Classic case of a keyboard manufacturer not using hardware that is optimized to take advantage of the USB 2.0 interface.

>> Okay, my bad. I thought the piano sample was being loaded from USB. OTOH, taking 30 seconds from the Hard Drive is even more disconcerting considering hard drive transfer speeds exceeds those of USB 2.0 The Audya probably has a chug a lug 4,200 RPM 2.5" HD I suppose.

It is quite apparent, to me anyway, that we have "another" manufacturer stopping up the pipes i.e. producing unneeded "bottlenecks" within the innards of the keyboard itself instead of optimizing it for highest efficiency and thereby taking advantage of transfer speeds inherent to the devices themselves. At least that should be the goal anyway. It is up to the manufacturer(s) whether they choose to instill optimum efficiency for all given devices inherent on the keyboard though - i.e. the CPU(s), memory controllers, mainboard(s) (northbridge/southbridge) FSB, Hard Drive/SSD (along with RPM spindle speed) and or SATA/IDE, USB interface type, capacitors, Flash RAM type, RAM type e.g. PC100/DDR/DDR2/DDR3 etc., etc., etc... >> And don't think it has to cost an arm and leg for those superior higher efficiency parts either, because in most cases it doesn't, except when we're talking about SSD's for hard drives. And it will probably take keyboard manufacturers another 20 years (since they lag the common computer industry timetable many fold ) before we ever see SSD drives in keyboards. Unless, of course, things change within the keyboard industry... Don't hold your breath though.

All the best,
Mike