmicky...

CHOIR VOICES - Finally we have the new choir voices from the Tyros 4/5. They are perfect!

AUDIO STYLES - alot of new ones that were not in the S950. many of them are now even more usable and not so song specific.

ARPEGGIATOR - Great feature, works perfectly and has heaps of variety in the arpeggio settings with many different phrasing options. I have the PSR S970 in the same rack as the Motif XS and really gives the MOTIF a run for its money in terms of synth capability.

Thanks for reading, I have been having alot of late nights experimenting and tweaking this board. It actually gives alot of motivation and inspiration to play more than before, I honestly don't see a need to keep my PA3x anymore.

If anyone has any specific questions let me know

Cheers
Nick