IF your budget is under 2000$ then get a yamaha a3000 sampler and this little beast... you all everything to become a techno god!

www.mp3.com/metromuzik

I tried out the korg electribe and it was okay but it didn't blow me away. I though of the nord micromodular but i didnt' like the fact that you needed a pc to get at all the controls. the an200 has a pc editor but you can shape sounds just fine without it.

I listened to the an200 and I was sold. for the money its the best sounding analog techno electronica synth out there. the nord micromodular is a challenger sound wise but I don't like tweaking with a mouse. that's a personal preference.

this is a good sounding synth. yeah there's cheesy presets but some are excellent. they're just a starting point anyway. A good way to learn some standard sounds without having to spend weeks or months figuring it out by yourself.

this is a synth for techno and electronica or whatever they're calling it now. If you're looking for conventional sounds like strings, horns, ethnic instruments etc this is not the sound module for you. try a roland instead.

It hooks up like a dream to my rmix. the knobs on my sequencer sync up exactly to the parameters on the an200. this is no coincidence since they're both made by yamaha but i just wanted to tell my fellow rm1x owners that these two go together like a dream.

Its a good synth. well made. perfect for my needs. remember that the synth sounds you hear on records aren't always straight out of the synth. a lot of people, including me, put them through effect processors, pedals, compressors, etc which is what you need in a lot of a cases to make them sound really badass.

its not a nord but its not a toy. I think its head and shoulders above the ea-1 but a lot of time these things are a matter of taste. its definitely a lot more expressive than the ea-1. a lot more malleable.

I give it a five because for the money it delivers all it should. i have no complaints.