I hear you Bachus and I understand the arguments about backward compatibility. But is a weak argument in my view and I will explain why.

I want to buy a new keyboard to take advantage of the new sound engine and all the new styles along with all the backward compatible styles. Not merely to play my old styles using all the old sounds. Or Am I misunderstanding why people buy new keyboard?

If the new styles we are using the new EDS sound source, then I am very surprised that it doesn't sound significantly different to the old styles. To my ears that was what really surprised me and I was inderwhelmed .

I agree with you however that the DNC guitars and saxes are a great improvement over the old ones. In fact any of the sounds that use DNC are clearly better than those that do not use it. but most of the keyboards sounds are not using DNC . Further more I had upgraded my original keyboard using the golden entertainer XMS1 expansion board scone years ago , therefore the improvement from this to the 4x is not as great as you might expect .

Anyway . Thanks for everyone's input. I trust my ears and my own intuition. My money will still be available should korg or Yamaha produce an instrument worthy of the upgrade on my terms . Enjoy whatever you play .

God bless

Worth