It's sort of like when folks used to think that the Sun orbited the Earth. Or that man could never fly, let alone travel in space. Or any one of the millions of technological advances made since we crawled out of the water and onto the land. Can't be...won't be done. But was. And is. And will definitely be. Sorry Larry ol pal, but history...and the inexorable march of scientific progress says you couldn't be more wrong. Of course, YMMV...but it won't.

In fact , in person , i don't giva a fesak ....about how close plugins soounds or not ....just if it's fun working with it , inspiring , efficient , and good sounding !!  does it allows me to reach B from A quikly nad with fun and instinct moves , no "thinked" procedure ....
 
So even some HW i skipped other the decades because of the lack of those things ....
 
i'm pretty sure all you guyz could mix and do what you do with X3 pro Channel! 
 
So at the end i'm more into how th eplugin work , is it stable , maitnened well , well coded , optimised , well featured and who i'm fukkkiinnhghn with (brands)
 
Just my 2 cents

When they do make a plugin indistinguishable from the hardware imagine how many mega-giga bytes it will be and how many man hours to code it. How expensive it will be.

In an niche market like sound recording?

I don't know that it will ever happen.

You mean when ram and memory limitations aren't even a consideration because they consist of a totally new and different methodology and cost next to nothing? And when self-aware and self teaching computers are doing the computations? And everything is on the nano scale? And the human brain has long since been totally mapped and replicated...and vastly improved??

Child's play.

What do you think modern computers would have seemed like to folks in Ancient Rome? They could have grasped the significance...but not the scope. You're simply doing the same thing. Measuring tomorrow's capabilities by today's limitations. That type of reasoning has never worked. Ever. Sorry.

When I first got into computers I sold hard drives to go with my software. I sold a 5MB hard drive for $5,000. That's MB folks. :) Now, I just bought a 2 Terrabyte drive for $89. If you go back in time and extrapolate the math, and you could actually envision a 2 Terrabyte hard drive (2097152MB), the price would have been $2,097,152,000. Moore's Law is cool, if you haven't read it check it out. Instead of $1,000 a MB, I paid $0.04.24 (4.24 cents).
 
Also, there was a day when they literally said you couldn't break the 1GH speed for processors due to the heat build-up. Of course, they not only figured out how to make thinner wafers which addressed the heat issue, they figured out how to put 4 cores on a CPU running at 4GH. 
 
Those of you with a UAD card have more horsepower in that card alone than could have been envisioned in a giant box with dedicated cooling and electricity to run an entire company 40 years ago...
 
Progress baby! 
 

Eddie TX

cclarry
I just went to the CDSoundMaster Website, put the MTMC-M2 in my cart
and it's still $99...But this is compressor, I don't see a 432c emulation in the store.

This is what Carl was talking about:  http://cdsoundmaster.com/site/cds-software-online/SONTEC-Neb.html
 
Cheers,
Eddie
 

Oh, it's under Nebula Pro...that's why I didn't see it...thanx Eddie!

Ok...you guys can believe that all you want...I'm here to tell you that it won't happen.
You simply cannot do it.  They have been trying to get Amp sims to sound like amplifiers
for how long now?  Are they close..sure they are...will they get better?  Sure they will.  But they
do not and will not sound like a Mic'd amplifier...you can't model air molecules moving through the air and
hitting the spluttered diaphragm of a Microphone.  You can't model electrons flowing through
transistors and capacitors and tubes, or a piece of copper wire.  And the sound created is different for everyone
who hears it.  So now you have to consider the person doing the "modelling" and those in the chain of
programming, who all hear it in a somewhat different manner.  So all things and all factors considered...it's
just not going to happen.

The actual sound is "inherent" in the medium.  It can't be "modeled".  It's like saying
Dolly the Sheep was an EXACT replica of the sheep from which she was cloned.  No she 
wasn't.  Chaos theory ensues, and all factors are NOT equal and can NEVER be.  

I was a programmer for many, many years...I know how it works.

Be serious guys..  YES they will get close...but they will never attain EXACT replica.  It's
not even feasible in any sense.  And software will NEVER duplicate the sound that comes
from Hardware...just as "recorded" audio will NEVER be the same as LIVE audio...
it's INHERENT in the Medium used to attain it.

Zo, I agree...it's a lot of fun and very efficient.  They don't use electricity like hardware does, don't occupy
lots of space, don't require maintenance, are almost as good, and cost pennies on the dollar.  THAT is the beauty of them.  But THAT is all it will ever be.
 

^
 
double post

I just got this, the EQ73, the Precision Comp, and the Echoflex for the price
of just the Mastering EQ...and I still have credits left!  Now that's what I'm talkin'
bout Willis!  That's $37.50 each and I still have credits!