Hi,

Thought I'd step in the fresh snow and let you know my opinion of the flagship Yamaha sampler, the a5000.

It is great. I have owned Akai, Samplecell and various software samplers and I find this to be the most intuitive to use by FAR. May take you a while to bend your mind map to the Yamaha sample / program / routing structure, but it really does make sense and really enhances speed and creativity.

Great effects, great reverb. Great overall sound.

A few quirks - can only import 1 wav file at a time. Knobs on the front can be a bit hit and miss sometimes.

I researched top of the range samplers - Akai, Emu, Yamaha, Roland - and the a5000 won for value for money, for my needs - dance / pop in a bedroom studio.