> I fell in love with the QS8 immediately, but then started
> comparing the piano sounds with the new Korg SG pro X, the Roland
> RD 600, and the others. I want the piano to sound as good as
> these others but it does not seem to (quite). Although it is my
> favorite piano action by far.

My comparison:  The Roland has a couple of piano patches that are
just outstanding.  I've mostly played with an A90ex and I think
the patches are the same (the RD-600 left similar positive
impressions but I haven't played it much.)  The best one by far is
the first patch (I think thats #11 in Roland-speak) which is really
well done, great smooth tone and playability.  Through headphones
I could only find one minor flaw with its sound; in the lower
register there is a minor amount of phasing/flanging where the
patch does a crossfade to the hardest-strike sample, and some of
these samples go slightly sharp.  Through monitors though it still
sounded great, and really it's hard to make a patch that's smooth
enough through headphones that still has enough punch when
amplified.

Regarding the Korg, I must say I wasn't crazy about it.   
The feel seemed very unnatural though I didn't hate it quite so much  
while I played it.  But the sound I didn't care for at all; it  
sounded like I was playing a recording, and not a beautiful one at  
that.  Really I suppose it's just biased towards a stage piano
rather than classical.  Later note:  I have since enjoyed playing
the SGproX on several occasions; the best pianos are not in the "A"
bank and the bank button wasn't obvious to me at first (It's out
of the way but clearly labelled...)  Like Alesis, Korg favors stage
pianos with too much reverb, but I have enjoyed the mellower pianos
when you turn down the effects.

In stock form I don't care for the Alesis piano; the sample is very  
bright, the keyboard is normally very sensitive, and the patch  
opens the filter very quickly in response to the already sensitive  
velocity;  it's just impossible to play it in a pretty manner.   
Also, the piano patches come in 2 flavors; they either use the one  
of the hard strike multi-samples which lack subtlety, or they use  
the velocity switched multi-sample.  The velo-sample is a little  
flawed because the samples themselves have different attacks.  If  
you use an envelope that makes the mid-velocity sample non-mushy,  
the hard strike sample has too much percussive punch, especially  
when the filter opens all the way up because of velocity.  It goes  
from mushy to harsh, and though it works very well in a rock mix it  
ain't pretty for solo classical.

However, I'm very happy with my solution, which is a patch that I
optimized for the individual samples.  With the patch set to open
the filter more similarly to the response of a real piano, and
envelopes matched to the individual multisamples, I can hear the
real beauty of the Boesendorfer that was sampled here.  The samples
are really quite good, and the QS is super clean sounding.

When I originally wrote this review I said:
    Compared to the Roland, my Alesis patch is brighter and slightly
    cleaner, and the Roland is smoother.  I prefer the Alesis bass
    notes all around, and the Roland has a nicer soloing tone from the
    low mids on up.  They are both beautiful and satisfying, though
    tonally quite different.
Since then I've created a lot of different flavors of what I think
are very good Alesis pianos.  I think my Alesis equals or beats
the Roland now on most counts.  One thing the Roland certainly does
very well though is to get a great sounding, versatile piano from
a single patch.

In terms of action, the Roland is great but heavier, more like a  
real piano.  The Alesis has a light fast touch that suits me  
perfectly.  It's more ideal than realistic, and that's fine with me.  
It's the best!  The Korg action just feels weird to me, and I'm  
not crazy about some other Fatar actions like the PC-88, which feels  
sprung to me, though a lot of people love these.  My take on the
Kurz:  I don't think it's one of the better sounding digital pianos
(especially to my ears the whole midrange is very unconvincing)
but the patches have a good musical response, and certainly this
counts for a lot.

Another later note:  I recently played a Yamaha P200 in a quiet
store for a good long time.  Curiously (or not), I thought it sounded
great through its own speakers, but it didn't sound nearly as good
through some middling store headphones.  I thought the sound was
comparable to the RD-600 it sat next to, certainly good enough to
warrant consideration.  I didn't like the 'graded' key action nearly 
as well as the Roland; I found it distracting and not particularly
piano-like.

> Did you notice that a couple of
> octaves above middle C that three notes right in there somewhere
> sounded really dull to the notes just above and below them. That
> really bothered me.

I've analyzed this a bit more now.  The way the Alesis multi-sample
works is that there's one main multi-sample, called GrandPiano.
This is a hard hammer strike sample, with a new sample approximately
every 3 or 4 semitones.  To make this sample suitable for softer
material, they provide a couple of versions of this same sample
with the hammer strike partially and completely clipped off, and
these samples are called NoHammer and Soft, respectively.  Then
they group Soft, NoHammer, and Grand into a velocity switched sample
that you can also use; it's called VeloPiano.  The VeloPiano sample
is hard to use well because an envelope that makes the NoHammer
sample sound right is too percussive on the Grand sample.  Also,
there's a range of 7 notes (D5 to G#5) where the NoHammer sample
has a bit too much of the attack clipped off.  It sounds kind of
gassy and not properly present.  It's possible to work around this
in a patch by avoiding the NoHammer sample in this region or by
beefing it up with a snappier envelope.  It's a solvable problem,
but this is really my biggest beef with this sample set.  It's
generally very good and usable.  The factory patches certainly
don't show it in the most favorable light however.