Thanks for your reply Adam. To be honest whilst I really like their amplifiers I haven't been too impressed by the Axon instruments A2D boards and the pclamp software. pclamp's biggest problem for me is that you have to purchase separate software (dongle) for each computer (expensive!). It's also functionally not that impressive in terms of flexibility, customising protocols etc. Currently we use Instrutech or National instruments boards and use either customized software for IGOR (PulseQ from the Markram lab) or WinWCP (which is free and open source and works with just about any amplifier -including the 700B - and A2D board). So if I did purchase the 700B I certainly wouldn't be spending extra on an axon instruments A2D board and pclamp.

Since you mention using NI boards:

Regarding flexible data acquisition software, you may wish to consider the free, open-source Ephus package (see publication below). It runs on Matlab and works with NI DAQ boards and Multiclamp 700B amplifiers. It also can be used with other amplifiers, although some features will be missing (for example, it will not auto-detect the scaling of the amplifier channels).

The chief benefits are: flexibility (to coordinate many types of hardware through the DAQ board), used in many publications, free.

Article Ephus: Multipurpose Data Acquisition Software for Neuroscien...

I would recommend the EPC-10 amplifier and the PatchMaster software. Its really easy to control and teach students with this amp. It also allows you to switch easily from voltage to current clamp and to make capacitance measurements of exocytosis.

I used to use Axon amplifiers, now, because of the low budget, I am using AM 2400 with NI AD boards and WinWCP software. This system is usable and costs the fraction of the Axon system. I have no quality issues with the AM 2400 for whole cell recordings. I do not think that I could try single channel with it (it might have slightly higher noise, but for me it is acceprable). As for the software/system it requires a bit more care and attention as the Axon pClamp software (that system is really fully automatic), with experienced user it is not a problem, but if you train many students, the Axon system is more easy to use and learn. With the AM system you should know what you are doing. The WinWCP is an excellent software, with some better features as the pClamp10, but I am still using clampfit for data analysis, again, it is more standard and easier to learn. In summary: with the AM amplifier and with NI board and free software (and a small phase contrast microscope, but good manipulator, I prefer Burleigh (do not save on that)) you can make a really cheap and usable whole-cell patch clamp system on the cost of more attention on recording.

Hi Joseph,

I have experience with Axon, Heka, Dagan and NPI amps; Axon, NI and ITC digitisers and a few acquisition software.

Obviously, your needs will determine what's best, but in my opinion when it comes to amps, the Dagan, AxoClamp950 and I would think AM as well are not great (to useless) at single electrode voltage clamp (more than capable for current clamp though), the Heka is in my opinion unusable (the software control adds a 200% overhead to operate it + it has built in ITC digitiser, which was the bees knees, 20 years ago, now is severely limited - eg. buffer size, split clock limits sampling rate). The NPI is the best in terms of quality and features, but it has a steeper learning curve (and you may not need as close to theoretically perfect VC as possible anyway). The Multiclamp is generally OK, but for best VC I would use Axoclamp200B and best IC the old 2B (sadly not made anymore, but great for teaching as well as has analogue controls).

For digitisers, NI is generally solid (but limits you to use Windows OS) if expensive, Axons Digidata is ridiculously overpriced as well as limited to their crappy software and the ITC is very dated (see above).

For software, I find ephus and acq4 a bit cumbersome (don't have extensive experience though) and, if you are not a self-flagellating masochist, avoid Axon's software like the plague. Heka's PatchMaster is pretty cumbersome as well, but I already expressed my dislike for that package. We - mostly for historical reasons and because we are happy with it - use Igor together with Jason Rothman's NeuroMatic (thinkrandom.com). It is cheap (NeuroMatic is free, Igor a couple hundred bucks), works with both NI and ITC and does a really solid acquisition and analysis job. (We also use MultiClamps and NI boards).

Last but not least, if you are the early adopter type, check out the fairly new intan patch chip with integrated DAQ (http://intantech.com/products_CLAMP.html), I believe it to be the future.

