I agree with James..

Its much more then just hardware.

Personally i'd prefer a D-beat because it has the dedicated Knobs sliders and pads too and is only marginally more expensive.

Compared to the muse receptor thats just as expensive but has less software/options as its only a vst holder and has no further DAW capabillities it has even better hardware as the standard receptor comes with a 2.77 Ghz single core processor.

Other hardware VST solutions don't come ven close to the options of this box.