If money was no object I would say at least the gold versions of Hollywood Strings, Brass and Percussion but stay away from Hollywood Woodwinds. I would get Berlin Woodwinds for winds. I have Albion I and it sounds great but for me I mostly use it to layer with other instruments. Not having individual sections bothers more than I thought it would. I also have OT's Metropolis Ark I and it is growing on me but not overly impressed. The Choirs in it are by far the best and the strings really cut through nicely but the brass and other things I find are not that much different than what I can get with the Hollywood series. I also have products from 8dio, Sonokinetic and several others but EW is always my go to orchestral libs because they are the most flexible. Since price does seem to be a concern I would get either get Symphonic Orchestra which sounds great right out of the box without much work or the Complete Composers deal when it is on sale. You can't beat EW's sales. That is my 2 cents,

With ARK 1 you have to remember, it's loud. There are no soft dynamics at all. It's meant to be big and loud. So if you're looking for an overall scoring tool that will be good with anything ARK is not the way (for the record I have ARK and think it's great for what it's meant for).

A final brain splatter:

Agree on some of the above...although imo ark 1 kicks the butt of ew...much more playable. ARK's brass is totally badass. And its automatic key switching capsule system results inn way more intuitive shifts rather than the laborius, boring and to me uninspiring separate tracking or keyswitching of all the other libs.

Btw, Daniel James just did a 3.5 hour live stream on ark 1 late last night...
http://www.twitch.tv/hybridtwo/v/34038175

I rarely touch ew any more...it is way too heavy on system resources and ew has done nothing about this. Indeed they abandone every library...no updates...no fixes. My system is very robust. I do not consider it a naturally playable library whereas OT and companies like Virharmonic (the bohemian violin) are revolutionizing the industry with A.I. assisted algorithmic patch/articulation shifting. This IS the future...artistic intuitive playability.

Albion uest...wish i could give it to you...only useable for rather weird compositions and turns out to just sit on my hard drive...

The smaller Albion, Loegria is very delicate and had an awesome percussion section. DJ has a 1 hr youtube on it. I don't feel EW can begin to approach this beauty...if you can picture/write ostinatums, this and the other spitfire orchestral offerings have a cool ostinatum programer/generator which is quite amazing. Unfortunately my small brain and poor eyesight really dislikes their cryptic GUI. Beautiful sound though... An expensive adventure if you enter their world of mural

Google project sam guy roland you tube for some great walkthroughs... While I've gone in a different direction, Sam does a nice job of prepackaging a variety of combo sounds you may enjoy! Lots of lovely baked in combos

Each of the Above is a different approach. I tend to gravitate towards playability and Beautiful sound...and I'll punch EW in the face again...they fail and the company abandons Each product they put out. I have loads of EW from my early days gathering dust...

Enjoy the ride...

Thanks for all your input.  Yeah - I think I'm leaning towards ditching EW.  Their composer cloud thing definitely is attractive...  I would pay 30 bucks just to have an hour with each of these products.  That would be enough time to make my decision.
 
Just to throw another product out there for comparison.  Does anyone have experience with Vienna Symphonic Libraries?  I like their pricing structure - seems like I could start small and if I like the products invest in additional instruments and such...  
 

Also - would it make any sense to START with Leogria?  Or do I really need to have Albion 1 to make Leogria work?
 

mikebeam
Also - would it make any sense to START with Leogria?  Or do I really need to have Albion 1 to make Leogria work?
 

You can start with any of the Albions. They all feature a different set of tools. Loegria is smaller than Albion One, the strings in particular are closer to a chamber string ensemble. The sound of the Loegria strings is gorgeous. The brass is the thing that you need to consider. The big more full ensemble brass is in Albion One and the Loegria brass contains mostly sackbutts. Also the woodwinds in Loegria are recorders as the traditional ensembles are in Albion One.

mikebeam
Thanks for all your input.  Yeah - I think I'm leaning towards ditching EW.  Their composer cloud thing definitely is attractive...  I would pay 30 bucks just to have an hour with each of these products.  That would be enough time to make my decision.
 
Just to throw another product out there for comparison.  Does anyone have experience with Vienna Symphonic Libraries?  I like their pricing structure - seems like I could start small and if I like the products invest in additional instruments and such...  
 

I have VSL libraries and use them frequently. They are top notch, but geared more toward classical composing than any of the other libraries you are thinking. The great thing about Vienna is their solo instruments, especially the woodwinds. They are some of the best there are.
 
The VSL libraries are recorded dry so you need a good reverb with them (I use the Convolution Reverb in Vienna Suite, since it has some very good music halls choose from). Also if you choose Vienna you really have to get Vienna Instruments PRO which is in my opinion the best damn sampler around. It beats Kontakt any day, but it's only for Vienna libraries.
 
I would advice against spending too much on the Special Editions since they are stripped down versions of the full libraries and contain only a few velocity layers. They're good to start with but for serious writing you either need to use the Special Editions for layering or get the fuller versions.

Also, if you're looking for something to write quickly with then Cinesamples has CineSymphony Lite: https://cinesamples.com/product/cinesymphony-lite

Kuusniemi
Also, if you're looking for something to write quickly with then Cinesamples has CineSymphony Lite: https://cinesamples.com/product/cinesymphony-lite

Good one... Daniel James reviewed this and loved it...also came up with some unique ways to get amazing results...

This actually makes the most sense of everything discussed!

Here's the link:https://youtu.be/JzLX5rRe-VE

You'll know if this is the one for you from this very good 1 1/4 hr review...

Great idea kuus...