I just discovered this cool Middle Eastern mix, "Baglama" recorded on the Ketron Audya 5.
The drums, solo instrument, & EQ sounds impressively natural and alive. IMO, some of the Audya demos I'd heard in the past have the drums sounding too much in your face and EQ set with the bass unnaturally boosted too much.
I'm looking forward now to hearing some western tunes EQ'ed similar to this impressive middle eastern recording.

I still think, for most playing to NH's and elderly crowds, even this mix is a bit drum hot. Bit tubby, as well, on my monitors...

You listen to most standards from the 40's and 50's, you can almost not hear the drums at all, compared to say the 70's and 80's, anyway! I believe that arranger style mixes tend to expose the age of their target customer more than the intrinsic sound of the arranger itself.

For me, the 'live-ness' of a drum sound comes more from having the drums have a little bit of ambient sound around the sample. Sadly, AFAIK, there isn't an arranger out there that can put a small drum room overall on a kit, and THEN send individual drums out to larger reverb. That's about the only way to get dry drum samples to sound more 'live'.

I STILL haven't heard a really exposed demo of the new T4 drums, perhaps they are starting to sample with a more contemporary sound, I'd sure like to hear it, but this 'space' around the drums is what keeps me coming back time after time to my G70's drum section, and the seven TD-Drum series drumkits. Matched to a quality drum performance, with plenty of dynamics, and I honestly don't get all that jealous of Audya owners... Mind you, their guitars are another question!