Best Delay Plugin?

[Emilie Robbins]

Sendman Pro is really marvelous

[Googly Smythe]

The multi-delay introduced with Cubase 10.5 is pretty nifty. If you use Cubase, of course.
Valhalla Ubermod is often my echo choice.

[dickeddocks]

This is less of a delay plugin and more of a cool effect plugin, but I tried MISHBY by Freakshow Industries on the defaul piano vst of my daw and my mind was blown. After you get used to the weird yet cool ui, you can design some absolutely fire sounds by dropping the effect on any basic sound.

[Daimonicon]

Acustica Audio Lemon. For sure the best sounding delay. (and it's on sale right now)

Purchased and yes best delay by far I'v ever used. It does the job great. For guitar I prefer Kempers delays. You don't need any Strymon pedal anymore since they updated the delays in the kemper. They're fantastic.

[perpetual3]

Lemon has some latency though.

[rod_zero]

Valhalla Delay

[Spring Goose]

I like Surreal Machines' Diffuse and Modnetic.

[dark water]

It's not the best delay in every situation (although in fairness I think the OP of 3 years ago might now have found his answer!) but I still like to use the excellent freebie:

Bionic Delay.

ArcDev's space echo-esque free delay is another excellent choice.

But yeah, Valhalla, PSP delays, Audiothing delays and Audiority delays all get good usage around here too.

[MissOptimyst]

I’m enjoying Waves H Delay. The quality is great and it’s currently extra discounted with their 40% off coupon.

[Gone soft]

Slightly negative opinions on two often mentioned and hailed plugins:

I personally have issues with Sandman Pro not handling high feedback very well and so quickly going into this horrible cheap ugly sounding piercing ringing.

While I really like a lot about Valhalla Delay it bothers me that it seems to be mono in stereo out thus negelcting all panning information from the input sound. A lot of the time it still works well, sometimes it just won't give me the results I'm after because of this.

[perpetual3]

The free NI Raum reverb can be a fantastic delay plugin as well. So far, it’s the only one I know in software that can do the infinite repeats of the Erica Synths Zen Delay.

[simon.a.billington]

Best Delay Plugin?

No such thing..

Agreed. Questions like this are really just asking for people's "favourites", that's how it works out. Since the "best" will always be highly subjective and depend on a lot of factors that are different for each individual, their system and preferred method of working.

[WordClock]

My traditional favorite delay effect is Native Instruments Replika XT. It can do phasing delays/pitch/micro pitch/frequency shifting & flange with various custom settings. It's a dual delay that can be used in single in both mono and stereo that also has aging/vintage saturation settings.

I plan on buying Blue Cat Audio "Late Replies" it's a really cool MODULAR delay that allows you to make effects chains that link in to a multi tap delay.

You can use filters and many other things between and on each individual echo called a tap and even load AU's & VST's to really make cool fully effected delays good for dub and other fun stuff. The only other delay like Late Replies is a multi tap delay from Steinberg Cubase 10.5. It is good but not fully customizable like Blue Cat's delay.

[Niowiad]

While I really like a lot about Valhalla Delay it bothers me that it seems to be mono in stereo out thus negelcting all panning information from the input sound. A lot of the time it still works well, sometimes it just won't give me the results I'm after because of this.

That's not what I'm experiencing, stereo position is preserved both as insert and send fx
I'm using the vst3, but at this point I'm wondering if what you're describing could be a bug on some other format among the ones provided.

[Ambiphile]

Picking a favorite delay is really hard for me...i own and like alot:

UVI Relayer
ValhallaDelay
Soundtoys Echoboy
Fabfilter Timeless 2
NI Replika XT
U-He Colour Copy