cclarry
Look....PURE COMMON SENSE tells you that they are not 
going to give you the "same" quality in a $50 plugin that
you get in $5,000 hardware unit.  The very thought is ridiculous...

I don't think it's so ridiculous. If software can recreate the sound of a hardware unit to the point where the vast majority of ears can't tell the difference then that's that - the price doesn't come into it. Software is clearly cheaper to develop and manufacture than hardware. Price is no reliable measure of power or quality, and advances in technology bring down the price of things. Most of us are now walking around with phones which are more powerful than the computers which launched and navigated the first Space Shuttle, and we paid no more than two or three hundred dollars for them. Is that processing power of lesser quality because it's in the form of a small chip instead of millions of dollars worth of outdated hardware?

  What I can't believe is that anyone over thirty would ever say "That is impossible - It will never happen -".
 
Come on guys! "man will never fly", "we'll never get to the moon", "it's impossible for a man to live and breath underwater", "15 miles an hour will kill you", "a voice over a wire is ridiculous"...................

Hardware units have no latency.  That's all I can say. 

kitekrazy1
Hardware units have no latency.  That's all I can say. 

Not true.  Your guitar amp has 1ms of latency for every foot away from it you are.  Jus' sayin'.  

And hardware units have no real consistency, not only between units but generally over time as they degrade. And yes, there are valid economic reasons why someone would produce a fifty dollar plugin that sounds for all rational reasons exactly like its $5000 dollar hardware counterpart. You might sell one thousand of the hardware units all the while dealing with manufacturing, parts sourcing, quality control and shipping costs or 50,000 software units that are perfectly consistent, do not degrade over time and can be updated with a few mouse clicks. Why on earth do you think that top level hardware companies like Manley, Empirical Labs, Lexicon, Shadow Hills, etc...have not only allowed plugin equivalents to be produced but licensed with their names?? Time has moved on...and it ain't stoppin for the likes of you or me.

PS: And never forget that a hardware unit is track limited...so to even begin to compete with plugins...you're gonna need a crap load of them.

I probably should have added in my original post and been clearer that I was really thinking about recording and not so much mixing.  Andrew Schepps may mix with plugins but he can do that because he recorded with great hardware. You have to get the signal in the box somehow and I'm sure his converters are not from Radioshack. He also makes money with these plugins. I want to see someone even Schepps pickup a radioshack microphone, a hundred dolloar interface and record with an emulation plugin on the input and get a great sound. I don't think it can be done. Many of us who can afford it have spent several thousand dollars on an interface and maybe a preamp or comp to record. Why? we have plugins that are so grea now right. I think plugins can enhance a great recording but cannot make a bad recording great. i don't think were there yet. I just like hardware. There are very good plugins but I just feel hardware is better. This is just one man's opinion.

How about a cassette tape portastudio?

@Mosvalve...Then you need to check out the work of Sylvia Massy. A well known, well respected and creative engineer, mixer and producer who has worked with some of the biggest names in the business. She has used all manner of hi and lo fi gear to record simply stellar projects and doesn't adhere to any of the conventional rules when doing so. Thankfully, she puts the lie to many hidebound notions in the audio ethos.

yorolpal
@Mosvalve...Then you need to check out the work of Sylvia Massy. A well known, well respected and creative engineer, mixer and producer who has worked with some of the biggest names in the business. She has used all manner of hi and lo fi gear to record simply stellar projects and doesn't adhere to any of the conventional rules when doing so. Thankfully, she puts the lie to many hidebound notions in the audio ethos.

I absolutely will. I look forward to hearing her stuff.

Mosvalve

yorolpal
@Mosvalve...Then you need to check out the work of Sylvia Massy. A well known, well respected and creative engineer, mixer and producer who has worked with some of the biggest names in the business. She has used all manner of hi and lo fi gear to record simply stellar projects and doesn't adhere to any of the conventional rules when doing so. Thankfully, she puts the lie to many hidebound notions in the audio ethos.

I absolutely will. I look forward to hearing her stuff.

If you've heard Tool, you've heard her stuff...pretty amazing what she does with fairly simple straightforward technique.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Massy
 
Regards,
Dan