I wanted to love the RD-808. 808 is my favorite classic drum machine. Certainly sounds great to me. Looks great. Of course I love the individual outs. Would be very fun to hook up a bunch of pedals or route to mixer sends.
But I’m having mixed feelings about this thing. Like @darenager says, it’s a lot of desk real estate for such a limited set of sounds. I feel like a drum machine has to bring something really special these days to justify the space, and be very versatile, like Rytm, TR-8(s), Digitakt, etc. Otherwise, I’ll be fine with samples in Ableton - which is probably far more convenient for actual songwriting anyway.
Any remaining pull to this machine, for me, is pure nostalgia and ability to snag a machine I missed out on years ago. But I suspect after that initial honeymoon period I’ll see that damn ear logo and be reminded it’s not the real thing and samples are just as good for my purposes.
But that’s just me. For people with the space available it sure is tempting. Especially at $299. Hell, that might be worth a few jams or a couple of EP’s.