... and here is a link to all the audio demos posted by Casio so far

I played the Casio AP450 fairly briefly recently, I think it's the latest keybed and sound source, and it was a very pleasant experience. I found the keybed nicely weighted with nice bounce-back, and the piano sound also very rich.

I like the possibilities of the PX5s. I'm one of the "piano with extras" players so having a full width keybed, decent piano sounds, then adding the richness available with the hex multi-layer system and 4 zones ... if I can bring in and take out zomes / sound with anything like the simplicity I have on my veteran Ensoniqs then life would be rather good.

In respect of the touch screen debate I also had a shot on a 73 key Krome. Touchscreen very good although occasionally some active areas a bit small for my fingers, I'd worry that if I had to change a setting fast I might get it wrong, on the other hand without the touchscreen I'd probably not be able to twiddle at all so maybe I'm being a bit churlish. I wasn't that struck o the keybed, I was concious that I kept scraping the side of my fingers on the rough edges of adjacent keys.

I fount the Kronos touchscreen VERY difficult to use accurately apart form the simplified Registration Select screen. Although the screen is much larger than any arranger screen, Korg try to cram in a LOT of stuff on each page, and the small font size makes text selection (sounds from a list, for instance) quite difficult to do even under non-stage use, and in the heat of battle, VERY difficult to use with any serious degree of confidence.

The Kronos division would be well advised to take a good look at the PA3x's layout. Or even Roland's G/E series. Utterly reliable (at least the Roland is, my friend's PA3x is less so, but that may simply be him abusing the keyboard by transporting it without a case!) and VERY difficult to hit the wrong button in the heat of gigging.

A nice person on Music Player Network (http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2465083/20/This_Just_In_PX_5S) has spotted some manuals:

http://support.casio.com/manualfile.php?rgn=1&cid=008009154

I've had a scan .. I don't see that I can use any of the buttons to turn the layers on and off quickly but you can use the knobs or sliders to control volume. Also the phrase sequencer will play back smf0 midi files (which I didn't mention in my previous post because I figured this would be the case even though I haven't noticed that this was mentioned on any of the demos)(I reserve the right to be wrong here!)

I have a PX-5S on order; it should arrive within the next week. I think that it's one of the instruments with the best quality/price ratio on the market today, and it weighs just 24.5 lbs or 11 kg (a Tyros 4 weighs 14.5 kg).
Aside from the sounds, I intend to use it as a master keyboard, to control both the Kronos 61 and the Roland BK-7m. Being just 28 cm deep it should fit nicely under the Kronos and still be perfectly usable and readable.
Can't wait to try it.

In an upcoming firmware update sliders, knobs and pedals can be used as on/switch for zones or layers. Update coming in about 2 weeks

"sliders, knobs and pedals can be used as on/switch for zones or layers"

I like the sound of that! Thanks for the update

I meant to say on/off switches. Each slider/knob/pedal can do two things simultaneously. So you could use one slider to turn ON one layer while turning OFF another.

does anybody knows how to lower the volume of musics in wave format?

O novo sistema operacional traz essa função. Problema resolvido.