Synth Site |  Kurzweil |  1000SX

I was never a fan of buttons and the 2x40 LCD interface, but everything is logically ordered and easy to navigate. Try THAT around a Roland Korg or a Yamaha product! The options for manipulating the sounds is pretty impressive, you can use your own envelopes, you can modulate amplitude and pitch, you have global and local LFOs (very flexible), and there are ASRs and mixers (control sources only). The envelope stages can be modulated in real time. It's almost like working with a modular, there is so much you can do with the sampler. But there's no onboard filter. I consider that a small omission because the quality of the samples are so great.

The boxes features "modular effects" but they reduce your polyphony and they're not DSP effects, IE no reverb. An outboard multiFX will do a better job.

Kurzweil also made the 1000AX which includes the samples from both the 1000SX and the 1000HX (but without the optional soundblocks), and later they made a Pro II or III that includes the whole kit-n-kaboodle, optional soundblocks and all. These boxes can easily be found for under $300 and they're a great bargain. So they don't have DSP FX or filters - they're the best orchestral sounds anywhere!