As usual, I think you naysayers are too infatuated with your own disdain.
I think this is a great follow up to the Radias. Decent oscillator features - and three of them, modeled vintage filters, a reasonable range of effects and controls that aren't quite as cluttered as on the Radias. Plus a tube stage for actual analog distortion with nice EVEN ORDERED harmonics, thank you.
Softsynths are nice and all, but they sound too samey to me, outside of OP-X, Diva and Omnisphere - I know, it's more of a virtual everything synth, but I'm just sayin'. Reaktor is neat, FM8 is FM, but after that, it's kind of a swamp of generalness. And all with that in-the-box sound which leeches even more individual character out of them. All in my not so humble opinion of course, but true nonetheless.
Why modeled filters? Why are they in Diva and other softies? Because people want them. They give us the flavor of these old behemoths. Which by the way ARE old, in need of periodic maintenance and are dying off slowly but surely. And are expensive as hell. Priced a Jupiter-8 lately? Be ready to write a bigger check than for a new Prophet-12. The KK gives you a Moogy sound, and seems pretty juicy and realistic from the videos, for a bit over one-third the price of a Voyager. And is polyphonic. It's half or less the price of an OB-8, has more polyphony and OSCs, and includes effects. It has more modulation options than any analog synth this side of a real modular, and lets you save patches. While I've bumped into the mod patching limit on the Kronos on occasion, I have yet to on the Radias, which is very similar to the KK. Plus, it has CV/gate out, so you should be able to link it to an Electribe, or the new MS-20. Well, the MS does have MIDI, but that patch panel might give you a few more options to play with.
I would certainly recommend this to someone in search of a new hardware synth. It has a solid expressive sound, a few samples in it if you're so inclined, lots of options and three oscillators for a big sound, and is less than half the price of a Prophet-12 with more features and polyphony.
The Prophet-12 is definitely the one to beat, but on a budget, the King KORG really is kind of a Kong, regardless of what some people think of it.
