Reasons to buy Waves:  industry standard, stable on most systems, several unique products, cool GUIs, good support (IME), loads of helpful presets.

Not looking to be argumentative, Eddie, certainly not with a gentleman such as yourself. But since I've already announced that one of my life's missions is warn people away from Waves, I have to refute these seemingly-reasonable reasons.


1. Industry standard
There isn't any such thing as an industry standard for plugins, and even if there was, why would I care? McDSP and SONNOX are equally-qualified candidates for such a classification, and I don't use them, either. Waves was an early entrant in this market, and many of their products initially became popular simply because there were few quality alternatives. That's certainly not the case anymore.


2. Stable
Waves only gets a C grade here, because although the plugins themselves are as bug-free as any out there, the labrynthian copy-protection scheme is unreliable. If it fails, the failure is catastrophic: you can't use the plugin at all. That's the worst kind of bug you can have.

3. Unique products
There are indeed two or three products in the Waves catalog for which there are no alternatives (I don't count the 1-knob stuff; there's a reason most vendors don't offer such things). But none of these unique plugins are must-haves. Their most-popular products, which are mostly garden-variety standbys such as dynamics and EQ, are not unique at all. I have two of their more unique plugins (Trans-X and Doubler) and I gotta tell you, I've not been terribly impressed with them, unique or not. Among my own collection of plugins, they're unique mainly insofar as they usually end up doing more harm than good. 

4. Cool GUIs
Well, that's subjective, and certainly doesn't apply to every Waves product. The older plugins in particular seem to have been designed for VGA displays in the 90's, and their text is difficult to read on a modern high-res display. Nowadays the trend is toward resizable UIs, or at least multiple-size UIs, but not so in Waves Land. I will give them credit for keeping their UIs fairly clean and not cluttering them with unnecessary junk (e.g. sliders instead of 3d knobs). But "cool", nah. ValhallaRoom has a cool GUI. Fabfilter stuff has cool GUIs. The Sonitus suite has very functional, easy to understand GUIs, which rates as "cool" to me.

5. Good support
Support is paid only. If you don't buy into the bill-me-forever plan, there is no support. None. You can't even send them an email. No other vendor on the planet has the arrogance to impose such a policy.

6. Many presets
Actually, no more than with most products, in my experience. Of course, I don't spend much time looking at presets after the first day of install. Presets for dynamics processors and equalizers are a waste anyway. I don't know how hard it is to exchange presets for Waves products, e.g. emailing one to a friend, but I'm guessing it's not nearly as easy as other products, many of whom have downloadable libraries and XML-based human-readable formats.

Of course, I agree with everything on your "reasons not to buy" list.

I've never had a single issue w/ Waves authorization. FWIW, Cakewalk synths gave much more trouble.
Waves plug-ins are reliable and sound good. 

And if you're watching Pensado's ITL or the old Mix It Like a Record by Charles Dye or a big part of the tutorial material put together by professional audio engineers, you'll notice that they rely on these a lot.

Though it's definitely not crucial, it can be nice to be able to follow through without having to "translate" everything. That's the interest of industry standard for me.

But yes you can achieve similar results w/ other plugs. I remember the Sonitus plugs made it fairly easy since they are very Waves-like in term of GUI ergonomics, notwithstanding the color scheme.

Personally, I often prefer McDSP if I'm to use 3rd party plugs. But Renaissance Compressor and EQ are two classic workhorses.

One of the things I'm not all that happy w/ about Waves is their WUP. Unless you own a big bundle, it doesn't make much sense. For that reason and because of the lack of support for individual plugs,  I can't really recommend cherry picking Waves plugs. 

I liek c4, c6 and linear phase multiband and classic compressors. I never use any of the others- including gold.

Bit, you make some good points, even if you're a little on the curmudgeonly side.  :-)
 
Just a couple more comments:  WRT "industry standard," this matters if you collaborate with (or learn from) other Waves users, who are legion in this business.  Like it or not, Waves probably has more of the market for this stuff than anybody else.  Just a hunch, btw. 
 
Uniqueness:  more than 2 or 3, I think.  Depends on what you want, but I know of no direct replacements for the Artist Sig series, the H-series, the API 2500, REDD, or the older funky stuff like Enigma and Doppler.  Probably others that I can't think of right now. 
 
EDIT:  how could I forget Ren Vox?  I'd really hate to part with that one.
 
GUIs:  yes, their older products aren't really great in this respect, but for their time they were fine.  Maybe they should update them, but you know how people squawk when anything changes.  And I agree that Valhalla and FabFilter GUIs are exemplary.
 
Now lest you think I'm a Waves fanboy, let me say that I use plugins from Cakewalk, NI, Softube, Slate, Izotope, Nomad, OverTone, Melda, and others just as much if not more than Waves.  Yes, I have GAS.  :-)
 
Cheers,
Eddie
  

welp my think is all the Waves plugins that everyone DOES rave about or say are above average......are not included in the GOLD bundle.

I think I am going to save my $200+ for other things.

This certainly is not the only Waves sale I have seen in the last 6 months.  It's almost like the discount on purpose to get mor market share or something, I dunno but man the wacky crazy Waves sales, like this Gold bundle sale for 1 day, just weird in my book.

I think I need to start recording and laying out tracks more than I need to worry so much about the end mixing/mastering phase.  gotta have something to mix/master other wise I am just feeding the plugin addiction just to have plugins (ALWAYS a bad thing).

I almopst pulled the trigger on Gold for 212, but came to my senses, I am SURE the price will drop again.. I think Mercury was 900 at one time or maybe I am dreaming...................................................................................................................................
I have one issue with the CLOUD authorization, if you disable your NIC card and try to open a project with a cloud authorized Waves plug in, the plug WILL FAIL until you re-enable the NIC, you then can diable it again afte rthe project loads...

I think Mercury was 900 at one time or maybe I am dreaming

http://www.amazon.com/Waves-Mercury-Plug-Bundle-Tools/dp/B000MVI4BY

Be glad you're not a Pro Tools user.

Thanks BitFlipper for your prose. 

 Well I didn't have time to check the demos out before the sale ended.

 I don't like rushed situations, especially when they want my money. If you want us to look your products over Waves give us a chance.

Wouldn't a group buy have been better? I want to take my time and look things over, but one day that  we were already 12 hours into when I found out simply worked against you.

 From what I could tell in simply looking at the descriptions, a lot of those plugs would be redundant for me although if Waves has , say an EQ with something special it would be worth another EQ. The GTR plug looked interesting. The flangers and mods not so much for me. Some of the others looked like something I could use and might have considered.

 Suggestion- Group buy or give us longer to look it over.

you're a little on the curmudgeonly side.

Guilty. You get an automatic curmudgeon pass once you pass your 6th decade.