Yes, I've tried one (a Muse). Basically, it all boils down to the fact that they aren't capable of holding EVERY sound in memory at the same time for an entire arranger's sonic palate. Streaming off a drive is questionable for live, with durability and vibrational problems, and compared to TOTL computers (which some of the TOTL orchestral libraries require two or more just for THOSE sounds!), they are a little underpowered.

Add to that that arranger use (with some VERY complicated MIDI code tricks for dealing with 'late' chord entry) doesn't work well yet. Until those tricks are part of the sound engines of the sample players (and given the small size of the potential market, players like Kontakt may NEVER add those codes), playing an arranger's output into one of these as an engine will sound terrible, compared to the optimized engines in hardware arrangers.

While it SEEMS, from marketing hype and spec charts, that the 'open' things like NeKo, Muse, Wersi and MS OUGHT to be able to do an entire arranger in GIGA, the fact is, they can't. The external stuff like NeKo and Muse don't have the codes for smooth voice pitch changing (to deal with the 'glitches' of fractionally late chord entry), and the 'open' arrangers have neither the horsepower, nor the integrated soundsets and styles to do the entire thing at GIGA quality. All of the 'open' arrangers use primarily ROM sounds for the styles, or suffer from limited resources to develop as good a soundset in GIGA as the Big 3 can deliver in ROM.

There's an awful lot more to an arranger than simply adding high quality lead voices to a noticeably sub-par ROM set. Once your piano, or whatever you lead with, is THAT good, you want EVERYTHING at that quality. On ALL the styles, on ALL the sounds, and you need it INSTANTLY (that is the whole point of an arranger... you never know what you need until you need it, and Lord help you if it takes too long to load!

So far, and believe me, I've listened to every VSTi and soundset that ever comes out, there is nothing available that will run on one computer that has ALL of the sounds from a ROM TOTL arranger, at GIGA quality, and instantly available, all balanced and coherent, and has hundreds of inspiring styles already written for it.

THAT is what an E80/G70 PA2X or a T2 has... The combination of huge soundset, and styles written specifically for it, along with a playback engine that will handle 128 voices without a trace of latency or glitches, and the ability to 'bend' late chord entry notes to the new 'correct' ones with the minimum of artifacts. But primarily, it's that combination of vast variety of sounds, and a library of styles developed specifically for it.

Until an 'open' arranger goes to the expense of either developing as good a selection of sounds at MUCH higher GIGA-like quality, or licensing one from various developers, and then making hundreds upon hundreds of styles specifically for that soundset, they are always going to lag behind, while always touting their 'openness' as a leading feature. First and foremost, we want an ARRANGER. THEN, we want great lead sounds. Until technology leaps further ahead, or maybe a Big 3 company, with it's greater resources for soundset and style development, jumps into the fray, what we have with 'open' arrangers is the other way round... Great lead sounds (no argument there!), but with flawed arranger soundsets.

Sadly, none of the Big 3 have ANY streaming technology products, so we may have quite a wait... Perhaps the new FLASH based computer technology just around the corner (laptops with solid-state hard drives are coming soon!) may make this possible, but I still see maybe five to ten years before this trickles down to arranger players. In the meantime, MS and Wersi will continue to crow about technical innovations, that right now don't appear to make it to SONIC innovations. When that day comes, I'll be dancing in the streets (and ordering one!)

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 12-22-2007).]