I'd like to add some realistic (as close to the original as possible) vintage rhodes and wurlizter to my studio..already own an xp-30 and was considering the 60's and 70's expansion board..I am also a Logic user and have heard good things about their EVP 88 virtual epiano soft syth.....both are about the same price.....

I'm really considering any possiblity outside of those two choices, maybe even a sound module....

any suggestions??

I have the 60s and 70s board. There are a lot of choices on this card to be sure, as Uncle Dave mentioned, but I found I only use a couple of the Rhodes and Wurli sounds regularly. I edited some of the sounds to my liking. I made one rhodes and 2 wurlies, using the wave forms from the expansion board of course. I end up using my patches I've created from the board more than the factory sounds that come on it. So, if you get that expansion board, you'll probably find what you need, or will have a bunch of good quality waves to create what you need. It just depends how picky you are. Sometimes I get the feeling Roland throws 255 patches on a board when they could put on 155. So many sounds are so close to being alike. I wish they would make a few less patches and use up the memory in slightly better waves.

These things are so subjective, you really do just have to go and listen for yourself.

I've listened to the EVP88 demos at the Emagic site, and they are *very* impressive indeed (though the Stage seems a little too DXish for me).

My *very* humble opinion is that the 60s/70s board is the best PCM version of the real Rhodes (not the DX version). I owned a Suitcase 73 for quite a while, and I've gotten close to it by using the 60s/70s patches in Performance Layer mode, i.e., by layering two or even three of the 60s/70s patches together, panning, detuning, weaking the velocity range of the tones, and tweaking the envelopes.

But just for going out and playing a jazz gig: I have always just used the patches on the board straight up, no problem.

A *lot* (a __LOT__) also depends on what amps and speakers you're running things through. I use Barbetta keyboard amps.

But really, ultimately you need to audition stuff yourself.

Good luck. Ain't it nice to have choices?

The comparison is hard to make. Apart from what they sound like there are decisions to be made.
First of all the expansion board isn't just a rhodes/wurlitzer emulator. it also contains some mellotron samples and most important of all a bulk of Hammond B3's.
So a fairer comparison would be to oppose EVP88 + Native instrument's B4 (hammond softsynth) and the 60s and 70s expansion board.
Secondly, the expansion board is way better by means of mobility... do you want to carry around a computer all the time or don't you perform live and is this no problem to you?
Thirdly, the waves of the expansion board are editable in patches. this means that an expansion board is not just an upgrade itself but is also an upgrade to the other expansion boards in you synth and the jv/xp soundsource. you can combine those waveforms with many other waveforms already present in the machine and have lots of fun with that.
Fourthly, because the exp board is in your synth it'll always have a different feel then a softsynth. no matter how low your latency is. you can just feel the sound coming from your jv/xp itself.
fifthly and lastly. with an expansion board you buy waveforms that can be tweaked and all. but some things are simply in the wave and cannot be altered. A vibrato, tremolo, or leslie effect in the sample can't be removed from it. one can off course allways use a clean sample and apply the effects from the JV/XP engine but those just don't work like the old machines (rhodes/hammonds/vintage synths) responded. that's why the waveforms on the expansion board already encorporated many effects. And to an even further extend the options of the board are limited. If one looks at the options of a patch. there are just 4 combinable waveforms yet the variables in a proper drawbar organ with leslie and amplifier are way more then you can ever stuff into those 4 tones plus some effects and filters. Softsynths try to do this more succesfully. think about this: how can I regulate, the speed of the leslie of bass and treble seperatly & change the character of the key klick & open and close different drawbars and have a different sound for footpedals, lower manual and upper manual & change the character of the distortion in the amplifier of the organ & adjust the swell option on a hammond all from my jv/xp sound engine at the same time? (sound architecturally of course, nobody has 3 hands).
softsynths like the EVP88 and B4 can perform many more of those tasks + come really close to the actual sound then an EXP board could ever do.

All in all, technically an EVP88 and a NI B4 can be triggered from a laptop and a midi controller so I guess that covers the portablility issue..

the top priority is a minimal of tweaking and as close to the original as possible...
I guess EVP88 and NI b4 is the way to go then..