Thom there is no way in hell that you can compare a $15 sound source to a $1200 sound source!
Personally I would take Kontakt over a Roland FA-06. It is much easier to increase the number of sounds in Kontakt than in the Roland plus there are no headaches in a well maintained system. Both sound good but YMMV.
Mario,
The point I was trying to make,is that I'd rather make a substantial investment in something far more useful that I will use regularly for years to come,rather than buying a long string of "bargain basement" items that I will fidget with a few times & then forget about.
In my opinion,most of what Roland puts out,is way overpriced and that the FA-series,was the first reasonably priced product of significant quality.
Furthermore,I did not mean to compare a Roland product to every other software product out there...but to say that in terms of Roland products,the FA was the real bargain.
Yes...$1200 is still a lot of coin no matter how you slice it,but the FA-series offers so much for that price tag...like having the ability to instantly create music with virtually no boot-up time,utilizing several track and effect resources without any lag or glitches...as well as having some of Roland's best sounds and being able to export it all in either stems or a stereo track into a DAW(without dealing with any messy PC/hardware integration).
Bargain hunting for clearance prices is always fun,but one can easily clutter one's computer with a hoard of obsolete items and I want to steer clear of falling into that habit...but...to each his own.