If 5 voices are enough than my favorite all around new analog poly is the Teo 5. Great interface, sound , build quality and features (TZFM!) and not astronomical expensive. My favourite sounding : Waldorf M, but okaish and a bit laggy interface and no keyboard. I love crunchy wavetables through analog filters and brassy Oberheim sounds.
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I go simply by sound and imo the UDO synths are impossibly beautiful
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Thank you all for all of the help. This has been great.
@Megamind I’ve looked into UDO before but I’ll give it some more looks. This one isn’t even carried by guitar center or Chuck Levin’s, but GC does have a used Super 8 in stock. I just made a note to watch some more videos on this one tonight
@shigginpit btw I don’t think I fully responded to you. 4 hours is too far with having 2 little kids - we also homeschool - so if I said - hey honey, i’m going to take a day trip to try a 4k keyboard, instead of telling me to not come back, she would likely say, oh just buy the damn thing online. Maybe that’s how I end up getting one without a fight…
@SoundRider I don’t doubt that I would love the PB. It’s the most interesting of the poly’s i’ve seen. I really wish they would do a Noir version. I don’t know if you saw what I said above, but the Muse is more to my liking on what I hear online - but i’m trying to not let that completely cloud my judgement. But on the tangible side, the Muse is quite a bit lighter which is nice. But like I also said - it seems like the PB is much less prone to issues…
@Monopete The TEO5 is great - I was playing it at GuitarCenter recently. Moving to 5 voices isn’t a deal breaker, but I’d prefer to get at least 8 on a polysynth. I’m just too enmeshed in Jazz theory that my default chord voicings have more notes than are probably needed lol
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Totally understand. You can consider buying the Muse on Amazon, i checked. Then you get Amazon’s return polcy and it looks like it comes from Alto Music who I mentioned before and who I myself have dealt with in the past. Might be the path of least resistance if it comes down to it.
Good luck man!
That’s cool - I saw the Muse on there, but would have never thought to order from Amazon, but it’s good to know about Alto music. Not sure how secret this is, but you can haggle with GuitarCenter if you call their hotline.
If your genre of music needs Moog sound - go for it.
The others of your list will not provide this. But the Moog will also not sound like the others. Most Moogs have a large sweet spot and good sounding patches are easy to set up - at the cost of never leaving this sweet spot 
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I played with the Muse this weekend.
I was rather disappointed, weirdly.
Some pots act on a tiny quarter more than the whole remaining 3/4. The sounds were not that impressive overall, except for the bass…
And I find the whole synth ugly in person.
The Polybrute 12 was forward-looking, the cream color of it is appealing, a beauty of a synth.
And the sound design possibilities are just mind-blowing, while controls are well thought.
I wasn’t expecting SFF to change my mind about this.
Now PerFOURmer is still in a corner of my mind. Hopefully they keep on canceling each other while I use what I have ^^
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Let’s not forget that there are already some topics on similar subjects:
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I’m hoping to get one under my fingers in the next couple weeks. Also, with the tuning issues I hear about, I wonder if I’d be able to pick up on it, being as I’m not Jacob Collier. Unless the Oscillators were out of tune from each other, absent detuning being in use, I think i’d only pick up on a potential tuning issue if it was really bad, or in relation to another board or in a mix.
https://bimotordj.com/pt/polybrute12
Doubt you can try it, but still…
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Thanks! Their Lisbon store looks tiny, and I don’t own a car, so the outskirts of Porto would be a reach. I hadn’t clicked through on anything with “DJ” in the name.
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It is tiny. It’s a counter with some storage space in the back. Very near the areeiro subway station. You don’t have a shop floor to try stuff, but it has the best synth stock of any PT shop, and the guys working there are very nice and knowledgeable. Most of the big stuff will be in the main warehouse near Porto as you mentioned.
Hit me with a DM if you want more info on Lisboa/PT shops, so we don’t OT this thread.
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You would be amazed how analog synths can sometimes be detuned. It sounds like Michael J. Fox playing the guitar as he is turning transparent in Back to the Future. 
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I spoke to the call center at GC, and there are no polybrutes within like 100 miles of me. They did offer to send it to Towson for me to try so I will think that over. At that rate, I would probably sooner just have them send it to me and I can return it if I don’t like it. They are easy with returns since they are so close to home.
I’ve spent the last week absorbing as much info as possible. I even looked at more digital options, like the summit and hydra, just to make sure I’m covering all ground.
At the moment, the two top synths are the UDO and the Polybrute. They are so different, but both offer a lot. The pros of the Poly are of course the expressiveness - it’s unique in that way. Can get a lot of crazy sounds out of that thing as well. The UDO (super 8 or gemini, but leaning super 8 bc of size…yes, i know that the poly is just as big lol) just sound awesome, and shave about 20lbs from the Poly, which is useful should I want to gig with it. I also dig the very hands on nature of it.
Since you don’t mind the UDOs digital oscs, you might also have another look at the SUMMIT.
I think, it can do many of the UDOs sounds but it can do so much more.
Muse sounds MOOG, PB sounds PB, OBX8 sounds Oberheim
so you are kind of “limited” by the base character (not a bad thing at all)
while the SUMMIT is a chameleon (btw SUMMIT does not sound like Hydra at all
but in the end you should choose based on the kind of music you make
if i was buying an analog at the moment, i’d take the ARTEMIS since the price is nice
and i love synths that sound rather dark and gritty.
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That’s why i said, if the OP is considering the UDO synths with their digi oscs, then the SUMMIT might be worth another look.
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I appreciate this - I’ll take another look. I will say that the novation impressed me more than the hydrasynth. I do appreciate the form factor of it. Of all the ones that I’ve listed, it’s the easiest to take out and about. But of course it all comes back the original purpose of my post - it’s hard to find some places that find these. I’ll search GC’s again for a novation, but i’m SOL on trying a UDO without a significant trip.
The main points I’ve seen in this thread are that you want a hardware synth that sounds good and is inviting to play, and the ones you’ve listed have all been very capable with many hands on controls. To narrow it down a little bit, I’d ask: what specifically do you want the synth to do?
Having a large hardware synth with a lot of controls is useful for editing / creating patches, but you haven’t really shared what is important to you in terms of synthesis. How many voices do you want? What are you looking for in terms of the number of oscillators / modulators / modulation routing options? Are you prioritizing specific options for expression?
If you’re not sure about some of these things I’d encourage you to think about it some more. I’d also look into the specifics of what it’s like to program the deeper options on some of these synths; the panel controls are obvious but how these instruments handle assigning modulation is likely to be pretty different, and it makes sense to think about whether you’ll find these tasks intuitive or frustrating.
& If you don’t think you’ll be doing that type of programming and mostly playing / lightly editing presets, I’d maybe consider why you need such a comprehensive instrument. Not saying one needs to use all aspects of a capable instrument to be happy with it, but just something to think about.
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