Unfortunately, I never tested the X1 and therefore I cannot comment on it and contrast it to other keyboards. There is no dealer in my area that carries it. However, I have tested PSR9kPRO and other keyboards. My brother owns PSR740 and I play that all the time. I have few comments:

1) the grand piano of the PSR9Kpro sounds like yamaha grand piano patch coming from arranger keyboards. Why yamaha cannot place the P80 piano patch in the PSR9Kpro or even the motif is beyond me. The grand piano on the motif sounds very lacking. All other instruments sound excellent except for that grandpiano sound. clearly, yamaha wants to create two separate markets. One for those who desire an excellent grand piano and those who do not mind a considerable compromise.

2) Given the above point, if X1 has a bad piano, welcome to the family of arranger keyboards where the manufacturer chooses intentionally not to place a good piano in them anyway. (GEM, place read this and learn, your next coming keyboard better have a good piano).

3)I listened to few demo styles of X1 and they sound very nice and very realistic. I liked the sound of the guitar in the X1 but I also liked it on the PSR-series (9kpro, 740)... In fact, Yamaha is the best in the sounds of the strings, voilins and the acoustic nylon guitar. In fact, even older yamaha keyboards always boasted with good strings, nylon guitar and voilins.

4) x1 styles remind me of GEM styles when it comes to realism but they also remind me of yamaha because of the nice acoustic nylon guitar. On the other hand, Yamaha styles are well written and arranged especially for ballads. They are good for performance but not that good for professional recording INHO because the listener can tell very easily that an arranger keyboard was involved while with the X1 and GEM, they sounded like separate solo instruments playing together and this is what I meant by "realism."

5) Now I was told that small things matter and the details are very important. This is very true. things like the number of connectors, the features of the sequencer, the programability of the keyboard, the sampling, the vocolizer and many others are very important. GEM has 10 sliders. How about other keyboards?

That brings me to the conclusion, oh yes, keyboards have changed a lot but they were not updated enough to replace the previous keyboards. Examples:

1) Psr9kPRO might have better sounds in general, but why not have a nice grand piano sound?

2) all of the new keyboards are fine. but what about the 10 sliders?

3) the new styles are interesting, new and well-arranged. But what about realism?

4) what about including oriental kit? and by the way, oriental kit is now important for those who write for movies, just look at the newer movies, they all utilize 1/4 tone arrangements for effects.

Just my 2 cents.

[This message has been edited by sk880user (edited 08-21-2001).]