I agree with the above poster on Blofeld.
I've got a black Blofeld Keyboard, and even though I'd have liked it to be 5 octaves, 4 is just doing it for me... had it been 3 octaves I would not have chosen the keyboard version. The feel is rather good, and I love the feel of it... If I have to put my finger on something physical, it's the two wheels... they are quite slim, and plastic, with small tabs for moving them... I would have liked them to be wider, and with a detend instead of that irritating tab, and also with a rubber coating. Also, they sit ATOP the keys, not to the left, which may piss some people off... I don't mind though.
About the output... yes, it's substancially lower in output than most other pro gear, but don't let that fool you! ... it can most certainly get "up there" in signal level, the problem is, that the device does not have a parameter for setting the headroom really, and Waldorf must have set the volume most appropriate for multi timbral use, which by the way seems stupid because the Blofeld has so little DSP power, that using it in Multimode (to me) seems insane... I have some single-mode presets that can offer no more than 4 voices at a time! ... the Blofeld should have focused on being a single mono-timbral synth in my opinion.
With that said, the Blofeld has a VERY elaborate synthesis engine that gives you one hell of a bang for the buck! ... without being semimodular, it has a signal path that makes it very easy to create wide stereo sounds, even without using the effects, simply because it has two filters... it gives many nice stereo opportunities... also, if programed right, the filters and oscillators do sound VERY GOOD! ... not "tinny" as some claim... those who say that has only listened to factory presets, or do not know how to program it well. It is by far the VA engine I prefer the most, and on many aspects, it reminds a lot of the Nord Wave synthesizer actualy when you have the sample option... the thing about Blofeld is that it's engine is a hybrid of so many synthesis types, that no other synth match it... FM, Wavetable, Samples, VA...all mingled in together to give you a hell of a lot of synthesis "bastard" sounds so to speak.
Interface is not good in my opinion... I never liked Waldorf matrix-style editing... but if you have an editor for it on your computer, it's not really needed... Also, the desktop version do not have MIDI OUT which I find really a big shame... this is the main reason, together with the FATAR keybed, that I chose the keyboard version which does have MIDI OUT.
I also had the Evolver Keyboard (mono), and Poly Evolver Rack... I would really hate to compare the two, since they are too different, and the Evolvers have analog components that certainly add to it's cool sound... but also to irritating clicking because of old Curtis chips that cannot initialize fast enough... this is mostly hearable with poly Evolvers... plus they have some quirks and irritating bugs that DSI never fixed ... still... but if you compare the raw sound of Blofeld and Evolver, the Evolver wins because of the analog parts... on the other hand, Blofeld can do so many more things that Evolver would never be able to touch... sequencer or not.
Blofeld is perfect for creating Ambient music... Beautiful and stereo wide Pad sounds, with organic additions because of the samples that will make it have timbres like a ROMpler as well, and crazy modulated wavetable sounds as well... or modulate all synthesis types together to create total mayhem.
Also, there are MANY free presets for the Blofeld... in fact all older presets from Q and MicroQ are there for the use, on top of any Blofeld specific ones.... that is A LOT of presets actually... Aprox. 4.000.
Yes there are many other cool options out there... but Blofeld just seems to allways offer something no other digital synth offers, and for a price that has yet not been beaten.
Just my two cents