Hi! Just wanted to ask your expert opinion regarding the PA80... I have been eyeing up this keyboard for a long time now, as a 2nd keyboard that is...

I used to own a KorgI30, but sold it because of one reason or another, generally it was the poor quality in sounds, the lack of speakers & the uninspiring way it played midi files... the touch screen was annoying as well.. But nevertheless, i thought the styles were excellent and were very usefull to me. I kinda miss them....

As you know, at around the same time as to when i had the i30, you did me a demo tape of the X1, and after hearing it i tracked down a dealer (which was nigh on impossible in the UK seeing that Solton (or Ketron rather) is poory supported here in the UK), and bought one! never looked back really in terms of what the keyboard offers, it does almost everything.. i say almost because there is something that i felt has always been missing from Ketron keyboards, and thats the ability to sound "modern" or to "move with the times" as one cheeky youngster told me!!!.. its not a problem for me because i love classic stuff, and the X1 does music from around the 60's to the early 90's absolutely perfectly! i mean in terms of style arrangements rather than sounds as the sounds on the X1 (apart from the piano) are faultless.

Whats missing from the X1 i felt was found in the i30. Its hard to explain really, but when playing the X1 to the more younger generations of people, they seem unimpressed with its attempts at the latest pop offerings! I know that if i still had the i30, there were things in there that would accomodate for these rather "uneducated" youngsters! Because i have 4 children who in turn like to bring round their friends, not to mention the countless amount of young relatives i have, they do not appreciate the fantastic rock/slow/ballad/disc/latin/swing/jazz music i play. and when i trying to playing something like Kylie (yuck) Minogues latest offerings using a Techno style from the X1, i can see they are unimpressed which is sad because the X1 is not really a kids toy! lol

So as i have some spare redundancy money hanging around so to speak, i was wondering if the PA60/80 would give me the "missing" part of the music that i cant seem to produce on the X1 so to speak.... Ive had the GEM WK8 before which has some nice modern rhythms but the pop stuff sounded to messy/busy from what i can remember, almost like demo's of songs rather than styles you can play something to.. But anyway my father still has the WK8 so thats out of the question!

Not wanting to spend too much money on a 2nd keyboard either, because its not a replacement for the X1 which i dearly love and cherish, but rather wanting a keyboard that moves away from the traditional sounding music! Just to please the kids of course !! Does the PA60/80 fit the bill?