i just wish everyone could hear midi's played with the audiophile 2496 card and aego speakers
the yamaha synthesizer is good, and if you buy a phillips AE card you get the -80 version free with it. i believe the free one on their site is the -50 which doesn't have as many options
every player makes them sound different, and the type of output also changes the enjoyability. On the Yamaha you can use the midi mapper port, the FM synthesizer, MPU-401, the SXG driver, or the microsoft GS wavetable synthesizer. (You will retain all the latter if you do not override the application for midi files when installing)
I have found if you have more than one midi player active (like SXG and Windows media player) it doesn't sound as good. And of course you can download both free and pay "voice sets" for your midi-player, so instead of five piano voice possibilities, you can have 500.
One of many favorite sites (stride and ragtime piano) is as follows:
link
There are a few "gem" songs on each page for download starting with the above linked page
scroll to bottom and then go to each page for each guy:
John Arpin
Alex Hassan
Matthew Liver
Terry Parrish
John Petley
Tom Roberts
Bill Rowland
If you right click the basic windows media player pop up window (the little rectangular one) you can "save as" the file after you listen. Dont save while playing.
I have found that with the Yamaha Synth, the piano sounds the most natural with the FM synthesizer port (change by going to the green wrench icon)
These 10 or 12 piano pieces are my listening standard to see how good a speaker system is
www.banjo.com has dozens of bluegrass tunes.