Isn't is amazing (and fantastic!) how peoples tastes are so varied!

Russ- I totally agree with you! A Triton and an XV synthe would be enough for me if I had to sell all my other bits of gear but just keep these 2! They sound different to each other but very complimentary.

KIKO- I personally think that many of the new patches (and samples) are way better than the older JV ones. The steel guitars IMHO are sooo realistic if you play them thinking like a guitarist not a keyboard player. I love they way you can 'bend' the notes! The pianos definetly are a big step up from the JV's and I must say that comparing the XV3080 and an XP30 (session card sounds) I found pretty much all the important material from that card to be already in the XV3080 (pianos, brass, drums, nylon guitars, strings and choirs). I must say however that for those of you who will be keeping your JV1080 or 2080 and have no intention of going the XV route, buy the session card as alot of similar sounding high quality patches as in the XV's are here (some may not agree here!!).

However, I can definetly hear an improvement between the JV's and the XV's. However, I will still hold on to one of my JV1080's because of the added polyphony and 4 extra card slots.

Yes I totally agree that there should be more expansion card slots in all 3 XV units (especially the XV88!).

I do totally agree that the XV's are not 'revolutionary'. They are definetly evolutionary- there is only so far you can go with sample based synthesis afterall!! For trully deep pure synthesis, get something of the analogue modelled variety like the Korg Z1 or Novation Supernova series. Come to think about it, such a synthe in conjunction with an XV or JV synthe would be killer!!!! Cheers.