Oh Grandpa, I loves ya. Can't stop laughing since I read your post. Don't ever stop writing for us.

Now seriously to the Yamaha. I've had no experience with the 9000 but I had the 8000 and there were a couple of things I didn't like. First, the styles. Without exception they were bland and uninspiring - unlike Technics or Korg - I'm talking here mainly about the swing/jazz/big band section. In too many cases the same bass line was used in all four variations. The style disk back up was pretty limited and still dullsville.

The second was that on Yamaha's equivalent of easy record, it would not record 'lead in' notes as it only recorded with the ACP playing. I often like to start a song with single note intro e.g. piano, trumpet etc and on the second or third bar bring in the rhythm section, and as I said this can't be done on the 8000. If these two items have been attended to then I would guess the 9000 (and for that matter the 8000) would be very acceptable to me, but definitely not otherwise

Have fun deciding!

Peter