I agree it is a hard decision to make. Once made and committed to, unbelievable sounds are at your disposal. I have spent a lifetime trying to capture the nuances of a well strummed or picked acoustical guitar. It is now avialble to me instantly with "Real Guitar". The strings, horns and associated orchestral instruments that are available with EW sypmhony cannot be differentiated form a real symphony. The awesome drums at my disposal in BFD drums are rarely duplicated in studios. The ease of intergrating it all in a DAW/sequencer such as Sonar Pro and controlling it all from a wonderful 88 note keyboard such as prokeys 88 is a true joy and frankly mindbloging.

I have tried it everyway available since it all started way back when. Tyros and Korg(but maily "Tyros") convinced me that the keyboard mfgrs really did not know what I wanted or, just did not care. It there was anything else I could have become aware of, I would have bought it. I will most likely purchase the new Yamaha "flagship", but it will not be to replace the system I have in place now.

The learning curve is steep, no doubt about it. But nobody builds anything that can approach the realism. I certainly would not consider a laptop (sure to raise ire) but the fastest rack mount machines available running drives with the fastest seek times on the market and all the memory they will hold.

Danny