I ordered the K5000s on the basis that it was a good deal. I had never heard it before excepting a demo at sweetwater's site... but now i'm really glad i ordered it... So i'm sitting around at home and i hear screeching air-brakes of a UPS truck outside. I jump to the window, and there is a large box for me (but they shipped it to the wrong address, those bastards.) No matter... I went inside and called Sam Ash to check again if they accepted returns on opened gear, which they do, so i opened it. I saw a bunch of cardboard. exciting. Then I pulled it away to reveal the slinder, wrapped-in-white-foam form of the beautimus K5000s. First impressions on looks alone... The sides are metallic blue (blue!) which is a change from the usual "It's lame black plastic" look that we're all firmilar with. The knobs... OOH the knobs. So many damned knobs. The display had that ugly clear sticker stuff over it (you know what i'm talking about.) Anyway... on to the sounds and snit... I turned it on (without looking at the manual, because i hate manuals) and started playing with the sounds. There weren't as many sounds as i had expected, but they're so good anyway it didn't really matter. You can morph and change sounds so much you can't really tell it's the same preset. The knobs are what really got me. . . The filters on this thing can kill a cat (literally) and i nearly popped an ear drum many-a-time today. The overall sounds on the thing were very pleasing, but i was expecting more "piano-drumkit-solostrings-horns" kind of crap that you expect from a big ol' keyboard... but this was not the case. Lush, rich, analoguy sounds came out of this thing, which was a VERY pleasant suprise. I'm not sure that i'll even need a "virus/supernova/an1x/microwavext" thingy anymore. (Most likely, though) I wanted at least one drum kit. That was rather dissapointing, but you can download one from "Eat at Joes" (search for K5000 at yahoo) My favorite knobs (sorry for bring up the knob thing agiain) are the reso and cutoff knobs. They scream (and i mean SCREAM) There's a TB-303 program on there... it's called TB5005. It's not very good if you just play it all alone, but grab a knob and it turns into a very convincing TB. The Arpeggiator is great... portamento is implemented well... the synth is great overall. If you're looking for a synth with great piano patches, full drum kits and GM compatablilty, look elsewhere... this is a synth for ambiant textures and sonic soundscapes and SCREAMING scathing backdrops.

Sorry for all the spelling errors, but i've got to get back to my machine.

s0n1K<>b00m