Thanks for the link, Dreamer.

There does seem to be a split between those who want bright piano that "cuts through the mix" and those who want a piano as a piano. Even amoung acoustic grands, there are lots of flavors and one person's trash is another person's treasure.

The SRX-02 is decidedly "European", dark and rich rather than bright and crisp. I love it, but others may hate it.

Listening to comparative MP3s (such as those at the link I gave before)can help, but actually playing the pianos through quality headphones or monitors is far more revealing. As I said before, I own the Eastwest Steinway B and Bosendorfer as well as GigaPiano which are often heralded as SOTA. I absolutely prefer the SRX-02. The others sound like they're coming out of a box. The monitors I use are Mackie HR824 which are extremely accurate and neutral.

Regarding comments in the H-C reviews about abrupt velocity switches, I found it very simple to fix this problem by adjusting the velocity switch points in the patch. The XV-5050 includes a USB port and easy-to-use patch editor program.

jphardy

Well, after I wrote my last note, I guessed something was wrong. I thought maybe it was the 5080 for $1749, but still the 5050 seems like a good deal given its features.