I've found that people tend to review machines that they like or even love. Some seem to have an even closer relation to their synthesizers, but let's leave them alone as long as it's legal... :)

I decided to sink my teeth into the Jen SX-1000 and that's a synth I don't love though I used to own one for many years.

It's one of those italian machines that seemed to have reached the market when everything synth was hip in the late 70's and nobody really cared about quility nor design, at least not in Italy anyway. Chunky fake-wood end cheeks and dark panel with white and red legend looks good but the EMS-style knobs spread quite wide apart doesn't. The synth itself looks to big for those poor knobs.

On the back you find a simple audio out along with fuse socket, switch and power cord so forget about interfacing with the SX-1000 unless you have a retrofitted unit (like I did). It's _not_ anything remotely straightforward about adding cv/gate and midi requires a lot of soldering since the SX-1000 is built around the organ way of doing things: top octave dividers.

There is one oscillator, one filter, LFO, noise (white and pink) and two envelopes to control it with the three octave keyboard. That doesn't sound too bad though, does it?

The problem with the SX-1000 isn't really interfacing, design nor functions. It is the sound itself. Despite how you tweak those 24 knobs you easily end up with quite lame sounds. Adding noise and thinking about Korg MS mayhem soon ends in misery when it simply goes "pzzzz" and "kschhhhhh" instead of the snare hits and rolling thunder you were expecting.

With the oscillator set to it's lowest possible octave it still lacks bass. A simple mod which adds a suboscillator makes up for parts of the missing rumble but it's still one sorry excuse for a bass synth.

Synths with dedicated envelopes for the filter are nice, but when the filter is 12 dB/oct (at least I think it is) and controlling a very clean-sounding, almost like a sinewave, oscillator it's close to wasting functions for nothing.

The LFO is the best part with a good speed range. It can create the song of a swallows going nuts or something like that. Apart from this the SX-1000 needs some praise for the stability and the hands-on feel. I also found the build quality a lot better than some other italians I've checked out without clothes and makeup. :)