The 'Cube was Wavelab on steroids, via dedicated outboard hardware for DSP and I/O. This concept has become the norm, but proprietary outboard is a failing model (people don't have the need or bus bandwidth to support all the competing proprietary dsp boxes at the same time on the same system, so it's shaking out).
The 'Cube remains a solid contender, especially in plants where it's analysis tools are quite useful and far more powerful than those Plextor sells, and it's restoration suite is unique and powerful too. So it has it's markets.
It never caught on in mastering, because those attracted to it's software (Wavelab) often prefer other plugs and dsp processors, even though the VPIs (their term for hardware powered plugs) are far more powerful and much better sounding than the typical DirectX or VST implementation - for one thing, the boundaries aren't chopped to 32 bit for hand-offs, for another the system was optimized for quality over track counts. The benefits were apparently too small to justify the price tag, esp with all the plug-racks available from Waves, TC, UAD et al. Folks just bought wavelab and rolled their own DSP. I'm sure the resurgence of SS LLC and the availability of Sequioa didn't help matters either. Sequioa is a much easier jump for "old" Sonic, and even Sadie users, than Wavelab is, so it became a very natural move for those demanding a true mastering DAW.
-d-
