Just got an email today from them.
Flipping great. There is a fee but I could care less about the fee.
More info here:
http://www.sonnoxplugins.com/pub/plugins/support/G5_faq.htm
Yeah,
I purchased 11 days too early 
Let’s see if there will be a rebate.
Plus, being forced to switch to the iLok2 is also a waste of time in my eyes…
Yep, they delivered it for free 
Thanks Sonnox !
Awesome. I love their plugins. On every mix I do.
Yeah, the plugins are outstanding. I loved the UAD stuff for a long time, but I’ve changed my mind. If they do simulations, it’s NOT close to the real things (especially true for all their EQs), and if they do generic stuff it is not half as good as the Sonnox competitors. If you compare the Cambridge to the Oxford… hehe ! Or the Sonnox Reverb against DreamVerb! Or the limiters! Not to mention Inflator vs. Maximizer haha
There are those who would not agree with your summary evaluation. I’d be one of them.
So this doesn’t sound like a (hard/soft) knee-jerk response, I’m responding on the basis of multi-subject blind tests specifically, but not limited to comparing the Fairchild plug against a unit you’ve heard on many recordings originating from a venerable and storied studio in HoWood. Basically, indistinguishably close. Couldn’t say that for the others in the lineup. I’m not gonna go all tweak-head on this, but there’s no question that their simulations on the stuff we reviewed were very close to the real thing.
And that having been said, best wishes and of course: whatever works for you!
Chewy
I don’t think that Sonnox or UAD have build their plugins to match or compete with the ones of their competitor.
What about the Neve, Pultec or Precision series versus the Sonnox …!?
Apples and oranges if you ask me.
Fredo
Originally, I didn’t want to comment Matthias statement about the quality of those UAD plux.
He always seems such a great guy… 
, but I wonder where he got this impression of the UADs from.
Sure, manufacturers tend to present their products in the best possible light when advertising, but
my trusted ears tell me that they are darn good and veeery close to the originals, after all, I had the
occasion to compare a few. I admit, a few are weaker like the Maximizer, but only few out of 50 plux
and even those are well usable.
Otherwise, Fredo has hit it quite right: apples and oranges compared.
True is in any case that Sonnox has a range of remarkably good effects and deserves every respect for that.
Charging for 64bit update I find not ok. They are behind competitors with that and should rather apologize than charging their customers who have payed for those not really cheapish plugins.
Big K (on his way, now, to the nicest little Christmas market in Munich, serving the most delicious Gluehwein…
Sorry for piling on, but I have to agree with the other posters. I don’t think the comparison between Sonnox and UAD is appropriate, because they don’t intend to achieve the same thing. The exception would maybe be the Cambridge / Oxford, where the comparison and similarity is obvious. Honestly, I haven’t done a shootout between the two, and I’m not sure if they’re supposed to actually function the same, or if it’s just a cute marketing thing they did. Either way I love the Sonnox Oxford, and I think the Cambridge is very good. I don’t have enough experience with the latter though to have an opinion as to whether or not it’s as good.
But I really have to disagree strongly when you talk about their simulations not being close to the real thing.
A couple of years ago I took some recorded drums (mixed to stereo), and ran them through my personal hardware 33609 compressor, and then set up the UAD to match. Those compressed drum-bus recordings were equal in length of course, and it was exactly the same material. I laid them out in PT (all 88.2/24bit) in a “random” order, so for example: Neve Neve UAD Neve UAD UAD UAD Neve UAD UAD Neve Neve. Then I had my friends listen back without knowing what they were listening to.
The result was that they all thought the drums sounded very good, they all thought they heard differences between the different “chunks”, but nobody managed to have the same opinion about the same piece of recording consistently. In other words they might say that the third one sounded brighter, but then that the sixth was darker, or had more low end. In other words they couldn’t tell one from the other.
So I beg to differ on the UAD stuff not being “accurate”. And we should of course remember that it’ll vary from hardware unit to unit.
Just my .02
Well guys, I might have been a little bit short with my comment about the simulations, so my statement might look ridiculous.
