I’m realizing more and more that when I evaluate the sound of a keyboard, on line, what I’m really doing is evaluating the sound system it’s connected to.

And the sound system you are listening through, no ?

And you can bet that when the demo is being done by one of the manufacturer's pro's - Scott Tibbs or Ed Diaz for Roland; or Bert Smorenberg or Blake Angelos on the Yamaha workstations; or Michel Voncken or Peter Baartmans on the Yamaha arrangers; and the same for Korg and Casio and the others - that the demo board has been gone over with a fine tooth comb by the sound folks and every demo voice and the EQ have been tweaked to the utmost. You could spend untold hours on that same board and probably still not get the sound out of it that they do.

I think the playback audio system is everything for great sound. The speaker system may be more important than the intrinsic voices in a board in determining whether we like a particular arranger, or not. To me, a typical PA speaker doesn’t do an arranger justice. It needs to be a bi-amped monitor speaker, with dedicated separate power to the highs and lows. Wow, does that make a difference.