I record all my samples with the pc, not the sampler, and I use sample-cd's. Anything I put into it comes out clean and unchanged.

The filter and envelopes are nothing much, but you can change the character of samples if you want to and this is not a synth. (Buy a nordlead if you want that!)

For the price, sound, possibilities, and the ease of use (via the pc).

I guess some people want a full blown box for cheap that does it all and that's ok, but I just needed "a box with ram and lots of outputs" so I can edit my samples in Sound Forge, tranfer to S2000, map the keys on my synth and I am done. Piece of cake! I have no problems with bass on mine and I am feeding it to a Mackie 32:8 buss mixer and EQing it there. I don't really know anyone who runs their bass drum "dry" anyway.. Usually you either compress it, EQ it, whatever but never run it dry..

End Result: It's a good sub $1000 sampler but since I don't use the internal FX of it (or any sampler) I could care less about internal FX, just quality of output. I mostly use it for building my own drum loops (10 outputs are great!) and it works perfect for me..