@scook... It's not such a concern now that I have back up capabilities and know how to restore my system properly if something borks out. Also from what I've seen Toneboosters is a pretty reputable company. Should be alright.

I've tried the Toneboosters and Beyer Dynamic speaker plugs and was totally unimpressed.  They are not anywhere near the same league as the VRM.

Hi Vintagevibe,i desagree...Isone is different,it needs a precise setting at the beginning and it is important to follow the manual (it has many imortant psicoacoustic parameters) if you want to get close as possible to the sound of your monitors(i have Adam and Tascam monitors).Best

GIM Productions


Hi Vintagevibe,i desagree...Isone is different,it needs a precise setting at the beginning and it is important to follow the manual (it has many imortant psicoacoustic parameters) if you want to get close as possible to the sound of your monitors(i have Adam and Tascam monitors).Best

Well, no I didn't read the manual.  Perhaps I'll give it another try but it still is very different from VRM.  I wish VRM was software only but it really is unique in the market.

Fortunately that Tonebooster thing has a demo. Looks to me that it's kind of a different animal than the VRM box. I'm not seeing emus of various speakers included but it does have more control over certain parameters than the VRM. I wonder how well they would work together. Like set the Isone plug to be as flat as possible then run the VRM through it. If there are problems like having the sound coming from the wrong direction (as described in that Senior article) correct it with Isone. Also the VRM has limited listening position options and it looks like Isone basically lets you walk around the room. Might be something cool to play with.

I would imagine layering them would be a bad idea. The further away you get from your recording the less likely you are going to be able to make reliable adjustments to it.

Yeah, I'd probably save that method for final checks if it even worked the way I'm thinking. Even still considering this is such an important problem for me to solve due to the crummy room and not being able to afford mastering having an extra options is definitely a bonus for me.

There is also Redline Monitor, it's $99 and so not sure it's anywhere near as good value as the VRM box, but it is very good for what it does. It doesn't replicate a bunch of speakers like the VRM box but it does deal with the extreme stereo separation that you get when listening through headphones. I tried out the 60 day demo last summer and definitely found it useful, although I ended up going with the VRM box because of its versatility. 

http://112db.com/redline/monitor/

Beepster

I was planning on picking up Mike Senior's book but the material there alone is enough to keep me going for a while.

You want this book ... trust me!  I've read it twice and both enjoyed it enormously and learned much both times.

I spent hours 2 nights ago with the tone boosters plugs. I really loved them. +1 on the tape simulator. I side by sided Cakewalk's Tape Simulator and it was laughable. I'm with GIM Productions. Man, it's awesome. And I loved the compressor eq thing that gives you multiband comopression and EQ in a single plug. It was an interesting lesson. I don't know how much I'll use it in the long run, but I definitely had my eyes opened. So far, like Beepster, I haven't explored or invested heavily in 3rd party plugs. These made me wonder why I was holding back.