Anyone used any of these?  They showed up on my Facebook page...never heard of them...

http://www.acustica-audio.com/

Supposed to be quite good. I demoed a couple once and couldn't begin to figure the GUIs out...very complex and non-intuitive...at least for a dim bulb like moi.

I've been checking out their Home Page...

The GUI's are pretty nice looking...don't know if they are any good or not though...
They have a bunch of Freebies...might have to download the try them out...

Well the AcquaVox preamp does nothing....no change in audio whatsover...
no it's not bypassed, yes it's on...yes I changed every parameter...no change..
Now THAT is an awesome plugin!

As you may already know, these are the folks behind Nebula.  A whole sub-sub-sub-culture unto itself. 
 
If you're patient enough to get into it and figure out (more or less) what it's about, it's worth the effort for the ability to run some really sweet (and relatively inexpensive) EQ, reverb, tape, and console emulators.  The best ones are developed and sold by third parties like CDSoundMaster, AlexB, Henry Olonga, Cupwise, and TimP.  CDSM's tape emus are fantastic, AlexB's consoles and EQs are very nice (I preferred his API 550a over the one from UAD), and Henry O. has a plethora of wild and insanely cheap stuff.  Just a few examples of what's available.
 
Unfortunately, the free Nebula demo isn't that impressive.  To really get it, the Nebula 3 Pro plugin is required, at which point you can download and run lots of free demos from the aforementioned vendors.  Then you have the issues of weird GUI, separate plugin instances for each EQ band, frequent heavy CPU usage, and somewhat spotty vendor support.  Still, a very interesting technology to explore in your copious amounts of spare time.
 
Cheers,
Eddie

So are these like placebo plugins? Trying to see if they can use the power of suggestion to make us think we're hearing an effect?

I think Eddie has it about right.

Leadfoot
So are these like placebo plugins? Trying to see if they can use the power of suggestion to make us think we're hearing an effect?

I'm with Leadfoot...I got nothing...I downloaded the 3 free plugins...they did absolutely nothing whatsoever...
 
DELETED...end of story...BYE BYE...

Yeah, Eddie got it right, and deep condolances for Larry on the phantom plugin.
 
Nebula is its own creature and heavy on the CPU. Impulse file libraries deliver reverbs, flanges, cabinets maybe better than any other impulse engine, or at least up there with the best.
 
Quite a unique, remarkable system if you have the processing power to handle it and the time to invest in learning it, and the budget to buy Nebula and the add on libraries..
 
Quality program without debate. Only question in this day and age, is it worth the investments of time and money when other systems even freeware can get about the same job done.
 
John

Years ago I got a copy of the original Nebula - think it was free or very nearly free.
It did sort of work but the CPU hit was massive and even though I had a pretty good system for the time, this did restrict how many instances you could use to VERY few.
And GUI's were dreadful. In fact it was so user unfriendly I gave up........
Recently they emailed me upgrade details to the new Nebula so I had a look - obviously things look to have moved on but so has everything else.
I think the GUI's still look antiquated and I'm sure there will be a massive learning curve, so I think I won't be bothering to upgrade at this time.
I do think originally it was a good idea, poorly executed unfortunately and now everything else plug in wise  has improved so much, it has possibly missed its time.
Nigel