[DIGITAL SCREAMS]

Jasedee -This user testimony is the most acurate and unbiased Ive read....and it reflects my opinion as well. See what you guys think:

"As mentioned in another thread, I got a demo Andromeda from our local distributor for a 10 day tryout. I'd like to share with you my opinions about this synthesizer. Since so much has already been said.

PROs: 1) Sound. Yes! You heard it before and you will hear it again from me. This synth sounds fantastic. I have a Rev3.3 Prophet5 right next to it and it doesn't need to shy away from any comparison to that classic polysynth. On the contrary -I _prefer_ the Andy to the Prophet5! Don't believe the dissers. This is right on the money. 2) User interface. Some people say it's clumsy, but I took to it like a duck to water. I never had to refer to the user manual not one time, even when setting up complex modulations. 3) Sound engine. The Andy has probably the most comprehensive voice architecture ever realized on an analogue synthesizer -monophonic or polyphonic. The versatility is just breathtaking.

CONS: ...Well, here we go with some rather depressing issues... 1) build quality: The aluminium chassis is good and the keyboard too. But the smaller pots are disconcertingly wobbly. They don't inspire much confidence physically. All in all, it doesn't seem to be built to last long. 2) Polyphonic voice management is buggy. Voice stealing doesn't work properly, which means that you cannot play nice polyphonic patches with lots of sustain pedal without running into problems. This is a _substantial_ impediment in live performace, and a serious issue for me as a performer. 3) The modulation engine update frequency (100Hz) intermodulates with the audio path when doing fast PWM, pitch modulation of synced oscs and some other things, thereby generating a disconcertingly audible hum at 100Hz. The hum gets _shockingly_ loud when switching the engine optimizer to "superfast envs", as the LFO calculations consequently run even less smooth. The "smooth PWM" setting helps a bit but not that much. Conclusion: Fast PWM pads are an impossibility except if you filter out the hum with the HP filter1. This is very bad. 3) Many other minor bugs (ENV delay stage etc.), which are a tedious but not as basic and serious as having a 100Hz hum at approx. -12dB (!) when doing fast PWM, or playing a key and no sound coming out (bad voice stealing).

CONCLUSION: All in all, it's a mixed bag. On the one hand, my hat is off to Alesis. The hardware solution of the audio path (the ASIC technology) is groundbreaking and fantastic. The sound is awesome for a sixteen voice analogue polysynth and the flexibility is unrivalled in this domain. All this makes it even more frustrating to see such an achievement being flawed by subsequent corner-cutting (cheap pots and buttons, too slow modulation CPU) and a never-to-be-finalized OS with some crippling issues.

I don't know yet if I will buy one. Especially the PWM hum and polyphony management is really bad. Otherwise I'm totally in love with this synth. We see..."

Taken from SonicState (GAS thread)