You can't compare its functionality with higher end instruments. I couldn't afford a virus, nordlead or andromeda let alone a big briar voyager. I could've bought a Korg MS2000 but with the money I had left over from buying the SH32 I bought a Yamaha DX200 (FM synthesis) and a Midi keyboard. Come to think of it, the Novation K station are going pretty cheap now. But it wasn't when I bought the SH32. Every time I start bottom up from d88 I come up with something new and aurally tantalising. Its so easy to use. The SH32 begs to be tweaked. Live, it holds its own for space rock amidst guitar, drums and bass and on a very different musical front makes good techno. My audiences liked what I did. Worried about the samples? I checked the waveforms out on a scope the other day and they were good up to 80 KHz (Dolphins and bats may notice). Worried about the filter stepping? You'll only hear it badly for slowish sweeps so use the envelope or LFO instead. Get the peaking filter at 24 dB/Oct on the go with the supersaws and a bit of delay with the overall level DOWN and your thoughts will not be about stepping.

I recently sold my Alpha Juno 1 and I can already tell I won't miss it a bit. (Relative to the SH-32, the Alpha Juno 1 was *a lot* more of a hassle to program, had less features and less of a sound palette and, frankly, IMO the Alpha Junos don't sound very good in the higher ranges.)

The SH-32 presets are generally good and some are awesome; they cover the typical analog range of basses, leads, pads, sweeps, brass, & SFX. I was pleasantly surprised that there were some beautiful pad sounds. I had good results making minor tweaks to some of the weaker presets. As an example, the presets I usually don't like (on any synth) are the short "plinky" type sounds that are probably meant for sequencing or arpeggiating but when I extended the envelopes on some of these types of sounds I was happy with the outcome.

A couple notable presets are B/D 44 and 45 the first is phase pad and the second is an analog string/pad. Although these are common sounds, these in particular are among the best I've heard.

I agree with others that the resonance sounds harsh and metallic above 1/2 - 2/3 of the max. setting (but the sounds I make are usually below that anyway).

IMO the waveforms do sound good and I have made a couple patches from scratch to test the PWM, square and sawtooth waves.

The limitations of using osc. sync. although somewhat of a drag isn't as bad as it might look on paper. The preset leads that use osc. sync. (...and IMO that's the most common application e.g. The Cars, "Let's Go", lead sound.) only need one voice anyway since they are, well, leads. The lack of filter on sync. sounds is mitigated by the inclusion of basic waveforms samples that are apparently sampled without all their higher order harmonics.

The LFOs even have a trapezoid waveform option that I liked (although it might initially seem esoteric) and I'll probably wish that all my synths had that feature now!

I also liked several of the pitched noise waveforms. You can make some cool sounds with them that you can't with white/pink/blue noise.

For those who gig, it's probably safe to say that you'd rather not take your flagship synth out to clubs where you play and I think a synth like the SH-32 would be great for that. It's cheap and easy to carry around and it sounds to me like it "has the sounds".

Rating is about a 4.2 but I'll round up to a 5 to help counterbalance some of the senseless 0's and 1's!