Graham,

I wasn't judging the product, I was judging the demo.

Al

There is some truth to that statement but I think demos give someone at least an idea of how the instrument will sound in real life. The demos are showcasing individual preset voices and styles and even though they are .mp3 demos at 128 bit rate etc., they will still let one know the proximity of how well or not so well the voices or styles are. So it would behoove Roland to make the demos in a way that proves to people its new E-80 arranger is a great sounding keyboard with very realistic voices. Judging from the demos I don't get that feeling at all. Others may feel differently than I do but reading all the posts in this thread tells me the majority of input from our members feel Roland hasn't come through in the sound department with the E-80. So at least from a demo standpoint Roland seems to have dropped the ball - again.

You can of course add SRX expansion cards to increase the sound palette and also the quality of sound and is Roland's way of getting you to buy their SRX expansion cards by putting in average sounding presets. And at a considerable cost to the consumer I might add. So you pay over $4,000 for the E-80 and you end up buying SRX expansion cards (there are over a dozen of them) at what, $300 or so each? They get you coming and going.

On a side note, Roland needs to come through with something completely new in the way of re-producing realistic instrument sounds with a new groundbreaking technology that will thrust them to the forefront of the music world and on the cutting edge of development. In my opinion they are being left in the dust except in all but a few areas like AC Grand Piano sounds, Organ sound reproduction, and Electric Piano sounds. The sad thing is I really thought the E-80 AC Grand Piano was rather anemic, although in one of the other demos the AC Grand they used sounded better.

Another show stopper for many is the excessive weight at 49.6 lbs.

Best regards,
Mike

Updated: on 05-13-06

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 05-13-2006).]

Oops, I see from further investigation that the E-80 has four speakers so that would be 35W x 2 for the main drivers and 12W x 2 for the Bass Reflex system.

Sorry my mistake. Actually it should sound pretty impressive with those specs. We shall see. Or rather hear.

Best regards,
Mike