Looking to buy my first synthesizer, trying for under 600...

[Shreddie]

I sometimes find the 16 note polyphony of my Andromeda a bit restrictive. But I have plenty of other synths to make up the shortfall.

I hate to be the first to say it but there are loads of ROMplers out there in the second hand market which have far higher polyphony than any of the VAs mentioned so far.

[paugui]

I know it's not exactly the same, but probably it would be worth for you to spare some more money and get a V-Synth.
It has a nice VA engine (it could be better but due to the 2 COSM processors it is fairly good, and you can use VariPhrase too).

An Alesis Fusion would be a nice alternative too. It only has one filter and less filter types than the Ion/Micron, but you can use the filters together with 8 LFO's and 8 Envelopes with Sample-Engine, VA-Engine, FM-Engine and PM-Engine, and all those engines are quite good (despite I prefer my Triton Sample-Engine, but all the other ones are quite amazing).

Hope this helps,
Paugui

[Shreddie]

I nearly mentioned the Alesis Fusion but thought it may be too expensive. And if you're after polyphony, there's few other synths that can even come close. Upto 272 for the sample based engine, 240 for FM, 140 for VA and I think 70 and 48 for each of the PM engines.

Oh, and ignore some some of the c**p you see out there on the web, the Fusion was 'troubled' in it's early days and earned a bad reputation to begin with but it's a good, solid machine now... I love mine.

[gr4nf]

Well, i bought the jp-8000, in the end. We'll see how that goes. I never did fully trust ebay. Thank you for your help!

[iProg]

Well, i bought the jp-8000, in the end. We'll see how that goes. I never did fully trust ebay. Thank you for your help!

Congrats on a great starter affordable synth! You will never regret it.