Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

> Ed wrote:
> In the end, my feelings are mixed, too (they always are, for a 
> variety of reasons). The balance of power definitely has not 
shifted, 
> but Yamaha's offerings occupy a distinct and valuable place in the 
> market. It will be interesting to work with them and to see how 
they 
> fare.
> 

Actual, my feelings are pretty positive from what I have seen.

My initial reaction to the TD-20K video was "Holy cow!!", but after 
reflection, when I see the latest Lamborgini, it is also "Holy 
cow!!.". Unfornucately, there really is no comparsion. The Lamborgini 
is expensive, but it is finished and polish in every aspect. You get 
what you pay for. You simply cannot say that for the TD-20K, it is 
expensive, it has lots of new bells and whistles, but it is still not 
finished. You simply cannot make that comment about the Lamborgini. 
The TD-20K is missing on board sampling capable of holding 2gb of 
data that can be off loaded to 4 gb CF cards, it doesn't have a 
firewire/USB 2.0 connector. The fact is for $500 I can get a full 
computer system with case/motherboard/ram/hard drive. They could do 
the same and put it in the base of the housing and provide full 
computer support right out of the box. With a built-in computer with 
USB you could plug and play any device to the module. And to say this 
would make it too expensive is crazy. Whether they sell it for $5000 
or $5500, somebody that can afford $5000 can also afford to spend 
$5500 to get the ultimate system. Maybe some bean counter at Roland 
didn't want to play the numbers game with this stupid MSRP garbage, 
that would have pushed the fantasy land pricing from $6500 to over 
$7000. 
And to say, "but we did leave an expansion slot, so you can add this 
later???", yea for another $500, so why didn't they just add it in 
now?? 

The TD-3 is priced at $100 less than the DTxpress III. There is no 
way it can compete with the Dtxpress III. Maybe if it had a street 
price of $600 it would have a market for parents buying something for 
their teenager.I believe that Yamaha missed out on some real sales 
oppurtunity by not releasing the Dtxpress III globally back in 
November for the xmas rush.

The real potential winner here that I see is the Dtxtreme IIs. My 
only disappointment is that there are no video's of it being demo'd 
yet. 

I guess, for me it comes down to, the Manufacturers still don't get 
it. The end users are the people buying their products and not the 
stores. And with most people now having online access, most people 
will spend 90% of time online and 10% in the store getting 
information about drum products.

Within less than an hour of the posting on the website in Japan in 
October about the upcoming release of the DTxpress III/IIIsp, it was 
posted here, on vdrums, on edrummings and no telling how many other 
websites. So literary, within a few hours/days thousands of E-drum 
people all across the globe knew about it. I don't know of a single 
store that could do that, at that price. 

But the standard business model is "let's wait for Summer NAMM, let's 
wait for Winter NAMM, let't wait for Summer NAMM, etc. etc.

My question is who goes to NAMM??? Not the majority of the people 
that buy this stuff, only the few people that sell this stuff. And 
profits are not made from what a store can buy, but from what you and 
I actually buy. We are the ones that make or break the banks of these 
companies. And certainly the advice we give here has more impact on 
what people buy than what someone at a local Guitar Center says.
   
These companies need to embrace the virtual world of the internet and 
address the real impact it has on what people buy and don't buy. I 
would love to see the day when NAMM is a virtual NAMM that is a 
website that "we" the actual buying public can visit and not just be 
the domain the store owners/vendors.

If it were not for the internet and these forums, how many people do 
you think would even know about KOBY drums??

OGD