I had two units of both, EIIIXP and EmaxII, here in 2011.
Both EmaxII were Stereo Units (2MB Stereo, and 8MB Turbo Stereo)!
After a lot of contact with Rob (Emulatorarchive) a few years ago, where he told me that the digital 24db filters of EIIIX and EmaxII would be exactly the same, I had the idea to test it.
And my result is, that the filters sounded different, and you can hear it simple!
And again, the EmaxII has a "lot" of noise coming from his outputs!
I don´t think that both EmaxII has the same faulty!
I had changed everything, cables, output configuration, and so on.
But it was still the same, there was noise in case of the EmaxII.
The EIIIXP´s sounds far more better on the analog outputs!
IMHO this noise came from the power supply and found the way to the analog outputs!
I think that the best way to find the right decision for RECOIL is, buy an EmaxII and make a comparision!!!
We can talk and write again and again, but the only way for RECOIL is, to make his own decision.
My decision, after testing the EIIIXP and EmaxII was to sell the EmaxII.
By the way, after reading a lot of magazines the last 26 years, I found my own way for finding the right Sampler or Synthesizer: Don´t believe everything what they write!!!!
A simple example:
In the middle of the 90`s was a test about the EIV in the german Keyboard magazine.
Since the EmaxII all Emus had the possibility to transpose each sample +/- 5 octaves!
So I bought an EIV and during some resampling sessions for sound "design" I had noticed that samples couldn´t transpose up more than about 2 octaves!
At first, I thought the unit was faulty. So I was driven to one of the german emu service center.
But all the EIV who are there for repairing had this problem.
After that I made some tests and found "the problem":
Emu didn´t told that all samples which should be tranposed up more than 2 octaves must decreased in the sampling rate!
Decreasing the sampling rate -> increasing the upward trasnposition
Just for information
Chris