I totally forgot a big hit this year: -
Adam Audio D3V micro monitors. They’re wicked. I’ve never really owned any “proper” monitors before and these just sound amazing and they’re perfect for my teeny hobbyist “home office” setup.
After years of using budget speakers it was a bit of a revelation when I turned these on and played back some of my favourite tracks.
An absolute bargain at less than £300.
EDIT - connecting to the computer via USB-C is brilliant.
Got these too. Incredible sound for their size and price. Very happy with them.
hits :
digitakt ii
purchased at launch and sold a few months later due to bugs. it was later repurchased this year when a firmware update was released that remedied an egregiously bad one and supposedly fixed the “clicks [that] could sometimes occur when playing back a sample using the WERP and GRID machines”
the clicks are still there but i don’t use those machines and it doesn’t detract from the fact that everything i put into it (even just phone a recording from a train ride or something) results in awesome patterns. this is very much a testament to the greatness of the dt2 bc i suck at making music lol
sonicware liven evoke
kind of just does one thing and would benefit from a proper screen, but every session with it feels like a gift. the whole “backtide modulation” thing is such a simple and balanced way to easily generate movement to the static playback of a rompler
digitone ii would benefit from some of its features (chance per note on a programmed chord) and elektron themselves could learn a thing or two from that nice reverb algorithm
not selling a korg minilogue xd
it had been sitting in a box for almost a year after being replaced by a minifreak in my very “minimal space” (tiny apartment)
it was given a test run before being posted for sale and i fell in love. it has a beautiful core sound and is perfect for when you want something that just magically sounds good and don’t want to be bothered with sound design
there’s currently a tag team situation between it and the minifreak
misses :
behringer edge
i wanted something that was strictly blockhead and analog to decompress with
coming from a previous owner of a dfam, the subjective opinion is that something was lost in the cloning process. not only does it not sound the same, but both the interface and tactile component are not as inviting
proper midi integration guided me to the edge over the original (i wanted to easily sample loops into the dtii), but now i’m stuck with something i barely use and is too much of a hassle to sell
moog subharmonicon
i owned one before and thought it was awesome but sold it to fund some other nonsense. i was tempted once again when a perfect circuit sale made them available for like $400
it’s been used once to sample chords and polyrhythms into the dt2 and not again since. i guess i’m just in a different place than i was when previously surrounded by the moog semi-modulars
teenage engineering riddim and ting
i actually think this thing is super cool but don’t have the patience to learn another workflow. so far it has served as a $300 reminder that i was taking my elektron digi-fluency for granted and that i should be spending more time with what i know 
Late addition this year : MAM MB33.
It’s a hit. Solid build, small and a great sound. It has that snappy sparkle in the mid high that I love. It will be the perfect Synth not only for Acid lines but for other types of Bass sound. The knob shafts are a little wobbly but I can live with that.
Hope you didn’t pay (half) a fortune for that little acid monster. 
It’s very nice sounding – especially blending from saw to square is a neat little trick with lovely sweetspots everywhere!
not sure if it was just my unit but i love the fact that the square and saw waves are exactly out of phase, so when you mix between them the harmonics cancel each other out in a way that leaves you with a saw wave transposed one octave up at the middle point between the two.
I got a fair price.
Mine does that too. I had never figured out the cause of it.
Turning the knob from Square to Saw makes some of the Low End disappear too.
This would be expected.
Square waves have half the harmonic content of saw waves.
The fundamental will still be there, but the even harmonics are missing. So compared to a saw, we perceive that as a loss in level.
I’m the same on the Push 2 vs Push 3 puzzle. I just could not get along with the Push 2. But Push 3 is much, much better. The button layout makes much more sense to me and the downsides, like the hard to press buttons, are then counteracted by the positives.
Push 3 Standalone – Too big and bulky to fit naturally anywhere in my life. I really wanted it to be the groovebox to rule them all, but it’s just not as fun as the Elektron workflow.
I was thinking the other day I wonder how Ableton would approach building an MPC Live / X competitor if they weren’t focused on it controlling Live.
But more full-featured than the Move.
I want to use it more for music creation, but this is where, even for a much larger footprint, the MPC X’s screen and arrangement view justifies the size.
The hardware doesn’t really inspire muscle memory as an Elektron device. It’s definitely missing tactility the makes it feel like an instrument as much as they’re designing it to be one.
Agreed. They definitely improved some aspects of the industrial design.
I would trade half the buttons to have a larger screen and an arrangement view, though.
PERfourMER is pretty much the epitome of a simple knob-per-function synth, isn’t it? Well, 4 of them in one box, but still, pretty dang simple
Hits:
No misses as this is what I bought 
2025 was the year of modular for me. I already had some semi-modular stuff like Strega, 0-Ctrl and Subharmonicon for a while. But wanted to have more options for modulations and effects. And ended up with new sound sources as well 
HITS:
MISSES:
Tried to gel with Push 3 SO and hated the form factor. It’s heavy, it get’s hot (due to processor) and I just felt uninspired with it overall. It works great with Ableton, but other than that, it never left my little studio. It definitely has a “menu divey” feel to it. 100% agree about the “doesn’t inspire muscle memory”.
A hit for me this year was the MPC Live 3. Pretty much ticked every single box for me (SO, battery, loads of ports(input/output)/mic/sampling/sequencer/multitrack out). I’m still learning the workflow (MPC Bible is helping a lot) and enjoying the process. Akai did a nice job with this iteration imo. Yeah, it’s kinda big, but it’s not heavy surprisingly and that screen and MPC OS doesn’t suck.
I justified the Echolocator cost (bought on sale) by it being a bunch of pedals in one form factor. I connected a midi sustain pedal to it for freezes and forwards, so having some fun with it. It does sounds reallllllly good in stereo!
2025 was pretty rough, and noticed I didn’t work on anything creative. Burnt out from work, and diving into a complex machine didn’t seem exciting. I realized much of the gear I had didn’t inspire me much anyway. Sold a bunch off and grabbed some new things.
HITS:
MISSES:
EVALUATING:
I was (still am, actually) eyeing the Superlative SB-01, but customs to the EU is a risk.
Was smart to avoid the S4.
And I’ve heard great things about the Mood II. Have you run the SB through it?