Dear Ede (and Peter),

Thanks for the epically awesome and useful replies - this is exactly the information I was looking for. I particularly enjoyed 'if you are not a self-flagellating masochist, avoid Axon's software like the plague' - I quite agree! I've got a few 200bs and a 2b so good to know you rate them so highly. I'm super excited about the Intan chips - this is totally the future so I think I might hold out for these. As an aside I've seen the intan amplifiers on a chip  in action for extracellular recordings and as a result have just ordered one of the open ephys acquisition boards to try them out: http://www.open-ephys.org/acq-board/  -

Their new patch chips with the whole amplifier and digitizer in the headstage looks v cool.

As another aside, to confirm what Peter says WinWCP is very functional for free software and supports pretty much any digitizer and amplifier, so is a useful option. It's big downside though is the difficullty one has in setting fixed sampling rates etc ...

Thanks both of you again for the info.

Joe

It's probably worth adding that sutter have also just come out with their own combined patch-clamp amplifier and digitizer for whole-cell recordings - http://www.sutter.com/AMPLIFIERS/ipa.html not sure if it's any good, its also not hugely cheap at ~$14K

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this one, thanks Joseph! 

As an update I've chatted to the Intan guys - their 'evalutaion system' which is one headstage (with amp /digitizer etc) and software will come out in about April / May 2016 for $4K. One thing to note though is that it won't have predictive series resistance correction.

An EPC10 Single is much cheaper. PATCHMASTER SW is also much more versatile than pClamp.

The EPC-10 is well suited for both voltage and current clamp. The software of PatchMaster is also much better, in my opinion. We use Igor software to do our analysis and make publication ready figures.

The low price of the new Sutter amplifier which is their first product in this product field comes with a major drawback: there is only one feedback resistor in the headstage. So if you ever want to do single channel recordings this device locks you out. The Molecular Devices and HEKA systems are pricier but therefore offer a higher flexibility. If you are certain that this hardware limitation is not a problem for you the Sutter amplifier can be a very good choice if it works well. As it is brand new, that is unknown, but this applies to every new device of course.

With all due respect to it's (large) following, I wouldn't touch the EPC-10 with a barge-pole. The Patchmaster programme drives me crazy almost as much as Axon's pClamp. Extremely inflexible and I find having to click 17 tiny tick-boxes to achieve a simple thing very limiting to do discovery research. For high throughput screening, where you run the same protocols over and over and over it may be fine though. 

Intan now has a dual channel VC/CC amplifier, and it's GUI looks very much like the one from the multi clamp 700B. With integrated DAQ and 1/2 the price of a multiclamp.

http://intantech.com/CLAMP_system.html

The Intan Clamp looks neat. However, they don't include series resistance compensation for VC mode. I wonder, will it (in the future) be possible to use this product with existing data acquisition software? 

If they implement it in SW the signal quality suffers, i am sure you ca do it already using digital filters in Matlab/Igor/whatever. It does not compete with a Axon and HEKA systems. For what it provides i think the price is quite high. Information about the SW is very little, one cannot test it without the HW.

Did anyone try it yet? I know it was only released a few weeks ago, but would be nice to hear from someone actually using it. I agree SW is super important, pricing is probably defined as a certain fraction of Axon/MolecularDevices, so we can blame them as well for overpricing their kit. Anyhow, some early adopter responses would be great.

Matt Nolan had one and is happy about it. I just ordered one as well.

For a free and flexible ephys software you may also want to look at John Dempster's WinWCP: http://spider.science.strath.ac.uk/sipbs/software_ses.htm

It still has a slight "Win3.11" touch to it but it's actively maintained and very easily implemented using NI hardware. The general "chart writer" style also gives it a very shallow learning curve.

Hi Koen, I was wondering if you might be willing to share your experience with the Intan system - is it any good?

I'm possibly on the market for another amplifier.