After some investigation, I've discovered that the E-80 has 1100 panel sounds, and 1024 Mbit waverom (not sure about this since some places reports 1024 Mbytes, but others reports 1024 Mbits, which is a big difference, since there are 8 bits to one byte.) and the E-60 has 1000 panel voices, and 512 Mbit waverom, the same MB Mb confusion here aswell. The E-80 has a virtual drawbar organ, but the E-60 has not. Is this the extra 100 voices? I've listened to the demos of the E-80 and the E-60, they sound simular, but there is a slight extra fidelity on the E-80, but not much. Is that because the E-80 has seperate EQ and EFX on each track? Or does the E-60 also feature this? And why haven't Roland made a 76 key version of the E-80? Compared to G-70 which has 192 MB(or Mb??) waverom and has 1596 voices, it's hard to see which board has the edge from specs. I hope you can compare theese units and give us a thourough review!

Doc-Z

How many styles can you put into this thing? Can it play styles from a storage device such as floppy, or PCMCIA storage? Can you make music database entries access theese styles?

Doc-Z

Roland's figures are confusing, to say the least....!

To compare (in simple terms) the G70 and E80 - the E80 has more ROM memory, but uses it on fewer sounds (but more drumkits). Many of the original Sound Canvas sounds are now gone from the E80, but still in the G70 (something you may need for easier compatibility with older Roland styles and SMFs, though the Makeup Tools make conversion pretty painless). The E80 has the same piano as the RD-600SX, the G70's is from the FantomX (both are superb).

To compare the E80 with the E50.... although the Mbit/Byte confusion is all marketing hype (MByte, or MB should be the common comparison standard), at least comparisons can be made using Roland's own info.

The E80 has 128 note polyphony, the E50/60 has 64, so an obvious difference there (although I never noticed much stealing on my old 64-voice G1000).

The E80 has 1024 Mbits and the E50/60 has 512 Mbits, so half the waveform data.... The Hammond (HB in Roland-speak) section voices are not counted towards waveforms. So nearly as many voices (Tones) with half the data. This will account for some of the loss in fidelity as Roland may compress the waveform data harder in the E60 to squeeze more sounds in.

Also, from extensive listening to G1000 and G600 side by side in the past, I have the distinct impression that Roland use less expensive D/A converters in their mid and low-end lines. I always heard a bit of 'brittleness' to the sound of a G600 patch, even when playing ostensibly the EXACT same patch as it's G1000 cousin. This may be due to the sample compression alone, but I always felt that it was probably a combination of the two....

Obviously, you are not going to get close to the sound of an E80 in an arranger that costs over $2000 LESS, but specs aside, the mid-line Roland arrangers should fit many people's needs, especially in the area of ease-of-use. Roland's style and SMF 'tweaking' utilities are still some of the best and easiest to use in the industry, and the overall feel and ease of use of the OS may persuade many away from more complex to use arrangers, without giving up good styles and sounds.

I sure hope you're right because I am thinking of giving up my POWERFUL VA76 for the E-50.

zuki

any differences between E50 and E60 besides 61vs76?
acton different? controls?

You can play styles direct from the connected storage device. I am using a 512MB compact flash card which has 2,000 styles on it plus 2500 midifiles and they all play as soon as I call one up and hit start. I can also use other forms of memory storage which can be plugged into a pcmcia adapter which plugs into the back of the E50. There is also internal memory but it is limited to maybe 2 MB. I'm not sure about this one. I've got about 15 songs and 25 styles loaded in and I've got about 400KB left to use. Using an external drive plugged into the back is the way to go.
Roland confirmed the 1GB in the G70/E80 vs the 512MB in the E60/70 models of ROM samples.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

George, is that card adapter you mention a standard "CardBus" adapter and does it come with the unit? SanDisk makes one that handles almost any memory card I've seen.. and that would also fit (and serve as a spare or replacement) if it is the Cardbus specification.

Thanks much for the great early information.

Happy T-Day from northern CA.

Also, from looking at the E-50/60 manual it appears that the internal memory ("solid state disk") is 16MB. Not very large, and I wonder why. It's certainly easy enough to have 32-64-128 etc. these days. I found nothing about replacing or changing memory in the manual.

When I listened to the Roland demos of the E80 and the E50..The same demos[styles] did sound a lot better on the E80 than the E50.

AS Diki has mentioned the mid priced boards always lacked the quality of the Top of the line boards..even being the same sound..I think it is all about the A/D converters..

You guys looking to get a stripped down G70/E80...that is exactly what you will get..including the quality of the voices..

When I had the EXR series, I noticed the lack of the same quality that the G1000 gave me..

There is a difference..go listen to the demos again on Rolands site..

Sorry Doc , I didn't see your post..I realized that the first time I heard the demos.