Akai S5000

Back in 1998, this rackmount beast arrived as Akai's final pinnacle of standalone sampling, packing an embedded i386 processor that let it handle massive libraries without breaking a sweat—perfect for studios ditching floppy disks for serious disk-based playback.

At its core, it's a 64-voice polyphonic sampler (upgradable to 128 voices via expansion board) with up to 256MB RAM using standard SIMMs, reading S1000/S3000 libraries and supporting direct disk streaming for endless samples without loading into memory. A huge 320x240 LCD graphic display dominates the front panel, flanked by 16 dedicated function keys for instant access to editing pages, plus a data wheel, numeric keypad, cursor buttons, and user-assignable keys for jumping between screens like filter tweaks or envelopes. It rocks 26 resonant filter types, flexible APM modulation with LFOs and envelopes, 3-band EQ, and an optional EB20 20-bit 4-channel effects board; I/O includes 8 analog outs (expandable to 16), stereo master out, stereo digital in/out, dual SCSI ports, Wordclock, and optional ADAT. Housed in a sturdy 483x410x133mm chassis weighing 8.9kg, with PS/2 keyboard input for easy naming and a contrast wheel for the backlit screen.

Studio pros still swear by its intuitive interface and chromatic sampling that turns it into a killer synth, though the learning curve and SCSI tweaks for modern drives keep it a labor of love for vintage hunters.