Completely agree with Jimmy's assessment. In my opinion Synchron Strings I is a complete departure from principles that have made VSL so strong. And I am not talking about the dry recording philosophy here. I am talking about the depth at which articulations have been sampled, the meticulous programming, the refusal to take short-cuts etc. All of which are not present in Synchron Strings I anymore. In my opinion they focused on things that didn't pay off: an oversupply of mic positions, vibrato styles (which are all pretty similar), legato transitions (which don't sound natural to my ears and still don't include portamento though...) and dynamic layers. They bloat the size of the library with very little audible benefits. At the same time it made it impossible to include more articulations without heaving the library size into the terrabites. I had very high hopes for an ambient strings library from VSL exactly because of the principles outlined above. Unfortunately I can't find them to be present in Synchron Strings I.
The 'Synchronizing' of the Chamber Strings - something I expect to be but the first step in 'synchronizing' their VI libraries - is a concept that I find unconvincing as well. What is supposed to be the advantage of trading a lot of articulations against a baked in artificial ambiance? An ambiance that you could apply with MIR, or any other quality reverb programm, much more flexibly and to your own liking. It seems to devalue the MIR concept too, because apparently VSL is of the opinion that adding the Synchron Stage roompack to their VI libraries doesn't do it if you want to blend them with their Synchron libraries. Instead they want you to buy another product. But in that case, what does MIR with the Synchron Stage roompack actually do in VSL's opinion? Odd.
I wish the company the best, and I hope they can attract new customers with their synchron lineup who weren't interested in dry libraries. I myself have lost interest in any of their Synchron projects, be it Synchron libraries, the 'synchronizing' of VI libraries, or the stage itself. Instead I'll be using their 'old' VI libraries happily.