1. I had that fear that after paying all that money the Bose wouldn't match my expectations. Well, it exceeded my expectations. I can't say that the Bose sound is DIFFERENT, it's not; it BETTER. As Bill said, you'll hear more clearly; possibly even little things in your styles that you never heard before. I think you'll like he Bose.

2. Again, the stereo from a regular set of speakers will not be the same as anything from a Bose. You could prefer the standard stereo to a mono Bose, but I think the quality of the Bose sound will win you over.

3. The new Roland portable PA will not be what you expect. What I've read turned me off completely; and it's gonna be decently expensive, to boot.

Best of luck to you Zuki. My experience using the Compact is that I set it down, take off the cover, add the columns, plug it in, plug in my keyboard (with mic) and that's it. And it probably takes as long as it took you to read this to do all that. Plus it's one unit of 25 lbs. and a sling bag weighing 5lb. For the most part I'm a penny-pincher, but buying the Bose Copact was definitely worth the extra bucks for me.