The other thing I would say about sampling is that I would rather have a 30 meg sample of a piano I like than 40 gigs of a piano I don't like. This is the point everyone seems to ignore - whatever the specs may be, you have to like the sound of your piano!
Steve
Very true. I'm finally to the point with the N1 where I've acclimated to the sound through headphones vs what I was used to hearing in the Nord. The Piano 1 inside my N1 is one of the best sounding samples inside any DP I've ever heard. Dewster calculates that between the layers and channels, the AvantGrands could very well contain samples in the 900MB-1GB size range. Substantially larger than anything else in a hardware DP (aside from the Kronos).
Sample sizes do seem to matter in so much as they are able to pack more detail into a larger sample. However, as has been said, if you don't like the sample, no matter if it's 60MB or 4GB, the size won't matter. I think a perfect example of this is the pianos inside my NP88, the Studio Grand 1 and 2, both Yamaha C7 grand pianos mic'd in different locations. Both are approximately 68.6MB and 68.8MB a piece, and yet I prefer their overall sound and character over the ~197MB samples of the Grand Imperial Bosendorfer and Bright Grand Yamaha S4 samples in my NP88. I will say one of the immediate differences aurally is that the XL Bosendorfer/Yamaha S4 are 'in your face'. They seem to be much more clear and even sounding than the much smaller older Yamaha C7 samples.