bad luck or bad build quality?

I'm looking for an MPC that will keep me away from the computer as long as possible. I sequence MIDI a lot, so the more MIDI Ins/Outs, the better. I've had an MPC 500 & a 1000 over the last few years. The 500 has no extra outs and only 1 MIDI I/O a piece. The 1000 I've been using has been giving me all kinds of issues, blurred screen with lines, the MODE button quit working, new sensors went to sh*t. I've almost put more cash & time into trying to fix the 1000, than actual music making...

I've read a lot of bad stuff about how sloppy the MPC 5000 is and how Akai may never put effort to update it again, so that pretty much rules out the 5k for me, despite all the amazing features & I/O's it has.

So I suppose I'm stuck between the 2500 & the 4000 (or 3000? but I hate old storage like floppies, etc.)

I want something that is very stable & something where I don't have to keep dishing out extra cash for it to work right.

I have a pretty straight forward production approach, so any "over the top" features are sort of useless to me.

I just want a powerful, STABLE & FUNCTIONING unit, both as far as physical build-wise & OS quickness & stability.

I normally just sample vinyl & cds & load drum sounds as far as audio goes & then I MIDI sequence a few synth modules & keyboards.

well over the years... i have read from countless people how they have had to replace the tact switches for every button on their 2500 six months after buying it new... while im sure there is a chance they may be heavier on the controls than i would be..... it is still fixable. That said, I have never seen someone complain about having to do that on a 4000 that was only 6 months old... if ever.

Hygiene plays a huge part. I always wash my hands before I use my gear. When not in use, I have it all covered in towels or blankets and kept out of sunlight. I absolutely will not have food near my gear, and drinks kept at a distance.

It's important to have basic knowledge of how to use a screw driver and get an idea of of how your gear functions. I find it kind of sad when I see people on here talk about paying $150 to get a tact switch or a capacitor changed, or due to laziness end up making costly choices due to sheer ignorance really.

If I purchase used gear, I give it a complete overhaul and depending on the condition or smell of my gear, I will swap out all the tact switches, rotary knobs, investigate all the board connections, re-flow any solder joints that don't look right to me -- basically trying to have my stuff as close to brand new as I can. I'm very strict about this stuff.

This is old gear, you need to accept that you'll have to regularly service parts, that's one of the trade-offs. There isn't an MPC model in existence that doesn't eventually suffer from, for example, broken tact switches or dead pads. I don't think I can honestly recommend any legacy MPC model as being bullet proof - for example my MPC4000 needed a new data wheel encoder, the screen backlight is nearly dead, two of the cursor keys are beginning to fail and sometimes it wont boot up properly.

My 2000XL has several tacts that need replacing and the screen is barely readable.
My 1000 needs a new data wheel encoder and some new tacts.

I could go on Basically I don't think I have an old MPC that hasn't got some kind of problem.

So if you accept there's going to be some ongoing maintenance, I'd say grab the 2500 with JJOS or the 4000 (but be aware this runs a more complex OS compared to other MPCs).