Siel Orchestra II; differences in the OR400 and Sequential Circuits Prelude versions

YouTube via sounddoctorin
"Bob Weigel of Sound Doctorin' ( http://www.sounddoctorin.com) compares these two divide down combo synths of the early 80's. They are primarily just different cosmetically. But it turns out there is a fairly major surprise in that the SCI machine has normal polyphonic release on the strings, whereas the Siel OR400 'mutes' the strings when a new chord or note is hit without fingers on the previously established chord/note. Useful in a mix. But distracting when listened to alone when you are trying to get a flowing overlay of notes. I cut out the section where I talked about the volume controls delivering different levels at the points I had them set also. I guess I never checked to see if the SCI unit just had hotter output or of it's a different taper slider come to think of it. Oh well. Not a major factor anyway. But there is a difference there. And the EQ's as I noted are very different in their levels. The OR400... you have to set them all very high to get levels similar to the un-eq'd sound where the Prelude this is not the case. There may be a trimmer for that. Not sure. I'll look into it someday maybe. I don't have the service manual for these...just the Orchestra 1 I believe."