You may have forgotten about the good ol' Sonitus compressor, as I did. It seems a little antiquated by current standards, lacking some of the bells 'n whistles that have become standard features since the plugin came out in 2003 (!). No lookahead, sidechain filter, channel unlinking, M/S, auto-release, wet/dry mix, gating, or expander.
 
However, it does have sidechaining, a continuously-adjustable knee and is capable of high ratios. It might not be the first choice for every compressor application, but it's quite capable for many tasks. This past weekend I discovered one such task that it's very good at: vocal leveling.
 
I was playing with my recently-acquired MMultiAnalyzer. I also have SPAN Plus, which does a fine job for comparing track spectra, so I was reluctant to buy another multi-channel analyzer. But MMultiAnalyzer has a few features that make it stand apart from similar products, and the one feature that convinced me to part with the cash was its unique loudness chart.
 
It occurred to me that the loudness chart would let me evaluate how well different compressors and settings achieved vocal leveling. I created a project with the same vocal clip duplicated on 16 tracks, each with a different compressor and an instance of MMultiAnalyzer. I could then see the volume envelopes for each of them, overlaid atop the original raw clip. This made it very easy to compare how well each compressor was doing, and to tweak settings for best results. 
 
Here's an example. The black trace is the raw clip, the red trace is the volume history after processing with the compressor in SONAR's Vocal Strip:
 

 
I tested every compressor I could remember ever using for vocal leveling, and some I would never have considered. There weren't a lot of surprises; the ones that had seemed to work well in the past tested well. My longtime go-to, FabFilter Pro-C scored well, as expected. But it wasn't the best. It was in fact narrowly edged out by - surprise! - the Sonitus.
 
Here's a plot of Pro-C (red) versus Sonitus (blue):
 

 
Honorable mention goes to another surprise contender, the free MCompressor from the Meldaproduction free bundle.
 
Some of the candidates that I expected to do well did not. Bottom of the list (in no particular order): Klanghelm DC1A, IKM Fairchild 670, Limiter No. 6 (just the compressor portion), and all of my FET-type compressors (e.g. RoughRider, Stillwell Rocket).
 
Sorry, I'm on 8.5 so I can't test ProChannel. I'd invite others to perform the same type of test with their favorite compressors. Lawajava, I'm looking at you, buddy. Let's see how your favorite (Alloy) does. I'd also be curious to look at some so-called "bus compressors" such as The Glue, as well as some of the popular do-everything comps like DC8C.
 
I'd be especially interested in how Meldaproduction's MDynamics does - I know a few of you have the Melda Total Bundle, so you'll have this as well as the MMultiAnalyzer plugin. On paper, MDynamics looks like the ultimate multi-purpose comp, with every feature you could ask for. The only other one that's as feature-rich is Blue Cat Dynamics, but I don't have that one, either.
 
 
 
 
 

It's funny you should mention this.
 
I've been using Pro-C as my cross DAW compressor.
 
Saturday I was using Pro-C on a drum bus and I found my self wishing it had an "Opto" envelope curve that is more similar to what Sonitus has. I even told my wife that it was bugging me that I was missing the sound of that envelope.
 
I also occasionally find myself wishing that Pro-C had a faster attack than 0.5ms. The analog Purple MC77s in my rack are a lot faster than that.  
 
 
I really miss using Sonitus Compressor, and Saturday in a search for something similar I tried Waves C-1 again... not so much, then I took a look at Oxford/Sony... not close enough to Sonitus... and not enough different from Pro-C.
 
Then I tried the Native Instruments Solid bus... that thing made me laugh... what a waste of disk space. 
 
So, I went back to Pro-C and just left it with wishing it had the opto curve that Sonitus has.
 
I may try a Melda with the custom curve option. That seems interesting.
 
I would pay cash money if Cakewalk could manage to put out 64bit VST for a Sonitus update. I'd drool if I could get an AAX update.
 
Sonitus C taught me lot about what to expect in a dsp compressor.
 
I miss using it as my go to compressor. 
 

One of the things I compared was Pro-C's "opto" versus "clean" modes. The difference was surprisingly small. 

Mr. Flipper,
 
Would you please explain the graphs? For example, from the second image you indicate the red line as being a better response - I would have thought the higher line would be better, that the higher output would be better. Or is the point that the best compression would fit between the two white horizontal lines? 

I didn't try to match levels precisely because what we're interested in is the shape rather than absolute values, and having them spread apart a little actually helps in that regard. They could have been easily made the same amplitude by adjusting their makeup gains. But because we're evaluating their ability to level volume, a "good" graph is one that's more or less horizontal with minimal level changes. 
 
So when looking at the charts above, ignore the white grid lines; they are irrelevant. The point of the second chart is to show how closely the two compressors' behaviors are, despite one of them being much newer and much more expensive. 

i like the sonitus compressor, and actively use it (still on sonar 6PE)

In case you've forgotten, the Sonitus compressor is pretty good

 
I like to use this one
 
http://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro-c-compressor-plug-in
 
I'm thinking about picking up this one
 
http://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro-mb-multiband-compressor-plug-in
 
But I know how you hate their stuff...

I haven't used it in a while. I used to use it a lot. Now, I normally use Liquid Mix's Variable Mu emulation on the master bus, and the Pro Channel LA-2A emulation on the others... I appreciate you taking the time to put up the graphs. I'm gonna have to check out the Sonitus again.

The Band19

In case you've forgotten, the Sonitus compressor is pretty good

 
I like to use this one
 
http://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro-c-compressor-plug-in
 
I'm thinking about picking up this one
 
http://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro-mb-multiband-compressor-plug-in
 
But I know how you hate their stuff...

you didn't read his post.
 

It amuses me that, more than any other feature, the Sonitus Suite is why I'm locked into SONAR as my DAW of choice.