As a first time keyboard buyer I'm trying to decide between the Korg N5EX and the Alesis QS6.1. Whilst the Korg seems to have more sounds the Alesis has expandability. Does the quality of the sounds differ? Can the Korg be expanded? Does one connect to a Mac more easily than the other? Is one easier to learn than the other? Are there other features that diferentiate the two? Any help appreciated.

Both keyboards are great units. You probably couldn't go wrong with either. I bought the Alesis QS8 because the pianos, EP's, drum sounds , etc. were really tops for what I needed to do. I'm using the Classical Instruments Q-card and Sanctuary Q-card. Have a 4 meg flashrom card for storing 50 of my own sequences, have a 512k sram card for storing 8 more banks of programs and 8 more banks of mixes. All-told, I have 1920 programs and 1500 mixes. I can also download my own samples into a 4 meg card or 8 meg card. I absolutely love the QS. Have had zero problems. The only thing I lack is a resonant filter on the QS, but there are so many other bonuses that make up for it. (I've learned to make filter sweeps imitate the resonance). The only other thing I would like on my QS8 is the sequence start button and transposer button, both are on the newer QS6.1 your looking at. Check out http://midiworld.com/quadrasynth/ for more information if you haven't already bought the Korg yet. Hope this helps, PW