Endless amounts of analog/digital emulation plugins

Every day my inbox is filled with various companies' analog emulation plugins. (EQ's, Limiters, Compressors, reverbs etc.) Along with many other types of plugins. And each one says they have painstakingly reproduced the sound of the XYZ21 [fill in the blank analog equipment] and promises to give your recordings that much sought-after genuine analog sound.  I purchased a couple that had an exceptionally good sales pitch, but honestly the plugins provided with SPLat seem to do the job just fine.  I also have Izotope's Ozone 7, which (for me) is my "go to" mastering suite.  So I really don't need anything else....I have more than what I need, including plugins for individual tracks.

So my question is. for all these plugins I see advertised in my email and Facebook (and other music sites), is there really any need to pay any attention to "the better analog emulation plugin" promised by these companies?   Doesn't SPlat's army of plugins pretty much have everything you need in that area?

EDIT: And to be perfectly honest, my old 55 year old ears have a hard time hearing the difference between an analog emulator and a regular digital compressor, limiter, EQ's, etc.  I can't hear that "warmer sound" promised by those analog emulators.  And most of my songs just use the basic "rock genre" instruments:  Drums, bass, guitars (acoustic and electric) piano, organs.

Meh. I see the "analog" plugins I have as niche. They're useful in specific cases when I would like a specific color on a track, or just because it happens to behave well with a certain sound. Of my "analog" plugins I like CA2A, the Waves Pultec EQs and Klanghelm SDRR best (even though that one doesn't technically model a specific piece of kit it's designed as if it does). But there's plenty of stuff that doesn't model anything specific that I still really like and prefer over Splat stuff, e.g. the Waves Renaissance Compressors, FabFilter Pro-Q2, Pro-DS and Saturn, Waves CLA Bass, Waves Vocal Rider, ValhallaRoom and VintageVerb. Some of those do things Splat stuff doesn't, some of them I just prefer for the sound or interface.

Generally speaking I love it when plugin makers take advantage of modern GUI possibilities (e.g. FabFilter or Melda) as opposed to modeling ancient metal boxes. But living in a crystal clear digital world and not having that much desirable outboard sometimes it's nice to fake it a bit. Honestly I don't think there's a huge difference between most emulations of a single type and if there is and you're bothered by it, you're better off buying the actual thing. I like to try them out when a track seems to lack something. If it doesn't work, I'll try another.

It's just marketing and advertising like the laundry detergent with the "new, improved formula" to give you those whiter whites and brighter colors.
 
If you're happy with what you've got, maybe some email unsubscribing and more selective Facebooking is in order, though I do find some music sites helpful for reviews.

Pretty much slightly different flavors of the same drink...the exception being UAD, Acustica-Audio and a couple of others...UAD obviously driven by chipset coding, Austica-Audio is really good but a difficult non-intuitive interface (in Nebula, the standalones not so much) after that Waves seems to be the go-to and sound toys...but the one thing I have noticed between emulations and the real thing is the amount of headroom and sound stage available in real analog vs a plug-in is noticeable...and this is where the code makers generally miss the boat, the head-room cannot be coded...it reflects real space and thats always a different metric...

In the box I find there really isn't much need to go outside of Sonar at all...(same holds true with Logic) all of them are going to follow the same basic code recipe and I would imagine in a real double blind test most people could not pick out the difference between the latest greatest and the first best one...

Thanks for your responses.  I'm glad to know that others feel the same way.
Except NOW, I'm going to have to check out some of the plugins you all mentioned in your posts.  LOL!

Psychobillybob
In the box I find there really isn't much need to go outside of Sonar at all...(same holds true with Logic)

I find I use third-party plugins far more with Logic than I ever have with Sonar Producer or Splat. Many of Logic's just strike me as indifferent. There's a big price difference between Logic and Sonar of course, which may explain some of it even if Logic is a bit of a "loss leader" to help sell Macs :-)

Like many people I've accumulated quite a number of third-party plugins, and like many people I seem to keep going back to a relatively small number of them.

