I don’t currently own anything with them, but I suspect yes. Particularly more “loose” ones.
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A lot of Dreadbox stuff and the Malekko Manther is basically all sliders. I couldn’t tell you how smooth they are though.
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It could be worth contacting Sequential to see if they have any solutions. I’m sure they’d want to keep a loyal customer and maybe they hadn’t considered this issue before. GL!
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Or maybe after market knobs that are bigger, easier to turn?
That’s not a bad idea. Bigger knobs might be a bit easier to grip/turn.
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The Malekko Manther has both sliders and knobs. Some of the knobs on it actually have quite a bit of resistance. I’d say the sliders aren’t quite as smooth as the Behringer 2600 ones, probably a function of differences in size.
On the other hand, the Malekko is more compact than the 2600 and has presets. However it’s important to note that it has a pretty distinct sound, which I think is great, but may not be ideal if it’s the only mono synth in your arsenal.
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The 2600 is an interesting synth. A lot to play with there.
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I do think you addressed a few concerns about pro-3 which this doesn’t address but I’ll say that when I fixed my digi volume crackle, I bought 2 products because I didn’t know which would work out better - both made by deoxit. One is the fader lube, the other is the fader grease. The lube did not have a stiff enough tactile feel for me (I’ve read it’s just right for the encoders on some other brands) so after cleaning the pot and getting rid of the crackle, I used the fader grease which is much heavier and got it back to manufacturer level firmness.
So the upside is that you may be able to lube and then restore the value in resale by using one, and then later the other. The downside is that while the fader lube or is simple to apply, the fader grease was a pain in the butt because without disassembling the pots, it takes a lot of work to get it into the area between the shaft and the bushing - it’s possible, but if I had to do it for more than one it might grow annoying.
Regarding your original thoughts, I do think it sounds like the typhon specifically is of interest to you and it probably wouldn’t hurt to give it a whirl. The AS-1 is going to be basically another sequential so hard to go wrong. I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone who really dislikes the Norand, so there’s possibly no wrong answer here.
I don’t know if there’s a waldorf that you find acceptable but I find that waldorf knobs are about as loose as you can get so if you’re already considering the factors of nice sound and easy to tweak with a mediocre UI might as well add waldorf to the list…
other than that I’m jelly! sounds like a neat new synth is in your near future
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Another vote for The B2600. Slidertastic and sounds great! It’s worth bearing in mind that short sliders can severely hamper you when dialling in.
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If you choose the Typhon, you can buy an inline switch adapter for the USB cable (Amazon, local hardware shop maybe) to avoid the plugging/unplugging.
This is my first time looking into this thing, and it’s gorgeous - seems like the SH-101 comparisons it sometimes gets are spot-on. The sliders look like they might work very well. Definitely gonna do some more digging on this one!
Wow, I super appreciate the breakdown here. Not sure I’m comfy with the process of getting the grease into the encoders, but the Deoxit lube might be worth a shot!
Oh that’s awesome. I saw someone mention that in the typhon thread but hadn’t actually looked at the product itself.
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A squirt or two of contact cleaner in each potentiometer can help loosen up pots with too much physical resistance. For some this might be a better way forward than searching for a replacement synth.
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If you want a link I’ll dig one up but I literally bought the cheapest size there was and it’s about $5 and there’s plenty to do more than one device unless you intend to drown your components in lube. nice quality products, the both of them.
not going to lie, the grease took a lot of work to make happen but it did exactly what I wanted so I can’t complain about the end result. The lube is very “wet” and would be a simple application for loosening stiffness without sacrificing the safety of contact areas.
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The Grandmother does have pretty light and smooth action on the knobs, but the waveform selector knobs are a little stiff and clicky on mine; I guess they don’t get used as much as some of the others though.
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I thought I’d seen something along these lines before so went and had a look in the Gearspace thread:
About the stiffness of the knobs, just turn each knob fast back and forth for about 30s and they will loosen up considerably. And they stay that way so it is a one time thing.
I’ve got no idea if it’ll be enough but might be worth asking someone to do that for you combined with the fader lube thing? Quite a funny request to make though and I bet it’s one of those things that’s way more tiring to do than you expect!
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So, I actually tried this when I got mine. I also bought it used, so presumably the previous owner had also wiggled all the knobs before me 
And yeah it was actually exhausting lol
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What about the Matrixbrute?
Good luck, this is really hard to answer.
For what it’s worth I just ranked the following in order of most to least stiff.
Vermona Perfourmer Mk2; og Circuit, Waldorf STVC, Analog Heat Mk 2, Digitone, Beatstep, AS1.
Although when I tried again there was some second guessing that the elektron were much stiffer than the AS1.
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Weird, my PerFourmer knobs are like butter.
or perhaps your hands are like knives
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