I've been emailed a half-price offer for Izotope's Alloy 2.  I already have Ozone 5 which is great so do I need Alloy 2 as well is the question.  Am I missing something - I always assumed Alloy 2 was just 'Ozone Lite'?

I would like to get the half price deal.  Where did you get it?
 
My take is Alloy 2 is a channel insert with all the bells and whitles of an in series chein of compenents.  Ozone is less fascile, does most of the same things, but the surface is for surgical mastering; alloy for surgical channel.  The free 30 day Groove 3 turtorials describes them both in detail and can help you decide.
 
Please send the link to the 50% discount for Alloy 2.

Sorry, I should have added that the discount is for existing Izotope customers.  The link is here:
http://www.timespace.com/news/2801/use-izotope-products%3F-save-50%25-on-alloy-2-for-a-limited-time!.html
But it may only apply to the UK & Europe?

Hmm, interesting - I have Ozone and was considering Alloy.  As I understand it, Ozone is for mastering a stero master, and Alloy is for each individual channel, for mixing.

The ad says "crossgrade version of Alloy 2" --- its not quite clear, is that some kind of "lite" version of Alloy, or the full version?   If its full version, its a good deal ...

I used to think about getting Alloy, but then bought PSP MixPack due to the reviews that seemed to be a little in favour of PSP. I have Ozone as well.

This is from the help guys at Time+Space.

"They are both open to be used on multiple channels. Traditionally Ozone is used as a mastering software and Alloy as Mixing software."

He said the offer is available for the USA directly from Izotope.

 I use Alloy 2, it's lighter on the system and meant to be used as a channel insert. Though it as similar functions it is a bit of a different critter. The Transient Shaper is worth the price of admission by its self. MOAW

I use Alloy2, worth every penny. It is channel insert with a very flexible EQ, gate and compressor, limiter and several other effects unit. I like it's preset system for almost every instrument and sound. best of all it speed up my work flow and sound great.

I had both and damn it i paid for both of them and regret it, why? Because after extensive testing and verification Alloy 2 is identical to Ozone in its results, it uses 'exactly' the same algorithms as Ozone 5. The difference with Ozone 5 is that it offers a reverb plus a second eq, but why the hell someone would need a reverb and a second eq strapped across the mastering stereo-bus is beyond me. 

I have inserted both Alloy 2 and Ozone into the mastering-chain and done the A/B thing extensively using the modules that they both share (eq, exciter, compression, limiter) and set them both to the same settings and the result is literally identical. So just to make sure i spoke to TJ at Izotope and he confirmed for me that they do indeed share the same algorithms. I use Alloy 2 for my mastering now and sold my ozone license, because Alloy 2 covers both my mastering and channel strip duties, excellent bang for the buck. 

Alloy 2 can be used as a stereo processor or a mono processor and automatically knows when the channel is stereo or mono and switches itself to either automatically. Other than that, what it does have that Ozone doesn't have is a De-esser and a transient designer, all other things being equal to Ozone minus the superfluous second eq and reverb. The EQ plus the eq options, and the compression plus the compression options, and the exciter plus the exciter options, plus the limiter and the overall metering are all exactly the same identical algorithms as ozone 5, so Alloy 2 is much better value than Ozone, it can be used both as a top-notch channel strip but also as a full blown fully competent mastering processor and is something like half the price of ozone.


In fact, i am gonna message Izotope and tell them that if they completely redesign Ozone with brand new high-end algorithms different to Alloy 2, then i will certainly buy it without hesitation, but as things stand now with them both sharing the same algorithms it is a total waste of money to buy both.

PS: As you would have probably discovered, Izotopes Limiter-module in both products is absolutely useless and utterly wrecks the mix, it is not transparent at all, thus why i have to use a third-party transparent Limiter. I have contacted Izotope several times in the past twelve months about their limiter and thus-far they have done nothing about it.

Anyone looking for an alternative to Izotope's offerings might like to visit BlueCat audio, they have some extremely high-quality and capable mastering plugins and channel plugins, and after i suggested to them that they should combine some of their mastering plugins into an all-in-one package like Izotope they liked the idea and told me they are now working on it. Download the demos, they are fantastic, better even than T-Racks.

Godparticle, did you not see any (meaningful) difference in CPU/RAM consumption? According to what I've read, and as mentioned here already, Alloy, being considerably lighter on resources, is made for per track use, whereas Ozone is a mastering VST.
As far as the advertising goes, that is the only clear difference between those two (???), but if the load is much lighter, how can the algorithms be the same?

I've read so many threads about how Ozone jams the PC when used on tracks. I don't know about Alloy 2, but
the reviews I've read about Alloy 1, gave the impression there's a clear difference between Ozone and Alloy, and the critics were not overly impressed by Alloy, even though the reviews were quite positive. No doubt the price/quality ratio of Alloy is excellent.

I can not agree with you about Ozones limiter, though.