This fall I had the luck to get my hands on different hardware that I only knew as the UAD simulations (which I use on a daily basis). So, there are only a few plugins (mostly EQs, plus the Fairchild) that I could actually compare to the real thing. Yet.
- Helios 69:
This is the weakest of all UAD sims, and it has little to do with the hardware (ok, the knobs are identical…). As with all plugin/hardware shootouts, we didn’t only do A/B but also a phase cancellation test. The downside with the latter is that you don’t know exactly which channel now leaks which frequencies, but it’s great to see how different EQs work when being used for boost. You can go to UADs website and watch the first video. Compare what you hear, I think this case is clear. - Trident A-Range:
The shelves are to neutral in the simulation. A real unit seems to have some resonance at the cut frequency plus interferes with all other bands. Summing the shelves is a complete different game then. Boost is not showing the responsiveness of the hardware, true for all bands. With the hardware, internal clipping can occur, we couldn’t repro this with the plugin (hehe, ok, may be this is considered to be better, but I just said not close). - Neve 1081:
Here it get’s less objective. We both had the impression that the simulation is good, but the mid bands behaved different to the hardware, working on slightly other frequencies and/or Qs. Again, boost is quite different. - Fairchild
Record through sim and hardware with identical setting, align tracks and phase cancel them. The AD/DA was a RME ADI8QS. The transients will be LOUD. This shouldn’t be, hum? Well, it could be the unit we had was very different to the one that has been modeled, admittedly. I’m not a technician. Blind test showed that with identical settings we both had above 80% telling if the channel had be flipped or not, but to be honest, we could’nt answer which one was which one (it was random 50%).
As for all EQs, boosting frequencies sounds VERY different between simulation and hardware. There was no exception. The lower bands were always affected (up to +10dB mostly in the area between 100-200Hz) by boosting, albeit hard-/software The interesting thing was this affected area sounded round and warm with the hardware, but very grainy and crisp on the simulation.
I hope that I will get the chance to put my hands on a Harrison 32C one day. I use and love this UAD-EQ more than any other EQ I’ve ever heard. So, if the real thing would feel so much better than the sim as with all EQs mentioned above… my god…
How did you calibrate the hardware when recording through them and the plugs?
Yeah, the test is not really objective, especially for the Fairchild where you have to use the preamp in some way, I agree. The phase cancellation test with the hardware units has been done by running the hardware in a flat position and then adjusting the D/As output level, coming as close to nulling out as possibile.
Of course we also tried the phase test plugin against the hardware, but since the differences were too big, one couldn’t get “close” to nulling the stuff out. So, no conclusions can be drawn.
I would agree that UAD EQ plugins are in most cases the closest simulations that exist.
Still, for the generic stuff, Sonnox outperforms UAD. (Maximizer, Limiter, EQ; the reverb has no counterpart).
I could not agree more. I am quite happy that UAD and Sonnox are “apples and oranges” - because I own both, and in old days I spent a fortune on the Sony Oxford Powercore Stuff (now only using the native versions) - it would make absolutely no sense to own both if they are comparable.
And I do not care if an UAD plugin sounds exactly the same like the original, I can NOT compare to the original gear so there is no need for me that a UAD Fairchild sounds exactly like the hardware. As long as the plugins sounds good and as long as I am able to find a good use for it in a mix.
The Sonnox EQ and the Dynamics are my go to EQ/Comp - the Cambridge is very different in detail but I use both for the same tasks, sometimes this, sometimes that, in the end both gets the result I want and that way I stay somewhat “fresh” regarding the sonic-side of the results.
I never tried that Sonnox Reverb but it is on my list - I do not need another Limiter or stuff like that, but - beside the Powercore Verbs (Mega, Classic and VSS3) I have found NO alternative yet, and I fear the day were the Powercore is not supported anymore by the OS.
BTW - there is a group buy:
Currently 30% off - goal is 50% off. I will purchase the reverb and the supressor there.
Yeah, that would be a good deal at any price!
Stuff seems to be 50% of now… Cool!