Roland JV-1000 vs XP80 from a sound perspective?

[Mighty Motif Max]

Hi everyone,

A few weeks ago I came across a JV-1000 in very good condition at a Music Go Round. I played a bit on it through headphones, and found that I really like the keybed and the following sounds: UI85 JV Rhodes, A13 A.Piano 3, A24 RD Rhodes 1 and A23 Pop Piano 2 (I think?). Also some of the "pluck" sounds and the JP Strings.

I know that the polyphony is only a maximum of 28, and that expanding it with a V-EXP board doesn't truly double the polyphony for single sounds, only for layers by duplicating the internal sound engine. So, I looked at the XP-80 since it has 64 voices. According to its data list, it has none of those sounds. I have read that you can add JV-1000/90/80 patches into the XP-series, but it looks like the only way to add the JV factory sounds is by single-patch sysex midi dump from the JV itself.

So I have three questions in essence:


1. If I bought an XP80, could I load those sounds that I mentioned in, even though I don't have a physical JV-1000?

2. Would I be losing anything in sound quality etc from the JV-1000 if I went with an XP-80?

3. Is around $330 for the JV-1000 a fair price?


A friend of mine has an XP-30 that he plays in a band with me, but I never liked the sound of it (granted, all he uses is a piano and string sound in mono). But I absolutely LOVED the sound of the JV-1000 I tried out.


I know there has been some discussion in the past about these two boards.

Thank you!


-Max


P.S. This isn't about getting realistic sounds by any means. Just getting the older Roland soundset, particularly the sounds I mentioned.

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

And...


I bought it on Friday. $329.99 plus tax. It seems to be in very nice shape, everything seems to work. The presence slider does actually work and I can hear the difference. On some patches, I think it boosts the eqs a bit much, it introduces a bit of digital distortion to the sound if you put it to its max setting, but I'm guessing that has something to do with the headroom issue that some have mentioned about the JV series. Not an issue as long as I don't push the slider to its max. Might be my headphones too. I haven't hooked it up to the full system yet, just to the headphones, and my MSR100 speaker (with which I didn't notice anything). The previous guy definitely had an expansion board and some pcm/data cards installed. Some sounds in his user banks seem to require waveforms not in the machine, and the screws are a bit loose over the EXP board compartment.


This can be a backup midi keyboard in the event something goes out again too.