Yamaha S70XS Synthesizer, 76-Note Balanced Hammer-Weighted Action Review

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(More customer reviews)The s70xs and the s90xs are the same internally so what I write here applies to both.
I own this keyboard (s70xs). The much vaunted s6 piano sound suffers from awful harmonics on the C#1, D1 and D#1 keys. My previous keyboard (EX7) sounded fine through my Roland KC350 keyboard amp. The harmonics on these keys when played through the same amp sound terrible, totally unusable in a live situation in my opinion. Through headphones it sounds 'OK', not great but more bearable.
The piano sounds also sound dull and muffled in my (and many others) opinion.
It also drops notes like crazy when played reasonably fast, even with a single voice like a piano selected. It also drops drum hits as well if you have a drum track playing in the same situation. I don't think this is a polyphony issue, it simply does not work as it should (others have reported the same issue). Again, this makes is unusable in a live situation. It's not so great just playing at home either!
Small screen size is not that much of an issue but they way some information is not displayed when it would make sense to do so makes some aspects of using it more time consuming than it needs to be but otherwise it is usable.
Manuals are typical Yamaha which means pretty terrible as far as actually trying to use them to do anything 'real' but I suspect that issue is not limited to this keyboard, my EX7 manuals are just as bad.
Cannot use a modified voice in a performance without saving it first. Makes it harder to just 'try out' different settings in a mix.
Other than that the keyboard is great so it's a shame that the above issues with the harmonics and dropped notes make what should be a great keyboard into something that should be avoided.
My recommendation. Do not buy this keyboard.

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Yamaha Portable Grand DGX505 Electronic Keyboard Piano Review

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(More customer reviews)The acoustic sounds that this keyboard produces are impressive. The grand piano, horns, guitars, and drums are excellent. The built-in songs demonstrate the sonic capabilities of the instrument very well. The keyboard touch response is adequate for all but lead-fisted pounders. The user interface is, for the most part, clear and easy to use with many short-cut procedures built-in. The display is bright, easy to read, and well organized. Of course, the built-in learning system, easy to use recorder, metronome, rhythm patterns, and accompaniments make this an excellent choice for beginning muscians. Yet, the acoustic sounds are good enough for even more advanced players and could easily be the perfect instrument for one-man-band type performers. The stereo speakers produces clean, spacious sound that gives the music a lifelike feel. Where this keyboard begins to fall short is for more experienced and technically astute players who would prefer to have more powerful and complex functions built-in. Like better, more extensive effects processing, a more robust sequencer, an arppegiator, a more versitile rhythm processor, more one-touch/twist accessible sound modifiers, more internal user memory, a more responsive, weighted keyboard, etc. Of course, all these things come with a price and adding them would bump-up the price of the keyboard - which is one of the most attractive things about it! Typically, for less than $600 you can own one ... not many instruments of this caliber can make that claim! I hope Yamaha continues this line with just a little beefier, more expandable model. In particular they need to replace the Smart Media card slot with a USB port that will allow plugging in any of the myriad of cheap USB memory devices currently available for offline storage. Also, I would add more user accessible internal memory (relatively cheap). I would beef-up the sequencer and add some additional effects / processing options. And, I would add an expansion slot for additional sound sets and/or add-on functionality. Nonetheless, for the money, the sound, and the playability, you can't beat this instrument. I liked it the first time I saw/played it and I still do (after a year of owning it). Good job Yamaha!

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