I gave the Iridium a look-over. It's nice...gives you the Quantum engine, etc in a desktop package, and it's cheaper. If you've got a good controller already, or just want to drive it from a DAW, it's not a bad choice. The other desktop Waldorf did recently, though...the Kyra...is REALLY interesting, but my concerns with it are that while it may have 1,000+ oscillators, there's no factory editor that allows you to get under the Kyra's hood, so to speak. And from what I can tell, there's only one third-party trying like hell to sort that out...and even THEY don't have a full-on functional version. Damn shame, really, but it's not the first time Waldorf's created an "orphan" synth.

If there WAS a fully-featured Kyra editor, though, I'd say to get THAT synth. FPGA arrays are super-potent...but they NEED a good UI front end that's way more capable than just the OEM front panel itself.