The instrument
The Akai S5000 and S6000, released in the late 1990s, represented the end of an era of hardware samplers. Radically redesigned from their predecessors, the units were powerful machines with interfaces more closely resembling a computer than a simple back-lit display. They could handle up to 256Mb of RAM and could hold more than 25 minutes of samples in stereo at the highest sampling rate. The S6000 came standard with 128-voice polyphony, while the lesser model, the S5000, came with 64-voice polyphony standard but was upgradable to 128 as well. While more powerful than ever, the S series were about to be eclipsed by the power of DAWs.
Details
Standard sample memory 8 MB, maximal sample memory 256 MB (4x 72-pin SIMM slots, maximum 64 MB each);
Bit depth: 16;
Maximal sample rate 48 kHz, minimal sample rate: 44.1 kHz;
Multitimbral: 32 parts;
Effects: SampleVerbII (EB20) 20-bit 4-channel multi-effects processor;
Power Consumption: 28 watts;
Maximum polyphony: 64, expandable to 128;
Filters: resonant, 26 types;
LFOs: 2, 9 different waveforms;
Converters: 18-bit A-D converters with 64 times;
oversampling (5th order Delta Sigma), D-A converters are 20-bit with 128 times oversampling (Delta Sigma) with 8x digital filter on all outputs.
(Source: Sound on Sound)