My local dealer just gave me the first one they got in to test out for a few days (used to work there, so they use me as a guinea pig on quite a bit of new gear), and I have it set up next to my backup G70. I'm swamped with gigs at the moment (finally!) so I have little time for the next couple of days, but I guarantee I will be putting some VERY critical ears on the sound quality compared to the G70.

So far, first impressions are very good, with the usual caveat of the OOTB mixes being a bit light on the drums. I just went through a bunch of styles and listened...

Part volume changes are not quick to get to, so I would probably recommend this puppy be played with a controller with some sliders to set up for the important Parts (keyboard, and Drums, Bass channels in style mode). It has a VERY handy 'Track Mute' button on the front panel that mutes whatever channels you want instantly off (default is set to all off other than bass and drums) which is very cool...

Panel layout seems logical, for such a small and light unit. No, you aren't going to get knobs and sliders galore, but that ain't what this is about. Cursory first impressions are quite good. There's a lot of MUCH better Guitar parts in some of the styles, dare I say it, not too far off some Mega voice stuff. I always said there's nothing wrong intrinsically with the samples themselves, just that Roland's programmers have dropped down a level compared to Yamaha in the recent past. Hopefully, this thing is a sign that they are getting their act back together.

More to come.