Got it a couple of years ago in mint condition and stuffed with the 256 mb ram upgrade so i have 272 in total. a nice hitech sampler with groundbreaking editing via aksys - you can do all the edits from your pc monitor with this little program - mainly use it for vocal transfer but making a program is really easy here using the nice utility mentioned above. the sound is great 96kh - you can switch to ordinary 44.1 if you like - and no comparison to sound cards...this is a trully pro machine although it doesnt have the editing deapth of an emu or ensoniq sampler...nowdays it goes dead chep so grab yourself a bargain to have the most advanced hitech sampler of akai on your rack. and really sad that akai did a soft version of it as far as i know but i think this is were things going although hardware will never go away from your studio if you are a pro minded producer whatever music you make....