If I recall, the 1010 was known for very weak output (which naturally cound cause some noise floor issues when the signal was tweaked using gain on a mixer, etc.) - I've never A/B'd the 50 at the same time, but I think the 5050 does send a somewhat hotter signal than the 1010 did. I've never really analysed the precise output levels or signal to noise level of the 5050, but the 5050 has output gain about the same as other modules I've used.
The outputs on the 5050 are not balanced. just to get a better piano or drum sound).
The 5050 provide many more routing options (4 outs), better MIDI implementation and much more effects processing - which all justifies the costs variance from a 1010 or 2020 - but as far as the pure sounds, I don't know if I would spend money to "upgrade" from a 1010 to a 5050 (just for the sounds) - unless I was looking to increase the number of sounds available to me (vs. THe 5050 does have a wider range of drum sounds, which can provide more options in various musical styles. The 5050 does have some piano sounds which are "better" than the 1010 - but as long as Roland has a "piano" expansion card they aren't going to provide top quality stock sounds. While the sounds in the 5050 are as a whole, "better" than the 1010 (and certainly there are a whole lot more sounds on the 5050) I'm not convinced the 5050 is a tremendous leap over the 1010 (based on pure sound alone).
However, the XV series does create thicker richer shoulds than the JV series (I'm not much of a tech head - so I can't communicate the programming differences). THe 1010 was replaced by the 2020 and the 5050 does use some of the same sound architecture. While slightly overly simplistic, your assessment of the relationship between the 1010, 20 is relatively acurate.
Would anyone like these factory patch names for the XV-5080 and S-80 units? Because I don't know the URL from which they came, nor do I have a means of posting them on the net, I'd have to email them to you (the files aren't large.) Maybe then one of you E-sophisticates could post them so all interested could share.I own a 5050 - I 've never owned a 1010, but have used them enough to compare the sounds.
How might I access factory names which reside in my OMS Folder, from Pro Tools? The goal is to assign MIDI track patches to a device within the OMS Studio, and see the sound names which correspond to MSB, LSB, and patch number coordinates (duh, I imagine). I've had no success opening them, nor any other OMS Name Manager Document which resides in the factory names folder within my OMS Folder, as the error message follows that ".program could not be opened, because the application program that created it could not be found." I may be going about this quite wrongly, having no prior experience with MIDI patch names and Pro Tools.
A friend found OMS Name Manager Documents on-line for the Roland XV-5080 and Yamaha S-80 machines.