The Virus, though loaded with features, just didn't stack up sound-wise. Admittedly, it had interesting patches, but compared to the Poly and the Prophet the sound was thin and nasal. I'm not some analog snob. I was really anticipating having all three of these beasts making music together. Sadly, the Virus sound just wasn't in the same class.

The four-oscillator sound of the Poly is extremely fat. The phrase "morbidly obese" would apply here. And the sounds you can coax out of it are varied and satisfying. Unbelievable, speaker shattering basses. Hissing, spitting, grinding leads. And some of the sweetest, most atmospheric pads you can imagine. Take a sweet, analog-ish patch and give the Tuned Feedback or Output Hack knob a twist and quickly transform it into something very frightening indeed.

In fact, of all the synths I've owned, the Poly takes probably the fewest number of knob tweaks to take a sound into a completely different direction. Inspiring. Be prepared to lose hours, days, perhaps even months of your life to tweaking patches on this synth. Very, very satisfying.

The only downside is that if your patches lend themselves to polyphony, you may begin to lust uncontrollably after the Poly Rack to bump up your voice count.

No doubt about it, this synth is in a class by itself. Thank you, Dave Smith.

.... Now ask me about the Prophet 08. Heh-heh.

for the very few people that dog the Evolver's, you will be better off with your S&S sound modules. that way you can get your instant gratification. But to those who see making your own sounds as part of the art, this board will bring happiness into your music/sound sculpting lives.

Other than using my GF's Alesis Fusion, this is my ONLY synth. Ill be taking this on my honeymoon.