I like the official statement regarding their absence, nice a polite. I've seen other statements of non-attendance for other non-music shows that come off as rather snide.
If DSI want to compete with the Quantum, then they WILL need to do some kind of Sampler/granular synth, it's that simple... and it is still one of the few niche synths not available at all, plus I think a lot of musicians would actually want a sampling synth... hardware samplers today goes for nothing... except for the older ones with analog VCF/VCA, which seems to still be rather pricey... this is a clear signal to me, that there must be at least some demand for a modern one.
I'd really love to see the synth world move forward and step away from the now bog standard subtractive model of osc generated waveforms/resonant filter/amp. I finally stopped being angry at my Microgranny for being half broken on arrival and plugged it into a sequencer. Playing grains of a sample from a subtractive synth being pitch and tone swept is very interesting, as is some of the ways you can have it travel along the sample. Similar to PPG style wavetables but only with one sample and completely different ways of sweeping. And that's just a monophonic sample based granular synth with really only 10 parameters besides the AR envelope.
when it comes to filters, analogue still reins supreme. Waldorf's digital filters are amazing and I still pine for my Z-Plane filters, but analogue has that something to the sound, thus why the Ensoniq samplers from the 80's still go for more than an Ultra sampler. Which is why a sampler/granular synth should have analogue filters *AS WELL AS* a multimode digital filterbank. Analogue amp section is much of a muchness to me.
This topic of sampling hardware in any form has arisen on another forum with the owner suggesting a the start of a community based project in lieu of the companies doing it, which sounds great considering even in the arduino world samplers are thin on the ground.
[Warning, I go slightly off topic below]
It's not just NAMM, but other large international shows as well - trade-only shows are going by the wayside. Good on DSI and others for skipping it.
I build exhibition and tradeshow stands for a living and this is the long and the short of it. Compared to even 5yrs ago there is a massive drop in events. We lost a good amount of work due to a convention centre rebuild, which propped up the other capital city's work during that time, but really it's dying and I do think it's due to poor attendance more than anything.
This year the organisers of the Home Show/Mind Body Spirit combined the two and made entry free in an effort to get punters in. I don't know how those two show cross-over but I did want to set up a stall in the MBS side selling "Spirit Levels"; the balance bubble out of a builder's level on a watch band aimed at helping the wearer level their spirit.
There are certain areas of technology where the tradeshows have become bi-annual such as printing. As much as the noise about 3D printing is loud, it's still an infant with most exhibitors still demo'ing their additive milling and plasma cutters.
My uncle has been inside of the international food industry for a long time and he said the associated tradeshows have become industry junkets with them serving more as a yearly get-together where little business is done and a lot of "networking" occurs (read as: "getting drunk with long time business associates"). And by looking at what goes on at the medicals shows while I'm servicing, same again but only with different equipment sitting on their stands.
Oddly enough pop-culture/comic book expos are on the rise, though the patrons at those shows tend to wreck everything somehow....