The D-5 was a nice General MIDI instrument, but was kind of thin on sounds. It has a nice metal body and good keys. Aftertouch is pretty nice. I was a bit annoyed with the 2-line "dot-matrix" display and having to scroll constantly to get where I wanted to go.

The pitch bend knob?wheel (the "?" is not there by mistake!) is a bit weird too. It's a wheel with a stick molded to the top-center of it. I suppose that Roland probably figgered that it would be easier to manage and grip it if they did this to it. I found it a bit odd to work with. The "wheel" doubles as a mod controller, but not very well. Plus it's on a plane parallel to the front edge of the 'board and not at the usual perpendicular angle. I prefer 2 seperate wheels, myself.

This sucker's HEAVY. It reminds me of the weighted key Ensoniqs that so many of my buddies have.

I never got any ROM card(s) for it, but I understand that they add a but more capablilty. Good luck finding any now, though.

The manual is the standard antimanual that came with so many of the Roland synths in the late 80's and early 90's: good because they give you enough info to get yourself into trouble, but usually a good kind of trouble.

If you are looking for a good starter synth, this is a good bet, but you could probably get the same enjoyment and creativity out of a Kawai K1! Or you could just get a decent controller and get a bunch of modules and have the same thing.