I am seriously thinking about buying a PA80, however, I would like to know how much worse or better this keyboard is over the I30.

How do:

a) The drums compare
b) Styles compare
c) Sounds compare
d) SMF playback compare
e) O/P system compare
f) Sequencer compare

thanks for any replies in advance.
Danny...

a) The drums compare

i30 have better drums.

b) Styles compare

PA-80 have similar styles as i30 but sounds more powerful and PA-80 styles are 8 parts comparing to 6 part i30 styles. (drum, perc, bass, Acc 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.)

c) Sounds compare

PA-80 have much better sounds now with o.s. 3 you can load triton programs (not drum kits) so the sounds are defintely better than i30.

d) SMF playback compare

Better in PA-80 dual sequencer helps a lot you can load the second song into the sequencer 2 while the song one is still playing in the seq 1, very great feature you can also play both seq. togather for 32 track songs :-) great feature.

e) O/P system compare

i30 rules PA-80 sucks big time if comparing to i30.

f) Sequencer compare

i30 rules PA-80 BSQ is not that good or powerful and not ver easy.

Danny uk,

I owned the I30 a couple of years ago and I like it very much. I had limited time with the PA-80. I borrowed it from a friend for a couple of weeks to try it.

I find that the styles are very much the same. They are some new styles that are in the machine. The voices of the pa-80 are a little better. piano, guitar and some others.
I know it takes the Triton cards, but I don't know if it has a hard drive. I couldn't tell if it did or not.

If it was up to me and this is just my opinion. If your looking to replace the I30 with the PA-80 I wouldn't. If your looking for a second keyboard the PA-80 maybe?. but there are other keyboards out there..

hope this helps.

MC, hard drive is optional.

Danny, if you are seriously considering buying a PA80 and hope to use fill-ins very much try them out. I dislike both the way they sound and behave.

Shiral

i30 is better for playing live. To change sounds or settings on the fly, it is much quicker.

However, it is a heavy keyboard compared to pa80.

Guys, thank you very much indeed for the advice, very usefull.

Firstly, I asked to compare the 2 because I used to own the I30 a couple of years ago, and I enjoyed it. The only downfall I had with the I30 was that there were no speakers & most of the sounds where bland compared to other keyboards.

I am a little surprised that the PA80 does not completely beat the I30 in every way because I thought the I30 was not a very user friendly keyboard IMO. If the PA80 is a little worse in this area, then this could be a factor for me to look elsewhere. Ultimately, I will have to search for a store and try it out. If the PA80 was given an overwhelming vote of confidence over the I30, I think I would of just bought it regardless as I would know more or less how it would be like after owning the I30.

BTW, I am getting the PA80 as a 2nd keyboard for the home, as I use the X1 for everything else. Thats my baby and its going nowhere!

Again, much appreciated for all the comments.

Danny..