A couple people mentioning the Op-1. Knowing what I know now I would pay $2,000 for it. Luckily I only paid $900.
It seems people either love it or hate it. I couldn’t imagine life without one.
What I want but will never own… I guess I can’t say never, but I’ve always wanted an acoustic drum set. When I was younger, my parents wouldn’t let me have one because they were too loud. & since I’ve moved out of my parents 21 years ago, I’ve never had space for one.
Wish I hadn’t sold my Alesis Andromeda and Studio Electronics ATC-X. Absolutely huge regret. Had them and didn’t fully appreciate the situation… thought I was done with music for good, so I let them go to chase another hobby. Both are just stupid expensive and hard to find now. I think the pair (assuming I could find both in mint condition like mine were) would be at least quadruple the price if not more than I sold them (as a pair) for. 
Aside from those, only thing I’ve ever really lusted for that I don’t think I’d get is an Oberheim Xpander. They’re at a price and age that I just don’t want to mess with. Don’t even want to start on a Matrix 12.
Sure… I’ve waxed lengthily in print (many articles for Computer Music, Future Music, MusicRadar) and online. But here are a few thoughts on some:
VCS3 - there really is nothing like it. It has a cantankerous, surprising personality. That pin matrix is endlessly inspiring, and it’s nowhere near as unstable as it is reputed to be (assuming you keep it up). Despite the ridiculous prices they are commanding, mine will not leave my studio except for the odd gig.
MiniMoog - I really didn’t want to love it when I bought it. It was beat up and I didn’t want to splash the cash to have it restored. I hoped the myth was just that… a myth. It wasn’t. It’s a terrific source of beautiful, simple analogue sounds.
PPG Wave 2.2/Waveterm - I searched for many, many years for both (the Waveterm isn’t easy to get on this side of the Atlantic). This was something I had dreamed about for decades before finally getting them. Few instruments have brought me the pleasure of this gritty, grungy duo. Working on the Waveterm is a glimpse of how the future of electronic music looked back in 1982.
Continuum - the most expressive electronic instrument I have ever played. I have the half-size model, and now dream of the full size instrument. I wanted one for over a decade. When I first learned of it, it was designed to control Kyma - it didn’t have the neat onboard synthesiser, nor the ability to control external synths. Few things have had the impact on my music that this one has.
Kyma - I used to lie on the floor in the dark and listen to the demo CD for this thing, completely convinced I could never get my hands on one. I did, and have been using it since. It’s not for the faint of heart, and it’s far more powerful in the hands of someone who can write code than it will ever be in mine. Still, if I think of doing something - anything - with audio or synthesis, it’s possible with Kyma.
ARP 2600 - this is a tricky one. I wanted one for many, many years. I then got one… and in a moment of weakness I sold it to buy something expensive I needed for my artwork. I had thought very hard about it and decided I could do nearly everything it could do with my other gear. So I sold it. And immediately regretted it. More so when I watched prices double in the next few years. I eventually got an opportunity to get a “fixer upper”, which I fixed up.
Prophet-5 - that dream began when I heard Greg Hawkes play one on The Cars’ Panorama tour. I was a teenager. No way I could afford that thing back then, though. It cost more than it does now!
Machinedrum UW - really! When it was discontinued, I could only manage to get the non-UW version, and I figured those lucky MDUW owners were never going to let theirs go for any price. I got one - a non “plus”, though. I sent it in to Elektron to upgrade it to a “+” and UPS lost it. Fortunately, with Elektron’s help, the situation was resolved, and I have my MDUW+ which now seems even more special!
Back when I was saving nickels and dimes in a pickle jar (quarters were reserved for laundry) in order to buy a used Roland SH09 from a pawn shop, I could never imagine getting my hands on most of these instruments, even before they became sought-after. Most were just sounds on records and pictures in magazines to me, never something I could get my hands on. I was never (and never will be) well off. Just very, very patient… and obsessive to a fault!
Totally makes sense. In fact, you just gave me my answer to the question. If I had the money I would build a nice isolated, mode-free studio space. But I never will, so… I keep buying headphones. 
I recently had the chance to compare a Minimoog to a Prodigy, which was my second ever synth… I know it inside out. Even with all the settings aligned, they sound different. Of course any two synths will sound different, even two Minimoogs. But I was honestly quite surprised at the difference.
So impossible to play! Lovely things though.
A studio I visit has a contemporary model Prophet as the main controller. It is gorgeous. I spent 30 minutes trying to get a bad sound.
Those $30,000 handmade pre-war mics I referenced were in a studio that probably had at least $3-4M+ sunk into equipment and facility costs. I agree, you might be nuts to be spending that money on a mic without having moved well beyond the point of addressing room treatment first. 
Emulator II.
Fairlight CMI.
Oberheim OB-8.
Linn 9000.
Not really practical to own any of them. And I have much more modern devices that should make these obsolete. But they all have that special something, at least when I see them in a YouTube video or hear an audio demo.
It’s really not, assuming it has been maintained. And that’s the thing - so few have an accompanying keyboard, and so few have been we’ll-kept. Mine is an early MkII unit and my son and I have maintained it very well. If I tune and scale the oscillators to the DK2 keyboard, it stays put. Drastic temperature changes might knock the tuning out a little bit, but no more than, say, the same temperature changes might affect a violin.
Not only can it be played, I often use it for leads and solos! 
A friend gave me one of these. A Forat upgraded job. It was in pretty bad shape, having been dropped and with a burst battery inside. Still, I think we’ve got it cleaned up okay. We need to replace the drive and get the sound disks from Forat. It is one of the “RAM on all pads” variants, so no EPROM chips. No A/D card either, so I can’t sample directly into it. Currently it makes glitchy belches and clicks, and will do so until I get the drive/disks.
Mine may not be as sought after or as exciting as the rest but a JP 8000. It’s probably because I was working in music stores when that thing came out and could never afford it. And yes I could still get one but man, I just can’t justify spending the money on what they are going for used these days. That said, they were so tweakable, never was a super saw guy but I loved the pads on that thing. Of course this was 20 years ago so maybe I would be bummed.
Nice. I actually owned one 20 years ago. $400 on Harmony Central with a set of disks and a manual that looked like it was typed on an old school type writer. It was cool, but I realized an MPC was better suited for me. Still miss it every once in a while though.
Ditto. Hard to justify when the Digitakt covers my sequencing needs.
Me too
It’ll probably take another 5/7 years until I do. If I do. But Buchla 200e. I already have synths and eurorack. So I need to invest my equipment in other places. But one day. You might be mine.
roland system 100m
Roland SH2
Roland Jupiter 4
make noise shared system
DSI Polyevolver
OP1, besides the crazy prices will drop some day
An Anti-Greed Field Generator. With enough range to cover the entire planet. Then maybe we can get on with being nice to each other and live peacefully, repair the damage we have done to our environment and enjoy unlimited creative potential.
Right at the moment, a west coast modular synth, with a big complex dual oscillator, an intricate dual function generator, some really tight dual LPG, a weird random generator, a complex sequencer and a juicy multi mode filter. i want to try something weird.
Probably gonna buy a 0-coast instead.
Also a Juno 106
Q Drums out of LA made a drum set of solid copper shells. I could justify the price, just no way I was going to have that kind of money anytime soon. It sounded so goddamn good… and talk about beautiful. Heavy, though… but solid metal drums shells oughta be I guess
Does it come with an anti-consumerism option so we can all be relieved of this need for gear at the same time?
The cirklon sequencer. But I have a squarp that I absolutely adore so what evs.