I don't think I'm gonna ever find the perfect board, but the PA80 works well enough for me that I can be happy with it. Some of the Yamaha arrangers I owned or played had excellent features, but I was never totally able to embrace any of them and make them "mine". Doesn't make them bad boards by any means, but that's just a personal preference. In fact I liked some of the styles and features enough that I customized my PA80 to mimic some of the 9000 / 2000 / 740 styles and voice assignments. The good news is that there IS so much that can be tailored to my preferences on it. The harder part was learning how and spending the time to do it. I'd like more and better fills in the Korg styles, but I also know that it isn't likely going to happen just because I want it, so I modified some the Korg styles myself as best I could to my liking. The good thing on the PA80 is that I can overwrite any part of or a whole factory style without having to waste user style space.

It isn't fair for me to evaluate the Technics arranger I owned since it's was an older model and it's been gone for many years now, but at the time I thought it was a good board. If the MZ2000 is a semi clone of the KN5000 ( at least in features ), I bet I'd have really liked it, but I won't buy a board sight unseen. One of the unfortunate things about living in this area is knowing that other boards are out there but not being able to see or play around with them.

I'd have to say Korg Italy has done a fair job of communicating with us on the PA80 forums and it seems that at least some of the things that were asked for by users were implemented in the OS updates. Obviously not everything that everyone asked for, but some things.

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 04-23-2002).]