Blofeld Black : After 7 years, this remains a core part of my set up.

****Update after 7 years *******

TL;DR: After all the years this synth has been available, I don't think there is another that offers so much power for such little outlay.

I love this thing and it has been a dependable work-horse for me. It can do almost anything but I tend to use it for the atmospheric layer beneath others sounds I want to cut through more. This is partly because of the lack of individual outs. Layered multi-timbral textures are often my starting point and this synth excels at them.

My reservations about quality are for the more part unfounded. The encoders can be a little unresponsive but not enough to be a problem. The screen remains excellent and I find the input matrix and shallow menu structure to be no problem.

The only gripe I still have is the lack of a midi out/thru but I'm used to it now. The internal effects aren't great either but no big deal.