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I also have all four 1000 series boxes and IMO they are the best tools if you want to do MIDI orchestration. The sounds are TOP NOTCH! I started with the 1000PX in 1989 and found it easy to run out of polyphony, so I picked up one of each over time. All of my boxes have the latest OS and all the available soundblocks, and I never run out of polyphony. 84 note polyphony between the four boxes is PLENTY.
The drums in the 1000PX are good but my Alesis DM5 has far more flexibility, and I'm a drummer. The raw samples in the 1000PX are still the greatest: awesome pianos, strings, horns, vibes, upright bass, and if you have the A and or B soundblocks you get excellent Fender Rhodes pianos (I used to own a Rhodes - I know), electric basses, percussion, harp, baritone horn, saxes, flutes, all excellent. Kurzweil had a really fine sample library. I don't miss onboard filtering at all, although it'd be nice for brass. Keep the onboard effects to a minimum - you lose polyphony, it's not DSP effects. Use an outboard multiFX instead.
There is a difference between the PX and the others: the PX uses samples at 50Khz for 24 note polyphony, while the others use 60Khz samples but only 20 note polyphony. That's why the strings and brass sound different between them.
The new Kurzweil PCx do not have the same sounds - I noticed the difference right away, they're worse. But the 1000 sound library (actually the K250 library) *IS* in the higher end keyboards like the K2x00. You get what you pay for.
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