Ohh man.. I can smell a hot topic comin' ..lol. On top of that, this stuff is soooo subjective, but here goes my crack at it. I can only share my experiences with the keyboards I've played and owned. I finally got a chance to fool with a 9000 pro which has better "piano" action than the average arranger and a rather good piano sound to boot. Downfalls, if it matters.. about 3,000 US dollars ( give or take a few ), no speakers ( if it matters ), and a little large and clumsy to transport to shows. Still, I'm with UD on this one. 9000 pro is the one I like best of what I've heard.

I've owned several of the lesser PSR lines including the 530, 740 and 2000. I found the ac piano sounds to be ok on all of them, but not great.

I once had the Casio MZ2000. It had an awful ac piano sound..

I now have the PA80, which I still prefer because of it's overall sounds and it's very flexible O/S. Unfortunately, the one sound I like the least on the board is the AC piano. For my ears it ranks right up there with the one from the MZ2000. So my solution for home use: Use the very nice AC piano sound from my Motif ( non arranger ) or use my software samples. On the road, the Motif comes with me for it's outstanding Ac and Rhodes piano sounds.

I love the SD1 ac piano samples I've heard, but I can't really judge it accurately until I get one in front of me to play with.

Who'd I miss ? Roland.. Liked the ac piano sounds ok from what I've tried of the G series, haven't listened to the ones from the VA series.


9000 pro has sampling.. so does the 9000 and the PA80. I don't think you'd need additional piano samples with the 9k pro, but your own ears would tell you that better than I can. I can only speak of my experiences with the PA80 and the Motif. I don't even bother on the PA80, because just for starters you need to buy the "special" korg 8 mb smart media card at about 200 USD before you can do any sampling. I've done it on the Motif. Like the 9000 pro, you start with a rather low sample rom capability ( 4mb on the Mo, probably around the same on the 9000 ), and can expand it to 64 mb via optional SIMM modules.

I never use samples when I am playing live. For other situations, I found sampling to be much easier using my software stuff, ( I even prefer the Modest SB live soundfont software ). Also some of top end piano sample packages are well over 64 mb, so you can;t load them up on the 9000 pro or Motif.

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 07-02-2002).]