Are we talking quality as in sample quality or quality of the actual song? Lets be honest here, Using cubase as a digital HDD recorder you cant go far wrong, admittedly you dont get the "analog" out of it, but the things you can do with it are amazing. (Yes its cheating and Yes i prefer real to real or ADAT / DAT recording but for useablitlity cubase wins hands down). I also acknowlege the fact that its not using "samples" as such, more using .wav files and loops etc, but its a different league alltogether. OctaMED rocks all the same, but unfortunatley i dont have any use for it ATM... most of my compositions and band sessions are recorded on cubase VXT simply for ease of use. (Im Lazy)...
Dammit! I think im going to go home and fire up octaMED. You buggers!
Cheers
Kev