High-quality sound, typical mid-1980s digital-analog characteristic. NOT quite the same as your classic vintage analog-very contemporary, tighter envelopes and better midi latency, timing and thus expresseness than the older analogs, in exchange for a lighter less gutsy smoother character lacking some of the punchiness of vintage American or CS Yamaha, Korg or earlier Rolands including the Jupiter 8. A Jupiter 8 does have more of the classic vintage analog sound, on the other hand the MKS is tighter, faster and more expressive using midi.

Good examples of MKS bass are Who's That Girl, Open Your Heart and Into the Groove Madonna, as opposed to Prophet bass on Lucky Star-the Prophet's more powerful and deeper, while the Jupiter's faster, more nimble and tighter.

As far as warmth let's be honest NONE of the Rolands have the warmth of American or Yamaha/Korg vintage synths, they have a neutral sound. Whether that matters is subjective.

As far as reliability and portibility you've got your typical Japanese superiority build quality and better tolerances than other vintage synths. I had a programmer but sold it, prefering the cursors for their exactness plus there's always software programmers.

It is my first analogue synth with so many possibilties and i have to say that it sounds impressive. The filters and their resonance are not that special but the VCO's sound very good to my ears. I own an access virus also and the mks80 sounds more solid on the bottom end but the virus is more bright and silky.

Mine is the later 5 rev, with the custom Roland chips. One chap on this site said that these chips are like rocking horse shit to replace, but I've yet to hear of one of the later versions blowing their chips. Jap machines do not go wrong (unlike some US machines).

Some chaps on this site have slated this machine. I can't understand why. Surely, they have never actually owned this machine, or had the sheer pleasure of programming it. The brass sounds are legendary, and have appeared on nearly every hit record in the 80ies. What have these nobodies ever done?

This next bit is for real musicians only. The Prophet and the Moogs and the JP8s are so over-priced that only non-music-making art collectors can afford them. The Super Jupiter is the analogue world's best kept secret. Buy it now, before it, too, becomes affordable only to those who can't play/make/envision music. And buy the Andromeda too, since this is a classic of the future.