So long and the short of it is I have a couple of Eastwest products and while they make amazing samples, their programmers are extremely poor. After years of waiting Play 4 is out and it STILL doesn't work right. So, I'm about done with them. Time to move on. What I'm looking for is a replacement to their Symphonic Orchestra Platinum and Goliath product. The requirements are good sound and working well with Sonar. While I'd like to not spend too much, no $20,000 recommendations please, I'd drop $500-1000 if it was worth it though I sure wouldn't mind less :D. Sampled (or modeled) stuff is what I'm after, in terms of more pure synths, I'm pretty good with what I've got. In particular good orchestral instruments but something all-around is nice (Goliath covers a bit of everything). Also I'm more interested in something that sounds great out of the box (as the Eastwest stuff does) rather than something that takes a bunch of tweaking.
 
Thanks for any thoughts you have.

The first step would probably be an investment in Native Instruments' Kontakt. It's a much more reliable and stable platform for sample playback, and the most widely-supported sampler format. There are lots of great-sounding symphonic libraries for it, such as those from Spitfire Audio, VSL and Project SAM.
 
But because it's so widely supported there are also plenty of other interesting libraries, including pianos (straight, bowed or plucked, grands and uprights), percussion and rare or unusual instruments. Best of all, many of them are very inexpensive.
 
Note that some libraries can be used with the free Kontakt player, while many others require the full Kontakt product. It's the latter group that are less-expensive, as they're not passing on a licensing fee to NI, and the reason I recommend purchasing the full Kontakt.

Vienna Symphonic Library or Kirk Hunter Strings.

Another big +1 for Kontakt as here are a number of third party sounds you can get for it ranging from free to expensive. In other words there is a massive library of sounds for it that will cover most all if not all genres.
 
Either google, bing or what ever ‘Kontakt sounds’ and take a look and listen.
　

I think maybe Kontakt is in order, particularly since I think it can handle the old Eastwest Kompakt stuff that I still have. I don't have everything in that format, but I do have some stuff. If it is stable, that right there is a big selling point :P.

Any of you have Komplete? If so how do you like some of the included instruments, in particular Battery? I'm mulling what I want to do. They'll give me Kontakt for $250 since I bought old Komplete powered Eastwest instruments back in the day. However no special deals for Komplete, have to get that for $500. Trying to decide if I wish to spend that extra money. While stuff like FM8 is neat, frankly I think Z3TA is better so I'll take it, but it isn't a big consideration. Mostly I'm interested in Battery, and in the added sounds.
 
Worth it, or get Kontakt for less and put the money towards someone else's stuff?

I think the consensus would be that the full Komplete is the better deal, because you get so much stuff in the bundle. Especially if you qualify for a discount based on a previous purchase. Personally, I've never been tempted because most of that stuff is of no interest to me - just Kontakt.

bitflipper
I think the consensus would be that the full Komplete is the better deal, because you get so much stuff in the bundle. Especially if you qualify for a discount based on a previous purchase. Personally, I've never been tempted because most of that stuff is of no interest to me - just Kontakt.

It is a better deal for sure... I'm just not sure if I care enough to spend the money. If it were retail vs retail price, Komplete would win no question. $100 extra dollars for that stuff is easy. However I don't qualify for a discount on Komplete but I do qualify for a discount on Kontakt. So it is $250 vs $500. I am just mulling if the extra content is worth it to me. It is lots of stuff, but lots of it I don't care about. Most of the synths I don't really like the kinds of sounds they make and the ones I do I am unconvinced I'll like more than Z3TA. Some of the sounds are good, I'm just trying to decide if they are good enough.
 
That's the problem is that it isn't a bad deal, it is quite a good one, but looking at it realistically I am not sure if it is worth it for me. So I'm pondering and trying to decide what to get.

Unfortunately this is a question that only you can answer. You have to take a hard look at what is offered and determine if it is of any value to you.
 
I have FM8 and Kontakt and I have no need for the others. (On a side note 32 bit FM 8 works well in a 64 bit system but the 64 bit FM8 has problems, check NI’s forums for details.) About 99% of the songs I do have Kontakt in it.
 
If you decide on Kontakt only you might have some money left over for some third party sounds.
 
Just my thoughts.
　

Kontakt comes with quite a bit of content on its own - 45 GB worth of samples. Sure, much of it's not exactly top-shelf quality, but there's plenty of usable stuff in there.
 
It may come down to how much you rely on synthesizers and synthetic-type sounds in your music, versus acoustic samples. The EDM crowd loves Massive and FM8. For myself, synthesizers are a condiment, not the main course, so Omnisphere and Zebra are a better fit for me.