Teacher, I would have to disagree. I think they are right up there with Waves, however, this is based on Waves demos that I A/Bd so there is margin for error.
Check out rev 3.0. The compressor is very impressive. In fact the whole line except for the wah wah sound dramatically better.
Here is a mini review/opinion:
Compressor - seems more accurate and subtle changes on the sliders can be heard more readily. It really comes close to hardware IMHO. I compared it to my RNC and it is almost there on the smoothness (about 85% I think) . The vocal preset especially. There is also a keyboard preset which I have found useful. (I won't be abandoning the RNC however as I would prefer to compress outside the box. If I get time this week I am going to build some file comparisons.
Reverb - Deeper plate sounding than Rev 2. and more natural sounding. Emulates a pro studio environment very well I think. Better presets too.
Multiband - I like the 5 band interface which provides a good visual for what frequencies are being affected. Sound is excellent,
Equalizer - No real sound differnce but controls are more sound responsive like the Compressors. I think the 5 band parametric is as good as any I have heard. My comparisons are to demo versions of Timeworks and Waves.
Gate - very good response times although I would prefer to gate outside the box.
Delay - This is probably the biggest improvement in the set to my ears. Good natural decays, wide sounding. Very hardware sounding with extremely good high end sizzle.
Phaser and Wah - Both are improved sounding but I dont use these except on guitar.
Maybe someone who has a non demo version of the Waves bundle can respond back after they AB this new version. Overall the low CPU cycles really help out about 16+ tracks on my machine.
I'm done, have raved enough.
i need to get one of those damn things