i do own an hd500 and I like it quite a bit. The models are sweet. It's incredibly versatile, though there are a lot of options and some things that are counter-intuative. What are your plans for playing though? The most impressive piece of modeling anything that i'd had over the last few years (and best value, btw) has got to be Scuffham amps S-Gear. I only had the demo but I plan on buying it. For playing at home or recording you'd be better off to buy this and an interface and some speakers, which are all multipurpose.

i realize that's not what you asked though so feel free to ask any specific questions about the HD500 and i'll answer them as best I can.