The Pulsar 2 is no longer in production (though you could probably buy one used).
Creamware's current soundcard range is the Scope platform. The basic Scope has only 6 sharc dsps and retails in the UK for ?750 (UK pounds); the Scope Proffessional, with 14 sharcs is ?1500.
With my Noah EX you get the processing power of 10 sharc dsps. Even if my Noah sold for the same price as the Scope Project I think it would still represent something of a bargain if comparing cost per dsp.
You also get the extra instruments, the Prodyssey and the Protone (which are not free to Scope soundcard purchasers) as well as the Minimax (the Minimoog emulation to die for according to SOS), the Vectrone Player, Lightwave, Vocodiser, Interpole and all the FX.
Of course the Scope soundcards are great quality (I may well get one in the future to replace my current Korg Oasys, and to give me access to the Minimax) and would work well in a studio, and if somebody feels that that suits their needs best then I would heartily recommend Creamware products. The Noah however does have the advantage of portability and could also act as a soundcard for a USB equiped laptop, for example.
Anyway its horses for courses.
By the way I noticed with some interest that everybody's favourite highway robbers and purveyors of audio equipement in the UK, Turnkey are still advertising the Noah EX at ?1995! Red Sub are advertising the basic Noah (6 dsps I think, and half of the voice allocation of the EX) for ?599, which I think is much more reasonable.
Regards ChrisK