# Yamaha DX7 8 Hacker News commenters recommended Yamaha DX7 and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. **Verdict:** People recommend it for its polyphony, touch sensitivity and presets, and for helping make FM synthesis affordable and central to electronic music. Critics say programming is hard and the keybed is poor. ## Why people recommend it - Shaped electronic music (2 comments): "M1, DX-7, Juno, Jupiter. All of electronic music grew out of those." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239277)) "Synth music elevated electric bound tones to anything ever heard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47158358)) - Affordable, accessible synthesis (2 comments): "Just the fact that a synth thing was so (relatively) affordable and accessible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48759698)) "was essential in 'democratizing' synthesis" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49873295)) ## What people warn about - Hard to program (2 comments): "doing so on the DX7's interface is a whole other level of frustrating" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47161724)) "absolutely arcane when it comes to programming" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47159782)) - Narrow range of sounds (1 comments): "opened the door to a pretty narrow but interesting range of sounds" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160285)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [KORG phase8 Acoustic Synthesizer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/korg-phase8-acoustic-synthesizer.md): 21 recommend - [Roland TB-303](https://hackerapproved.com/p/roland-tb-303.md): 8 recommend - [Brume synth](https://hackerapproved.com/p/brume.md): 7 recommend - [Zynthian](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zynthian.md): 6 recommend ## Where to get it - [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Yamaha+DX7+synthesizer&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Yamaha DX7", https://hackerapproved.com/p/yamaha-dx7/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).