Looking to buy one maybe and am wondering what it is that the A4 MK2 brings to the table that makes it twice as expensive.
“Analog” may hold a clue for you.
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it has four 2 oscillator/2 filter/2 VCA synth voices inside of it, physical circuits made from discrete components. the digitone is a digital synthesis algorithm running on a microcontroller
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Form factor doesn’t hurt cost either.
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i have both, if i had to pick one a4 mk2 every time, glad i have both tho
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Yeah, they are also able to tap into some economies of scale with the similarly shaped siblings using lots of common components.
The A4 was quite a bit less a few years back…wish it still was!
So was the Digitone 
Thanks plague!
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On top of what has already been said, they have lots of different features as well.
Unlike the DN the A4 also has a CV track and multiple CV outs as well as CV inputs for added craziness.
All and all they’re completely different in many ways, the sound not being the smallest difference.
You can always get an A4 mk1. They’re a steal these days! I picked one up for much less than a new Digitone and the thing is a powerhouse – probably the best money I spent in the past two years.
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I kinda went off about this in another thread recently, so I’m just gonna do a quick list of things that make the A4 unique and worth it’s asking price:
- Fully Sequenceable FX track
- Much more robust performance macros
- Note Slides and Vibrato without having to eat up ENVs or LFOs
- Trig Types like Accent, Parameter Slide
- Kits, which some people dislike, but it helps a lot for live sets and song mode keeping a consistent sound
- Direct Jump pattern switching
- It’s analog, and despite what people who are too lazy to sound design may say, it sounds like it. I have a Mother 32 / Mavis hooked up to mine currently and of course the A4 doesn’t sound as fat and the sweet spots are narrower, but with some work it sounds great and evolving and analog in it’s own way. It’s controlling the semimodulars via CV and is an FX box for them… so essentially I have 4 good analog tracks and one big fat modular Moog one. You couldn’t really do that with the DN alone even if you wanted to.
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I like both synths for different reasons. There are pros and cons to both of course… but man I would love to have slide trigs on the Digitone.
I wonder if Elektron is moving away from the slide trig concept. We have them on the OT, A4 and Monomachine, but none of the more recent instruments have them.
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I could imaging that it might sound bad with digital resolution while analog slides are smooth.
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The old trinity is digital, yet the slides sound good to my ear ^^
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@Eaves made a comparison video between the two machines if you want. ( Spoiler you’ll get both eventualy )
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Here is the vid:
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I’m in this boat atm. Have Digitone, want A4 as well 
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Analog vs Digital
Analog circuitry and pcbs (that the green plates all parts go on) are more expensive, you need machines which assemble those parts. The parts you use need to be of very high grade to keep tolerances small so you can delivery comparable quality each time you deliver a unit.
On a digital synth you need just enough circuitry to run the software, the pcbs can be smaller, I’d guess that on a DT the format is mostly an ergonomic design rather then based the size needed to house all parts.
Of course part prices and availability are a huge driver atm.
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yes, it’s a rabbit hole ^^
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A huge amount of development also has to go into bringing stable analog synthesis into the modern arena and make it compatible with the depth of Elektron’s sequencer and UI, of course that’s all written just for that one machine.
Also, what if it came at half the cost but suffered from all the same problems with tuning instability or oscillator drift due to temperature/humidity and the other inconsistency issues associated vintage analog gear? People would then complain about that.
There’s a story that the Moogs used on that Donna Summer song “I feel love” required the recording to be stopped every 20 seconds so they could be re-tuned. It’s not to justify the price with this alone, but R&D on any product is a factor to consider.
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