I sometimes regret having sold my MZ. In response to the original poster's question, I will tell you that if my keyboard is going to be used mainly for solo entertaining / gigging, with heavy reliance on the styles, and I need little more than typical popular music sounds, then I'd choose the PSR3000. I agree that the 3k out of the box will sound better overall.

If I can rely a little less on the factory styles, or make my own, and I want to be able to customize my soundset, and don't mind doing a little tweaking to personalize my keyboard, then I'd choose the MZ.

I didn't care for the MZ's acoustic pianos, but AC piano isn't a big priority to me, so it didn't matter. Where I thought the MZ shined was in the organs ( big deal for me ), sax sounds, some of the guitars and synth based sounds.

The thing that made it stand out most to me was the depth yet simplicity of patch editing. Even my Motif ES pales in comparison when it isn't hooked up to a computer. When I had the MZ, I wasn't much into softsynths, and even a few years ago they weren't a viable alternative for a lot of people. Today, I use them more than hardware, and the MZ would have been a good partner to have with them.


AJ