It's difficult to get these sonic capabilities at this price elsewhere.

To be sure, the MoPho (Mono Phonic) synthesizer is great. The sound is big. The modulation possibilities are fantastic. This unit has the same sound capabilities as one of the voices of Dave Smith's Prophet '08, with the addition of a sub-oscillator (for added bass), and external sound processing. This was my second synthesizer, and a good tool for expanding my knowledge of subtractive synthesis. If you are comfortable with programming with a MIDI controller and mapping controls, this desktop unit is great. I personally found programming the desktop unit to be difficult because I have no interest in programming synths from a computer, or mapping controls via computer. The four assignable parameters and the four dedicated parameters were just not enough for me, since I am a hands-on/visual learner, so I bought the keyboard version. You could easily create a patch and have the four assignable parameters tied to the features you want at the ready. I was just too lazy to do so. There are 3 banks of 128 preset sounds that come with this unit, and they range from cheesy to wild and not quite musical sounds. These presets are really only there to show you what the range of sonic capability is, and should get you curious about what you can do with this synth. The analog filter is good, and it is pretty smooth, but it is kind of vanilla: not buttery like a Moog low-pass filter, and not wild like the Arturia Minibrute or Korg MS-20. The four assignable LFO's and three ADSR envelopes along with other goodies really make this unit shine. For those with a more money, and who are like me, a hands-on kinda guy, I recommend a good keyboard controller for the desktop unit, or to spring for the keyboard version. If you are home studio oriented and work with your DAW a lot, this will be a no-brainer purchase. There are many artists who use synths in this Prophet '08 family of synths (MoPho, Mopho x4, MoPho Keyboard and Tetr4). Check out Com Truise, who told me he was using a MoPho when I met him after one of his sets last year, or Neon Indian, whose band features the Prophet '08. This should give you a sense of some of the sonic capability (if you can get past the side-chaining and other effects on top of the synths).Read full review