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Original Research · June 25 – July 1, 2026

2026 Vintage Synth Owner Survey

First-party data from 2417 survey impressions and 61 completed responses on knob.monster. We asked how people describe their studio, then what hardware sits on the desk. This page publishes the segmentation and gear mentions we use for product and pricing decisions.

Method: In-product survey (PostHog) shown to knob.monster visitors. Question 1 required; Question 2 optional free text. · JSON data

Customer segmentation (n=61)

Dedicated gear room (5+ hardware boards) 29 · 47.5%
Bedroom studio (1–2 vintage synths) 25 · 41.0%
Commercial studio, producer, or repair technician 7 · 11.5%
  • →88.5% of respondents self-identify as personal collectors (bedroom + gear room).
  • →11.5% commercial aligns with Studio-tier positioning ($399 lifetime).
  • →Gear-room segment (47.5%) is not price-sensitive like bedroom (41%) — tier split beats a single higher Personal price.

Brands on desk (n=18 valid free-text responses)

24 people answered Question 2; 6 submissions were spam, tests, or jokes and excluded. Percent = share of valid responses mentioning the brand at least once.

Roland 44%
Korg 39%
Moog 28%
Ensoniq 22%
Sequential / DSI 22%
Yamaha 17%
Waldorf 11%
Access (Virus) 11%
Oberheim 11%
Casio 6%
ARP 6%

Models & knob.monster support overlap

Model / family Mentions knob.monster
Roland Juno-60 / Juno-106 5 Supported
Korg MS-20 4 Roadmap
Roland Alpha Juno 3 Roadmap
Moog Voyager / Memorymoog 3 Roadmap
Yamaha DX7 2 Supported
Ensoniq Fizmo / SQ-80 3 Roadmap
Sequential Prophet-5 family 3 Related model
Roland D-50 2 Supported
Roland MKS-80 Handshake request 1 Roadmap
Korg Polysix 1 Roadmap
Casio CZ-1000 1 Related model
Yamaha TX81Z 1 Supported
Korg Wavestation 1 Supported

Product roadmap signals

  • •Roland MKS-80: respondent asked for module handshake support before bulk dumps.
  • •Roland Juno-60 appears often; many units need MIDI retrofit context.
  • •Korg MS-20 / Polysix: classic analog desks still common in bedroom segment.
  • •Ensoniq ESQ-1 / EPS / SQ-80 cluster in commercial repair-style lists.
  • •Roland JX-3P / JX-8P mentioned alongside Juno lines.

Caveats

  • n=61 for segmentation; treat percentages as directional, not market-wide.
  • Question 2 had 24 submissions; 6 were spam, tests, or jokes and excluded from gear analysis.
  • Survey shown only to knob.monster visitors (2.57% conversion) — biased toward people already curious about SysEx tools.

Survey conversion: 2.57% (61 / 2417 unique impressions). Cite this page as: Half Radiation LLC, 2026 Vintage Synth Owner Survey, knob.monster, June 25 – July 1, 2026.

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