Ok, your post was real helpful as was David Green's post above. Thank you for your advice. I'm leaning toward the 5080. I'll try to find that Sound on Sound magazine.

The Hans Zimmer testimonial did catch my eye but my sense is he has access to just about what he wants along with a small army of engineers to hook things up and keep em' running.

Would you mind commenting on the ilio.com samples with their Groove Activated samples? I'm curious about investing in some of them.

Tom
Austin, TX


Quote:
Originally posted by feefer:
Hi tparish and all,

Highly recommend you buy the Nov 2000 issue of 'Sound on Sound' (a british music equipment mag), which contains reviews for both the XV-5080 and the Nemesys GigaStudio 160.

Interesting to note that film composer Hans Zimmer is now endorsing the 160: he's the guy who used (20) S-760's to create synth filmscores!!

David has it right: you'd better have top-of-the-line computer set-up to make this thing run: 160 voices on 64 MIDI channels means you'd better have fast processors, hard drives, lots of RAM, suitable soundcard, etc. Even then, you'd better be good at ironing out settings conflicts, bugs, etc.

That's not to say all is smooth-sailing with the XV-5080: the current OS (1.12) leaves much to be desired, especially in terms of ironing out sample/file management difficulties. Don't get me wrong: the XV-5080 sounds great, and is for the most part, a pleasure to use and play.

Perhaps a newer update in the XV-5080 O.S. that addresses current weaknesses will allow me to offer a stronger recommendation for the unit.

Regards,
Chris