Via Matt"I had an xpander here for service last week, a Japanese version like mine. At the same time, a friend brought over his US made version, and for no other reason than nerdy synth-geek gratification, we racked the three up together as in the photos. While we had them all together we thought we would test the Japan made models vs the US made model. There has been much speculation in recent times as to the comparitive quality of the different units.
So the test was a very simple one, we loaded Kid Nepro preset banks on each machine via sysex, daisy chained midi through them and A/Bd the output from each unit.. The result was immediately very obvious.. no difference in sound whatsover. We tested various patches.. pads, percussive sounds, bass sounds, fx etc.. there was no difference in envelope times, tone, brightness, thickness or fatness, resonance or anything else. We were rather surprised how identical the units sounded considering the board layouts are quite different. I expected some difference in the sound between the units, but there was none, to our ears anyway. So there you go. It could of course be said that other units may sound different to the three we had racked up.. We didnt do any recording or any scientific testing.
Some other xpander trivia, aside from what I have read before.. the US version has nicer wood sides, the jacks on the rear of the US version are black as opposed to silver in the Japan versions. The rotary encoders on the US version click louder and do not roll as smoothly/softly as the Japan version encoders.
Lastly it is written in Xpander folklore that the Japanese power supply is of poor quality and made from cheese. After very careful scrutiny I can say that the Japanese power supplies were not of poor quality, but I can confirm however that the power supply in the Japanese version is indeed made from cheese.. very tasty.. "
What an "orgy" :-)
ReplyDeleteLove this monster synth !
there was never a difference in sound between japanese and american units, it was the reliablity. the japanese versions seemed to have way more "voice processor malfunctions" to the point of being almost unservicable. at least in my experience..
ReplyDeleteanonymous above, would you like to reveal who you are so you can stand behind that statement?
ReplyDeleteanonymous telling anonymous what to do? who knew.
ReplyDeleteGo to the AH Archives and do a search. The difference was always about reliability not sound...
ReplyDeleteExcellent! This supports my theory that it was only ever really the power supplies that were the problem. And they're pretty easily fixed/replaced... Cheers, Matt! (And Matrix!)
ReplyDeleteP.S. Come on folks, it only takes a moment to register/sign in...
i think its more than the power supply sometimes. my japanese Xpander was unfixable. even a bragging Wes "i can fix anything" Taggart couldnt mend it. (he serviced it and a few weeks later, same problem "voice processor malfunction") then again the american one wasn't the most reliable either. primitive software i guess..
ReplyDelete"anonymous 2"
matrix 12 has a banjo button for banjo mode
ReplyDeletemaybe wes taggart isnt the "i can fix anything" tech he claims to be then? :) (i dont have any experience at all with him, and havent heard any complaints, but some techs are better than others)
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDelete"anonymous above, would you like to reveal who you are so you can stand behind that statement?"
Now that's funny!
Kurt at Kurt's Amps in Arizona is a great Oberheim Tech.
ReplyDeleteKurt at Kurt's fucked me on a repair royally.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't want anyone giving him any money.
He may be competent at Oberheim, but hopefully someone else is available that is as good or better.
I worked at Oberheim in the mid 1980s. During that time Oberheim considered switching all production of Xpanders and Matrix 12s to the Japanese manufacture as they were very happy with the quality of Matrix 6, 6R, and xk keyboards. I can attest to this as it was my job at the time to test all these units and without a doubt they were very reliable.
ReplyDeleteA unit was requested for evaluation. The Xpander that the Japanese hand selected and sent to us was unplayable and could not be fixed by our staff. After this Oberheim continued to make Xpanders and Matrix 12s at their factory in Los Angeles until their take over by Gibson. Sound quality was never an issue as we never could get it to work.
Kurt rebuilt my memorymoog a few years ago and did a super job. It's still going strong and i was totally impressed with his work and his taking the time to explain the process with me. Check with him, he's got a ton of good ref's
ReplyDeletehe's a professional but like kevin lightner he won't deal with someone if he thinks their a douche.
Thats awesome. Strap a couple of machine guns to that rack and you'd have a robo-synth terminator!
ReplyDeletenot dealing with someone because theyre a douche goes both ways you know. some people post pics of themselves and you can tell theyre a douch just by lookin at em. nuf said.
ReplyDeleteI have seen a few over the years since i have been looking to buy one and recently have.
ReplyDeleteI saw two in Australia in person. They were both japanese models. Both of them behaved extremely eratic with voices.
I also noticed on ebay that the majority of those sold within Australia were japanese and had repaired power supplies but still had problematic voices.