"you suspect Tonesy is something other than just a forum user simply because of his post count?"
 
That's comical.  I've been in construction for thirty years.  I have eighty employees and many millions of dollars tied up in equipment.  So I don't have the time, nor the desire, to post much on any music forum.  But I've played musical instruments for about 45 years.  Just bought a new Taylor 912ce a few days ago.  I think the sounds in ST3 are generally excellent with a few exceptions, and I think the product overall rates an A+ for it's price point.  I wish you the best of luck, Larry.  You sound kooky trying to pass yourself off as "objective" though.  I've only read a little of what you've posted here.  Way too long winded for me.  You're not just trolling.  You're hyperventilating.

Good point, Dubdisciple. You are right even the pianos which I quite like aren't going to replace the Sampletekk Black Grand as my aging favorite.  It is cool to have some quite nice instruments all in one place and lots of variety and ethnic things. I probably I was too hard the the basses. I notice others have really liked them. Overall very satisfied and having fun at play.

It occurs to me that should make something clear:
 
Larry I very much value your opinions, contributions and input here on any subject not involving IK.

DeeringAmps
I too picked up all the IK synths for a 'song'! They all quit working in X2. Not a show stopper, but I'll be happy to get them back up.
T

 I've had that happen in earlier versions of Sonar.  IK plugs and Cakewalk software were not always a great pair.  

MachineClaw
I didn't feel the upgrade price without hearing ST3 was worth me throwing $99 away for the upgrade.  Now the upgrade price is $149.
 
I have MOTU 3 Five and Kontakt  lots of addon sample packs and a bunch of rompler hardware like EMU Proteus boxes, a Yamaha MOFX 8 and a Motif 6.
 
My sales rep at Guitar Center installed SampleTank 3 on the GC Mac and I went and played (I think this was his personal copy of ST3 but I don't know if it was CG copy or not).  I went primarily to hear a Roland Integra 7 and play with the new Roland FA keyboard - but played with ST3 for about 20 minutes.
 
Interface was improved, liked the effects and how they were implemented, those were nice features.
 
Some of the samples were just crazy bad.  a lot of them were okay and might be usable with a lot of effects processing or tweaking in ST3.  The vocal choir sounds were just terrible.  I had listened to the IK website demos of the sounds and didn't think they were that great but sometimes compression, web etc so tried to keep an open mind.
 
for me, there is absolutely no way I will pay $149 as an upgrade for sampletank 3.  $50, maybe - but after playing I'd almost rather buy a $50 sample pack for kontakt.
 
I am not a long time user of IK products.  maybe 2 years.  When I started building my studio recording rig I started with IKM Total Studio 3 which had amplitube 3, sampletank, miro, t-rack etc.  as one of the 1st recording software products I had I thought it was a great bundle.  Now that I have invested in so many other software products I just feel that sampletank is just a beginner product and not very usable professionally.
 
btw the Roland Integra 7 is an amazing rack sound module, AMAZING that there are 6,000 sounds and tons of historical patches.  loved the sound module I just don't think I can justify the $1800 it would cost for me to have one.  The Roland FA 8 I played has some of the same sounds as the Integra 7.  I didn't care much for the FA8.  I'll stick to my Yamaha MOFX 8 for now.
 
I am not one of the IK bashers, I just think the ST3 sounds are meh to horrible.

 You make some great points.  They are not the best sounds because the libraries are smaller. I think it is best used as a sketchbook.  The new features allow for more sound designing.  There was no major need for 64bit because ST never used a lot of memory but was an inconvenience for those who use DAWs with no bitbrdge.

musichoo
I bought Miroslav philharmonic for 59 bucks in a group buy and get the other 4 free. Upgrade to 99 to st3 is a no brainer for me. Komplete9  is awesome but they don't have everything covered.  Can't wait to have it download on Thursday.

 That library is a steal at that price. From IK freebies, I have 3 licenses of all their VIs.  

drewfx1

mike_mccue
IK says Sweetwater "jumped the gun" by making the download links available on the actual date that has been advertised as the date. 

Sweetwater didn't follow instructions and sent out serial numbers so some of their customers ended up downloading useless files because the proper files had not been uploaded yet.
 
IK uploaded the files as soon as their US office opened (that timing being their standard practice) and promptly sent out the proper emails. on the proper date. Well, the proper date depending on where you live, but intelligent people understand a concept called "time zones" and wouldn't make assumptions that 12:01 AM where they live was the release time.
 
Sweetwater was in the wrong here and the joke's on them for making life harder for some of their customers by not following instructions and trying to give their customers special treatment.

 I downloaded everything before I found out the files were the wrong ones.  Unfortunately I have the ST3 standalone not working which could be the result. Even overwriting the files, it doesn't work.

kitekrazy
 You make some great points.  They are not the best sounds because the libraries are smaller. I think it is best used as a sketchbook.  The new features allow for more sound designing.  There was no major need for 64bit because ST never used a lot of memory but was an inconvenience for those who use DAWs with no bitbrdge.

This! I think comparing any version of ST to Kontakt is just off. Kontakt is not designed to do what ST3 does. ST is closer to TTS-1 on steriods than to Kontakt. Yes, I can find individual instruments for Kontakt better than any individual instrument in ST3, but if I had to create a multi-instrument song from scratch, the average person would have a time doing that in Kontakt easily and without spending a lot more. Any sampler should be superior to a rompler and Ik makes no claims to the contrary. For me I use ST to put together a decent idea and if the st instrument falls short I just replace that track. Sometimes I end up keeping the st track because it soinded better than I thought. Great example are the brass patches. I have heard st horns in pop songs. I used them in a song with the plan to remove but in the mix they sounded good enough to keep.

Kite..I had the same issue with standalone yesterday. Then suddenly it just worked. Keeping an eye on that

SampleTank, Kontakt, halion, Mach3Five are all at the core sample playback engines that have sample libraries that users use to create music.
 
how can you not compare sampletank to kontakt?  they both have samples, effects, key switches, multi's.  neither product samples (has a record function and sample editing features).
 
I think all of these products are in the same category with some having more advanced features like user created scripting is the only thing off the top of my head.
 
I think sampletank is the same as the other products in the same category and is at the low end of the list BECAUSE of the included samples content.  Kontakt 5 base library isn't anything great but it's better than many of the sampletank 3 included samples - to my ear.
 
I wish I could find a cheap EMU EIII with 20gig hard drive and go old school or even a EMU EMax II SE Rack.  I really think those old school samples and some of the samples that were available still blow many of these sample products our of the water. A 12 bit Ensoniq EPS.
 
Yeah okay.  I am dreaming in the past.  I'll shut up now and go play with my iLok EW PLAY engine and see how long before the crashes come.
 
/sarcasm-rant mode off.