First of all build quality is awesome, knobs feel sturdy. For me the s-clip is the star of the show. I always struggled to get the proper loudness in my mixes, but with the Xmas clipper I basically only need a software limiter after that for bringing the level up. I also had nice results putting my mix through an analog buss compressor and use the Xmax only for stereo widening, tone shaping and of course the s-clip. This device is very versatile and even if you primarily work in the box, this could be very well the only piece of outboard gear you ever wanted/ needed. Or if you look for your first piece of outboard gear, mixbuss processing is a great place to start.