i have the doepfer one. i find it incredibly useful, well built, and
also often use the offsets as static voltage sources eg to control
wavetables on my a112. the circular cuff is a theoretical problem but
ive not noticed it being an issue. i've vascillated over whether to
remove the spring, but actually its sufficiently cheap that you could
have one sprung, one not, for the same price as the AS version. its
surprising how much accurate pitch control you can have over a sound
source, eg oscillator, esp if using a vca to temper the movements, if
a quantiser wasnt so disproportionately expensive (to the pleasure,
rather than the cost of construction) then i'd be tempted to get one
and use it with the joystick. i actually find the joystick more usable
than the ribbon for wiggly pitch control.

--- In Doepfer_a100@yahoogroups.com , "jalmari3" <jari.jokinen@...> wrote:
>
> I am going to add a joystick to my system. I guess my options are A-174
> and Analogue Systems RS220. Has someone tried them both and can comment
> their quality
>
> A-174 seems to have a circular mask, which prevents simultaneous
> max/min X and Y values. This doesn't seem sensible... Also, there are
> no mini multiples, like in RS220.
>
> On the other hand, A-174 has offset controls instead of attenuators,
> which may be more useful in many situations. It is cheaper too.
>
> Someone here commented, that for better ergonomics jacks and knobs
> should be above the joystick rather than below it. I guess both A-174
> and RS220 can be installed upside down, if desired.
>
> Jari Jokinen
>