What have you heard recently that really impressed?

[AegisPrime]

I'm really enjoying using Black Rooster's VEQ-5 on stuff atm - I didn't really need a new EQ but it's a very nice Pultec clone and the intro pricing's pretty keen

[dreamvoid]

UAD Moog MultimodeFilter XL, which I bought as an upgrade to the already very nice old Moog filter emulation of UA.
Lindell Audio 254E from Plug In Alliance.

[V0RT3X]

The revamped SSL 4000 E Channel strip by UAD

[rod_zero]

Replika XT, Supercharger GT, Relayer

[Urb Sergeant]

Airwindows Desk
Airwindows Transdesk
Airwindows Powersag
Airwindows Console4
Airwindows Hermespass
Airwindows Toneslant
Airwindows Pressure/Pyewacket
Airwindows Capacitor
= all you need for a great itb sound, and It's free (make sure you join his patreon)!

Burnley 73 (line40, mic25!)
Volko Q-series
Oeksound Soothe
Acustica Audio Pearl2
Cdsm ACC
Cdsm N-10-7T3
Cupwise Mixing Filters
Lindell 254e
LSR sk_drive, sk_bright, sk_bass
Psp Fetpressor
Tbproaudio CS-3301
VSR24
Xln RC-20

[Aleatoriac]

Just ran a distorted scream that had clipped at input through all of my distortion, saturation and compression plugins, then drowned it all in reverb.

Wall of white noise.

I'm pretty damn impressed.

[ghettosynth]

Just ran a distorted scream that had clipped at input through all of my distortion, saturation and compression plugins, then drowned it all in reverb.

Wall of white noise.

I'm pretty damn impressed.

Now you just need to run it through a bunch of different trancegates.

[Rcl]

Black Roosters Cypress amp sim. A very pleasant surprise in an area with so much already going on. Fantastic pick response.

[J4R1O]

Spitfire Audio London Contemporary Orchestra Strings

[thecontrolcentre]

jhud studio Vocal King ...
http://www.jhudstudio.com/music-plugins

[bitman]

Soothe
K-Clip
MJUC

[chk071]

What have you heard recently that really impressed?

Nothing. The more high quality stuff i get, the less likely i am to be impressed by newer stuff. Actually, i was quite unimpressed by the recent wave of VA monster synths, at least regarding the sound.

The last stuff which really impressed me (and which i bought): Spire, Replika (XT), Ultrareverb and Blackhole, Sylenth1 (massive punch that thing...). I hope devs continue to up their game, so we can have the next wave of high quality VA's, especially in terms of filters, there's still a long way to go IMO. Typically: Analog emulations with a low voice count, and very few feature: great filters, VA's with loads functionality, and big voice count: Digital sounding filters, which lack especially in the resonance department, or have an unpleasant character. I wonder how difficult it is to make a cheap, in terms of CPU, ZDF filter, preferrably Moog ladder inspired. Can't be that difficult, can it? Don't have to model all the non-linearities, noise, and smear of analog filters, a simple design would do already. Maybe Dune 3 will deliver, as Synapse will probably take a lot of experience of the Legend synth. I just hope the character is for me this time, neither Dune 1, nor Dune 2 really do much for me.

[experimental.crow]

Cloudlab 200t , in the Reaktor U.L.

[kenobi77]

PA Black Box Analog HG-2: nothing else I've tried does what this manages to do. It also is simple to operate while still being felixible. Though the GUI is so so.

U-he re-pro 1: surprised with the raw sound as well as the effects that compliment it well. I haven't tried loads of synths out there but of the ones I've tried, including some other of u-he, I though this had something special about it. Havent bought it yet though, still enjoying monark for similar reasons.

Also, I'm quite impressed with Unfiltered Audio Indent, which I got for free. You can push up the saturation to colour the sound to varying degrees before hitting fizzy and OTT.

[SJ_Digriz]

the production quality here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfr64zoBTAQ