I am definitely more of an 808 fan but on the surface I would agree that the 909 is a better machine in almost every way. The snare is great. The kick is nice and punchy, but while offering more knobs it's less adjustable. I think if the 909 offered the long kick the 808 has it would have a much larger place in more types of music. For me what kills the 909 is the cymbals and hi hats. They are definitely great for 120-140bpm music but if you slow the tempo to 80-90bpm the machine sounds disjointed and doesn't "flow". When the aria videos came out for the tr-8 the original engineer said that if he were building a new sampled drum machine today he would use the same hi hats and cymbal. I just happen to disagree with that decision. I wish they would have made the 909 100% analog or at least had an option for analog or samples. I think the 909 samples sound really bad.