Don't get me wrong people my it is a great sampler , possibly the best on the market. My main gripes are : bad construction quality , wak stock efx and they over hyped the beat munger which sucks imo , sequencer sucks also. But as just a standalone sampler/synthesizer with separate efx and seq. it is a powerful piece of uh kit for lack of a better term tho im not british i'm just high. But it must be said that the su700 is better for loops , and the asr-x has better efx-way better. Of course they both don't have the other synthesis capabilities of the E5K that baffled me either. I have not idea what i just typed I will not be held responsible, peace.

Seriously tho, if its crashed that many times then you`ve gotten a duffer, demand a new one. I haven`t had a crash on the 6400 in the 2 years I`ve had it.

I agree the beatmunger is pretty shit at what its supposed to do tho ......then, you can get some pretty mad stuff out of it if you abuse it into doing crap its not supposed to.

Guess its not for everyone then but I love my emu, the buttons are knackered now and the data wheel wobbles like buggery but that the price you pay for buying an american sampler - American design is great, American build is ....well, not so great.

- although I only had it for 6 months , it crashed on me about 6 times

- I had 5 instances of corrupted data after loading sounds I had saved to IDE drive

- The cord section is very confusing , only people like R-tek can make good use of this section , you have to be technically inclined

- NO question about it - Beat-Munging SUCKS ASS - and is only good for making a perfectly good loop or break sound like shit , seems like a gimmicky thing thrown in to attract lil teenybopper hip-hoppers working strictly off sample cd's using loops mostly....

- The data entry nob sucks worse than the new data entry nob on the Mpc2kxl , mine was a little bit warped but not enough to be able to complain , for building quality I would give it a 1 out of 5....

- I honestly do not feel the sound is warm and organic at all , I feel like it has an accurate sound and it is very musical but it sucks for Kik drums , and if you put it next to an emax1 or 2 for that matter it sounds like a weak lil' ho(very thin) , it doesn't sound that much better than the akai's , I don't think the filters are anything special at all , the stock efx suck ass , not useful to me...

- I won't even mention the sequencer - uhh never mind - it sucks too...

Pro's : it has a variety of useful features , but if your not the type that really likes to tweak , tweak , and retweak your sounds it may be overkill.. Still one of the best new samplers out there right now but I'd have to hear the new Yamaha samplers to say it was THE best....

- also it is amazingly easy to sample a sound and place it on the keyboard , takes no time at all ....

I would like to give it a 4 out of 5 , however the 2 mark is because it really annoys me when the people at emu hype up this beat-munging thing like it's fukkin wonderful when it sucks so bad , when I called and asked why it wasn't calculating the tempo correctly of a perfectly cropped loop the tech support said something like : you may get a different result everytime it calculates the number of beats and render's the loop , it's not exact -

they're fukking bastards at emu just like akai don't beleive the hype , they both make good equipment and their both jackass's for having faulty marketing schemes and not listening to the people buying their shit enough... peace