I love my 500
What’s cool is if you have a 1000 or 2500 as well you can use the same memory card, so if I make a beat on the 500, when I get home to the studio I can put the memory card in the 2500 or 1000 & finish up the beat (don’t ask why I have the 500/1000/2500 it wasn’t planned!).
I prefer chopping on my 404sx over the 500, but same reason you like chopping on the 500, it’s zen like, very meditative for me. Plus I got really good at using my ears. It takes a long time to chop on an sp, especially if you are a perfectionist, but it’s rewarding (IMO).
@blaize there are a lot of samplers that you can add to your Digitakt… When looking into the sp303 (you mentioned) you should also look into the sp404sx/404a. I hear the sp505 is a lot like the 303 as well & also has extra features, plus cheaper. The K.O. (po-33) is only $89 new, it’s 8 bit, so it def adds grit, it’s smaller than your hand & a lot of fun. For the price & size it’s crazy what it can do (sample in, microphone, auto chop, pitch, filter, 16 performance effects, can chain patterns any way you want, it’s CRAZY). The Volca Sample is also worth looking into like @Kuro mentioned, it can’t sample, but loading samples is pretty easy & it’s analog isolator adds a lot to the sound (plus pitching on it adds aliasing).
In my opinion tho, if I was you, I would look into the 404sx/a. You can control it with your Digitakt or make beats on it alone. It’s portable, it has A LOT of sample memory & A LOT of effects so it’s great for live performance, it’s also great for sound design (not only does it have performance effects, I’ve used it on a beat battle where we had to use sounds from a free app & I couldn’t believe how good I was able to make the samples sound layering the sx effects).