Do some of you have experience with Roland's XV synth modules? I want to midi up my PSR-9000 with either an XV-5080 or an XV-5050. Since the 5050 is about half the price of the 5080 I was wondering if there are there any audible differences between the two that warrant spending a whopping $1,600.00?

I have the 5080 and have not heard the 5050, but, from what I read, there should be no difference in sound quality. The main difference is in expandability. However, the difference is not what it used to be now that JV cards have been "folded into" SRX cards. I think the 5050 is a good bet. The 5080 is in its 3rd year and may be due for a replacement, e.g., with 8 SRX slots and no JV slots.

The main differences between the XV-5080 and XV-5050 are:

Polyphony:
XV-5080: 128 voices
XV-5050: 64 voices

Patches:
XV-5080: 1200 patches
XV-5050: 1400 patches

FX processors:
XV-5080: 5 FX processors
XV-5050: 3 FX processors

Expansion boards:
XV-5080: 4 SRX boards and 4 SR-JV80
XV-5050: 2 SRX boards

Another advantage of the XV-5050 is that you can edit the patches on your pc using a USB cable and patch editing software.

Note:Some patches will take 8 voices of polyphony so you can run out of polyphony pretty fast on the XV-5050 if you layer sounds.

Greetz,
Marcel