The sweet spot for home turntable enthusiasts on a budget seems to be the $200 mark. This might be the best of the bunch.
One can only imagine the sake-fueled club hopping that led to the development of the Seiko Frequency drum machine watch.
Macbeth M5 'Pure Analog' Modular Synthesizer
By James Grahame
Most early electronic musical instruments were huge modular systems that looked like telephone exchanges. A tangled web of patch cables connected huge racks of sound generators, filters and amplitude shapers to each other. Modulars were challenging to use and only the most popular musicians could afford to tour with these bewildering monstrosities.
Believe it or not, modulars are still sought-after by die-hard synthesists. Some of the finest are hand-crafted by Ken MacBeth. His top-end synth is the £1995 M5 'pure analog synthesizer.' It includes three voltage-controlled oscillators, two voltage-controlled filters, a couple of voltage-controlled envelope generators, and a wonderful selection of sound mangling modules including a ring modulator, dual sample & hold, noise generator and even a spring reverberation unit.
I know you could simulate this in software at a fraction of the price, but it wouldn't be quite the same.
Macbeth M5 pure analog modular synth (Macbeth Studio Systems)
