Hey. I've got both the P6 and the Trigon. Love them both. I'm a "keyboardist," as in, I can sit down at the piano and move my hands around pleasantly, but a 6 note polysynth is as comfy for me as anything. I've got a Prophet 5 as well and I've never been tempted to bump it up to ten voices... my hands adapt to what's on offer.
Regarding the sound of the Prophet 6 vs the Trigon... yeah, the Trigon does enough of the Moog thing to be very appealing. I never feel adrift with this synth, but at the same time, it tends to stay centered within "Monster Synth" territory. The Prophet 6, as you've probably read elsewhere, is quite a versatile creature. I'll reach for that when I need classic/simple/modern/delicate/icky. Not that the Trigon can't do all those things, but the P6 feels more eager to please.
I bought the Trigon with the intention of letting my Prophet 6 go. Instead it made me love the P6 all over again. So, I decided to sell the Trigon. That didn't happen either. I did what I could not to love the Trigon, but that wasn't the way it worked. I don't imagine I'm being helpful at this point! But... if you're inching towards the Trigon for its ladder-filter charm, then... you won't be sorry. It's nothing but a glorious and gorgeous synth.
Would you say the Trigon 6 is more centered in sound compared to the Minilogue XD and Matriarch? I do want a synth that can do classic/delicate and has a growl in the bass. Also, do you have any thoughts on the Summit and REV2? After reading your comment, is it safe to say that the Prophet 6 "beats" the REV2?
I, too, own the Trigon and the Rev2. Last year I sold my Matriarch and my PEAK. So basically I have/had all the synth you're thinking about.
The Rev2 is my favorite giging machine on stage. It does everything, if you know how. (There are lots of posts in the Rev2 subforum about VCM and stuff). But it is not as immediate, as the xxx-6 series. 16 voice version is also a great benefit for splitting and layering. Even if you use the layers for binaural type sounds, you have 8 voices left. It's huge. The only drawback is the single effects slot per layer. Sometimes I have to split the voices just for having a second effect. At home I use it with external effects often for this reason. But for live band playing in a cover band, the onboard stuff is sufficient. Bonus: I bought the Rev2 in 2018 when Sequential was still DSI and the Rev2 was still cheap. With a great offer from Thomann Germany I bought it brand new for ~ 1800€. Today it's over 3000€. I never felt, that I would sell it. There are better sounding and more immediate synth out there. No doubt. But it's a reliable workhorse for any live musician.
I also had the PEAK, that's basically the slightly older 8-voice summit without the keyboard. I always liked it's sound and possibilities, but I hated it for being a module. I learned that I'm no module guy. I don't use my synth as much as I do, when I don't have to hook up a midi keyboard before I can play. Since I use a lot of my stuff live, I don't have a fixed studio setup with everything engaged at any moment. Soundwise it could do a lot of crazy and deep stuff, since the modulation option are endless. The analogue filter sounds very neural to my ears and the FPGA oscillators have balls. With the different distortion/overdrive/etc. stages and this oscillators, you can do really dirty stuff. The effects section was the best sounding in all of my (semi-)analogue synth. The Summit is basically the same with more voices and splitting/layering features. If I would buy it again, then it would be the Summit, but not for the voices, just for the keybed. If you don't need one, a used PEAK can be a very good and cheap alternative. As said: just sold it for being not used without the internal keybed.
Because I wanted to have something with the moog brand on it, I bought the matriach, too. I would guess that it's basic tone, oscillator and filter wise, is the best I ever had. You can do everything from creamy to dirty and it's a single great sweet spot. The analogue delay is all you need for effects in that thing. Absolutely gorgeous. But you should have noticed that yourself. It's really great fun to patch with cables and no mod matrix. But as you also noticed: you can't save anything. Best you can do is taking photos of patches... but sometimes there still nuances that you won't get dialed in a second time if you need a certain sound again. And yeah, it's paraphonic, not polyphonic. For simple stuff it can replace a polyphonic synth. But not if you really need per voice modulation. It's an absolute dream soundwise, but I also sold it, because it was not practical for me, because I absolutely need presets on stage. I don't have time to dial in any patches live. Could do that in the breaks, but thats one sound per set and that doesn't justify to carry this beast around. I had some lust fun with it, just before selling it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-qhlnYXkpUThat's no great composition, but it show's that you really can do basic "polyphonic" stuff with it.
So basically I had the same thoughts as you... and they also directed me to the Trigon. It can do a lot of stuff you would assume a Moogy synth would do. But it can also do a lot more. The 2-pole option in the filter makes it quite versatile. The third oscillator gives a lot more options compared to the remaining 6-series synth, basically you can always use two lfos (a polyphonic and a global one) at any time and still have two full oscillators for big pad sounds. Sometimes I wish it had more voices, but as Manbird said, you get used to it very fast. Coming from the Piano I'm also used to play chords with octaves in the left and four voices in the right hand. Changing such a chord completely kills this synth on long release times. But in fact, that's something I do when I'm playing for me at home, but on stage I use it almost only for mono-solos or brassy stuff with three notes. No problem. I didn't regret buying it so far...
... but sometimes I wish I hadn't sold the matriarch for it. There are still things that just sounded way better at the matriarch, because of its raw basic tone. I don't know if that's because of it being a mono/paraphonic synth. With lower chances of sounding muddy because of a single voice, you perhaps can make evereything sound thicker. My other just for fun video I did before selling was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18nmlIjdiAMI could not replicate that until today on my Trigon. The Matriarch really has it's own character that no other synth is able to reproduce in my opinion. Perhaps if my children are teenagers and aren't interested in spending their time with me anymore, I will rebuy the Matriarch.
I think there was someone in this forum who warned me... and who ever that was: you were right. Shouldn't have sold it.
Don't sell your's, add a Trigon to it.
Conclusion: My experience is that you don't need a Peak/Summit if you have a Rev2 and the other way around. They both are beasts. But you still need a Trigon (or P6 or OB6... still dreaming of owning them all) if you have a Matriarch. Trigon vs. Rev2/Summit is apples vs bananas. I don't think that are comparable synth. They focus on different things.
I hope that helps a little.
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