I have no regrets whatsoever Tom, but I fully understand your concern about the styles. For me, the PA80 and the ES go very well together, and I agree about the solo voices. There are a scant few on the PA80 that I would prefer over the ES, and not all that many over the PSR / Tyros stuff either, with maybe the drums and bass being the big exceptions for my tastes.. I just like some of those better on the PA than on the Yamaha arrangers ( well the 2000 anyway), but not necessarily better than the ones on the ES.

I too find quite a few of the PA80 solo voices to be weak, but ... when used in combos ( layered in performance mode), they can really come to life. Still, it rocks for synth sounds and editing power. On the ES though, so many of the sounds are already great without a lot of tweaking needed.

The PA80, and my MZ2000 before it, had the best organ sounds ( my absolute favorite staple sound ) for my ears. I liked them better than any of the Yamaha boards I had, including the classic Motif. Then the ES came along and changed all of that. It has one of the best C3 emulations I've ever heard with the possible exception of what I hear in the Native Instruments B4 software.

I've thought about upgrading from the PA80 to the PA1x, so I may wait to see whether I think it's worth the upgrade ( when the PA1x speaker version comes out ), but in spite of the marvelous demos I hear from the PA1x, it may not be so much better to me than the PA80 is, that I will find it to be worth all that money. I'll have to find one to demo.

I may very well decide to just add the Tyros to the current lineup ( and keep it all ) instead. Meanwhile, at home, I just use the Yamaha styles via One Man Band and played through the ES. Of course I need to tweak the voices on the ES to match.. Not exactly what I would want to do in a live situation though, and not all that convenient if I just wanna "plug and Play" here in the home studio either.

I think the combination of a PA80 and Tyros is a real winner Tom. It was actually a tough choice for me between the Es and the Tyros, but for me, I just gotta have at least one good workstation. It's looking a lot like the Tyros is the next board that I want. I do miss some of the stuff from the PSR2000. I just don't miss the key feel at all.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 11-18-2003).]