The soundcard is about the LAST thing anyone should worry about. Naff samples playing a naff style through the world's best D/A converter will still sound like poo... And vice versa!

The thing is, a 'better' or not judgment would have to be based on a consensus. After all, before being Roland players, or Yamaha players, or Korg players, or MS players, we are ALL musicians first and foremost. We OUGHT to be able to tell what sounds convincing, what sounds lively, what sounds 'real' without clouding it with partisanship for one brand or another. I think I have ALWAYS tried to make a fair and balanced judgment about whatever I hear, even if it doesn't jibe with long-held beliefs... After all, I would be passing up on an opportunity to sound better myself if I let my choice of CURRENT equipment dictate what I would use in the future

That being said, though, despite the INDIVIDUAL sounds of an open arranger, and often the RH sounds too, sounding VERY good, it's when you put them all together, and try to make a coherent piece of music, especially with a style not designed for those sounds you ARE using, that it often all falls apart. But rest assured, WHEN I hear it all come together, I will be the first to say how good it is! (I did it for the Audya, you'll remember, despite my reservations about it).

You see, I don't WANT it to sound just like a Roland (or Korg, or Yamaha). What's the point in that? Already got one... But what it needs to do is have the same degree of cohesiveness that a closed arranger has. Like them or hate them, you can't deny that even OOTB, the styles hang together well. Nothing sounds tacked on, out of place, a fish out of water, whatever. They are VERY carefully designed to work together, perhaps even at the EXPENSE of individual sounds standing out... After all, that is what the art of mixing is all about. It has to gel, it has to blend. If one sound is a great sound, but sticks out of the mix like a sore thumb, it is, despite sounding good, just plain WRONG.

IMO, there are VERY few, if any VSTi sample sets that are as carefully designed as an entire gestalt, as a 'ready to go' complete soundset that you have to do little to make them all blend together. Wish there was, to be honest. It would make my work a lot easier! But so far, I really have heard nothing that is along the lines of a closed arranger (or the old Sound Canvas series modules) in the degree of readiness to use.

You see, some of us may have the skill to mix an entire album, but many of us don't! And asking us to take a soundset not designed as one unit, and then voice it and EQ it and compress it and bed it all together, just so we can get something that comes that way OOTB in a closed arranger is honestly asking a LOT...

But be assured that, when I hear it (IF I hear it), what I use now won't have the SLIGHTEST influence on whether I like it or not. All it has to do is what it has claimed to do all along... Sound WAY better than a closed arranger. As a whole, though, not individual sounds.

Looking forward to hearing it...