Feature:
The amount of sounds available is stunning. This is one piece a pro studio will get a lot of mileage from. You can use iot for ANY project! The Expansion capabilities a big plus (SRX & SR Expansion slots) - and especially the ability to import great Roland sample libraries from SCSI devices. I only wished for more sample memory (128 MB max).

Quality:
Excellent quality.

Value:
Being a such a high-end product - the price is fairly good.

Sound:
It's one of the best sounding Roland modules I have ever heard. Also, the internal effects are superb.

Overall:
Right now - in the market the XV-5080 really stand on its own - it really does not have direct "competitor" IMHO. The editability of sounds and creative resources available for the XV is quite remarkable.

I have had the 5080 for short time. It has a vast amount of sounds without the expansion boards. The sonic quality of the pallette of sounds out of the box is incrdible. I don't think that there are any sounds in the 5080 that are useless. I haven't had an opportunity to install SIMMS for sample playback or any of the expansion cards as yet. But based on the quality of the sounds that are in the XV-5080 out of the box, I know that the expansion cards will be a great addition. I purchased the XV-5080 because of its polyphony, expandability and the quality of the Roland sound library. I rate the XV-5080 as a great addition to any musical arsenal.

If the XV-5080 is too rich for your blood, then take a serious look at the XV-3080. It is very versatile (minus samle playback capability) and is about $700 cheaper.

There is a growing user community for the XV-5080 including some dedicated web sites full of usefull resources and downloads.

I've been a proud owner of an XP-50 workstation since it came out, and the expansion boards have kept me using it since. A couple months ago, I stepped up to the XV-5080, and all I can say is WOW!!! This thing rocks! It is very expensive, but if you can afford it, it is well worth it. The effects in this unit are amazing. There are some fabulous electric guitar sounds that make use of Roland's speaker modeling. But the thing I like best about it is the SRX expansion capability. I bought the Drum Expansion Board to go with it, and the drum sounds are simply amazing. I'm the type of composer who likes "real" sounding instruments (as opposed to synth or techno instruments). The drum kits on this board are as close as you can get to a top studio drummer recorded with incredible clarity.

I use the 5080 with the Roland V-mixer 3100 Pro, and use the R-Bus connection to send the digital audio straight through my mixer and into my computer. There is virtually no hiss to be heard with this module, as opposed to my XP-50, which sends out quite a bit of hiss when the level is turned up.

My only complaint about the 5080 would be that I wish it would include the RAM for the sample playback capability, or at the very least, offer it for a fair price from the Roland website. As it is now, if I want to have the sample playback capability, I have to go to a computer store myself. I can understand the reason behind this, however, as many may not need sample playback, and this keeps the cost lower. Also, you can store samples and patches on smart media cards too (not included), which is a cool feature. One other thing is that it takes a while to get the hang of how to use the machine - especially choosing effects for your patches.

Congrats to Roland on the XV-5080. I think they have raised the standard with this machine.

The XV-5080 sounds great, no doubt. The quality of the presets is only surpassed by the SRX boards (I own the 1st 3), which sonically take it up a notch.

The XV's sound is meaty, yet transparent: I find that the audio quality (24 bit DAC) translates into multitimbral performances that are less cluttered, with more detail.

The main hangup is the fact that the XV-5080 saves all sample data in a unique format (XV-5080 format), which only it can understand.

Yes, you can load Akai S1K and Roland S-7xx format CD-ROM's into a max of 128MB SIMM (with varying degrees of success), but only the XV can use the data once it's converted and saved.

Unfortunately, you can't load anything except XV-5080 format patch/perf data from anything EXCEPT a CD-ROM, so there's no using anything but XV-5080 data stored on a hard drive.

Take Home: the XV is currently best considered a ROMpler, with limited sample playback capabilities.

Time may change this recommendation (OS updates, more 3rd party support, etc).

if your looking for a flagship synthesizer/sampler.. THIS IS THE ONE...

it is fully compatible with all AKAI CD's has beautiful sounds.. (my favorite is a guitar, when you press down on the keyboard, it plays the guitar, when you lift up on the key, it plays a fret noise!!! AWESOME!)

128 voice 32 multi - twice the power of the triton... cheaper price...

Hello,
This thing has exquisite sounds and in your face drum sets. Playing this sound module is better than sleeping with my wife. No excuses and a good time sound module. I highly recommend this if you want all the best from Roland.

Yes, it's proprietary, but R-Bus is fantastic if you're looking for clean, digital throughput across multiple channels. That's a major plus.

I've heard all the sfx advertised for this unit on other equipment (VM3100, VS studio, SRV-3030) and _yes_ they are top-notch, professional quality. In fact -- and this is something not many are commenting on -- even the SP-808EX has some just phenomenal classic modelled efx. This alone is again, significant value in the new unit.

Roland is renowned for its high-quality sound sampling. Stuff they've got from years ago is still better than many more recently-released ROM-based synths' sample quality. I think I'll be sticking with the new SRX line for the most part for additional samples, but being able to load favorite samples from CDs is a nice added touch.

The addition of the JD-990 sounds is great! Those are classics, if you have trouble finding them it's wonderful to have them integrated onboard on this unit, with the ability to output them digitally, now, in 24-bit mode.

One of the advantages of all Roland gear is that the interface design is highly standardized; once you're familiar with the logic of one piece of Roland equipment, it's very easy to understand most of the others.

The interface (assuming it's like the XV-3080's, which is available) is a good improvement over the old JV-x080 line. The new rotary encoder (with push-to-Enter feature, also available on the SRV-3030) is a significant improvement over the rotary encoders used on previous-generation Roland products. The patch finder is a godsend. The editing interface maintains JV standards, but improves on them and is even more intuitive.

The mod matrix, while not as sophisticated as the ones on E-Mu's samplers and sample-playback boxes (via their "Patchcord" system), or on any of Waldorf's instruments, is still a welcome improvement. Properly understood, this adds significantly to your sound-sculpting abilities.

The XV-5080's bound to be a classic, and offers incredible value at the price it will be found here.

When I buy one of these (and I will), I will expect it, like my other Roland gear, to last me many, many years without need or desire for upgrade.

Thank You, Roland; I look forward to the release of the XV-5080 in the U.S.

Steve

Rather than just up the number of patches this time, Roland gave us a truly better box. Stereo sounds and a built in sample player that will load from CDs or AIFFs and WAVs right from your Mac or PC SCSI connection. They're continuing the expansion card ability, but it's actually backward compatible, so you can pull out those 1080 cards and them, rather than having to start over. A great value - if this was Korg or Kurzweil, it'd be $4000.

One must be carefully when making a purchasing decision on this one (over the K2600 or Triton), specifically noting that Roland advertises only that it is a sample playback machine - which means it is NOT able to allow the user to sample DUMP from the Mac/PC. Instead in the age of the Internet, USB and Firewire, we are forced to burn all the samples we download from the Net onto CD first and then load them! A terrible discovery, verified by Roland themselves: "The machine is not designed to perform sample dumping via SCSI from a Mac/PC." They recommend the CD-Rack, a fast CD-RW with added 2nd port for HD/ZIP/etc - and $700 later + the price of a new HD, you are storing samples for your XV-5080 on your 2nd 8gig HD - so redundant! So you end paying almost more than the K2600!

This lacking feature is worth weighing heavily. All sampler should hook up to computers, end of story.