Waves' Abbey Road consoles, plate reverb, tape and ReelADT are very good. The consoles have a distinctive character like the originals, which were state of the art in their day. Whether they're suitable for everything is a different question of course. The J37, Plate Reverb and ReelADT are among the best of their kind in my opinion.

I use d16’s plugs a lot, not the synths and drum machines but the modulation effects, distortion, sample rate reducer and Sigmund delay. Their flanger in particular, it is very close to the sound and feel of my old Deluxe Electric Mistress but with less noise, a more usable range of controls and it can do far more than the EHX pedal.

BozDigital's plugs are well worth looking at. The +10dB is a nice eq and compressor that's easy to dial in, and the tilt eq is very useful.

Cakewalk's CA-2A is excellent, as is the Concrete Limiter. I just wish the Concrete Limiter came had an AU version like the CA-2A.

Waves Puigtec "Pultec" units are my go-to broad-band eq a lot of the time (the Quad eq or Logic's more basic equivalant I use mostly for surgical things like narrow notching to remove onjectionable resonances), the Nomad Pultec style eqs are OK, and to be honest either will do, it's a matter of personal preference rather than Waves being objectively "better".

Splat comes with one of the most comprehensive plugin suites there is, and none of them are "throwaway" or not usable. All sound somewhere between pretty good to excellent. As far as using Sonar's concerned I mostly use third party stuff for its character rather than because I couldn't manage with just the Cake supplied ones.

I agree with what everyone else is saying.  I'll use what's in SPLAT.
It doesn't matter if I use an Abbey Road emulator, I'm not Ken Scott so I won't be able to mix like him anyway.

I almost never use the included plug-ins.

First, for the most part I prefer the UAD versions of the hardware emulations. I've compared compressors and equalizers and I prefer the UAD plugins - could be any number of reasons, and I haven't thought about it that deeply.

Second, I dislike it when plugins disappear from the marketplace. The biggest upheaval was the whole x86 vs x64 thing, and I'm down to just a couple x86 plugins now for which I wish there were replacements! Sadly Cakewalk has abandoned plugins as much as anyone else, so I try to avoid dependence on all but a few.
 
Third, I dislike plugins that are tied to a specific DAW, regardless of the reason. The Pro-Channel is a really good reason for a plugin to be tied to Sonar, but if I have to choose between a locked and an unlocked plugin the later wins every time.

I don't imagine I'll leave Sonar anytime soon, but I also use Studio One, so I need the flexibility.
 
My random thoughts<G>!

I should have mentioned in my original post, one of the reasons I asked this question is because I recently purchased Slate Digital "Everything Bundle Pro", which costs $14.99 a month for 12 months.
It comes with:
E2Deeser – De esser
FG-X   - Mastering plugin includes 3 state of the art mastering processors
Repeater   - 23 authentic delays
S-Gear  - collection of guitar amps, cabinets and effects
VerbSuite Classics   -  digital reverbs
Virtual Buss Compressors  -  analog modeled dynamic processors
Virtual Tape Machines  -   2’ 16 track from NRG Recording and ½” 2 track Howie Weinberg Mastering
VMR ALL Modules w/Monster -   Virtual 500 series rack with swappable modules, putting your whole processing chain in one window
VSC FG-224 Expansion -  digital reverbs


And as I mentioned, I already have most, if not all, of these types of plugins and emulators from either SPlat or Ozone 7 Mastering Suite.   I don't know why I purchased this bundle, I did some side by side comparisons and heard little to no difference, certainly nothing vastly superior to what I already have.  My only excuse is that it was affordable, and it was something I didn't already own. LOL!   Plus the old-style analog-looking interfaces are cool to look at, but difficult to figure out all the knobs' functions.  The Star Trek-like futuristic UI of Ozone 7, also looks cool and the controls are much easier to tell what's what.

Hi, my name is Lee, and I'm a software junkie. 
  "Hi Lee!"

I have lots of 3rd party plugs but, keep finding myself using the Sonar stuff all the time. Now if we had a great VU meter in the Pro Channel, that would be cool.