I worked with Aurora for sometime. If your panel is bigger than 11 colours you need perfect single stainings every time. I found it very challenging as I always had over/under compensation (in this machine they call it mix-unmixing). The cool thing about BD's Symphony A5 is that instrument has 2 acquisition modes (conventional and spectral, so you choose which mode you want to work with) that will provide flexibility for the end users. It is built with very high laser powers (for best resolutions and sensitivities) that will be very capable to detect the rare cells in tumor samples. The full configuration quoted is 5 lasers and 50 detectors (48 colors).

Definitely Cytek Aurora is better choice; forget about BD Symphony. Despite the fact that Cytek Aurora was launched earlier than BD Symphony SE, but Aurora still beats this instrument in all possible categories: purchasing cost, maintenance, and technical possibilities. Just open the cover and look at how both instruments were designed. Symphony is overpriced, over advertised, and, more importantly, an ancient instrument (or it will be very soon). I don't agree with Taha. The way you prepare controls really matters, regardless of which instrument you use. If you follow Cytek's recommendations, each cell acquisition becomes less problematic, regardless of the number of colors used in the staining panel. Btw, Cytek also has two modes for data analysis: unmixing and compensation. But who wants to deal with compensation nowadays?