I completely agree, spalding..... even after all this time, the PA1X can hold it's water up against newer arrangers, especially in the contemporary music category, where I think it's the ONLY arranger out there with much of an urban, 21st century vibe.

When I refer to an engine, I am not really talking about the samples in ROM, but more the underlying synth chip that powers them. The additional polyphony is a truly significant change from the PA1X to the PA800, allowing the sound designers for a new TOTL much more scope in patch realism, and I would expect a LOT of new ROM in any new TOTL Korg.

Another HUGE improvement I would expect from a 21st century engine is the latency issue, stacked voices and all that. I noticed an enormous improvement in latency going from a G1000 (with it's Sound Canvas SC88Pro engine) to the G70 (based on the FantomX). Layered patches are now consistent, and flam-free. I've played many Tritons (got one myself) and you can sure hear the engine working once you layer three or more patches on a single note, especially percussive sounds.

Then you add in the HUGE improvement in sample RAM capacity... If you DO have slow load up times (and they all do, even if the PA800 is a BIT faster) this simply means for live, you basically can load up at the start of the gig, and that's it... It takes up far too long to do it during the show, or even, dare I say it, DURING a song! So the more RAM you have, the more sounds you can use. The PA1X's 32MB limit is just not enough for more than a few good sounds (or one passable piano!).

I don't know if many PA1X users WOULD feel the need to change to a new TOTL Korg, after the OS3 upgrade. I didn't buy into the Roland V-series, but kept my G1000 for eight years until the G70 came out. But for owners of older Korgs, or other manufacturer users looking to take a walk on the wild side, their needs would probably be best served waiting for a PA800-based TOTL, rather than buying into a new PA1X, at the end of it's product life....