It's definitely an interesting question, and I have a long answer. Get comfortable with some wine and let me walk you through my thoughts and experiences.
I have a hardware Bricasti M7 v2. I also have many/most of the popular software plugins. I have been playing around for a few days loading up several different great name brand reverbs and trying to mimic my hardware. I know I am probably going to possibly make things worse or confuse some people who are trying to decide whether a unit like this is worth it or not, but I will try anyway. I am nowhere ready to give a detailed finding but I will say this to all the requests I have received to go through this exercise.
There are 2 things that I cannot describe because I don't know what causes them with the Bricasti M7 hardware.
1. First off, the instrument presentation is larger. Against any reverb I throw on this machine, none of them can create the same size image of the instrument that it does all the while achieving the same room sound. The whole image and soundstage just sounds bigger and wider. The instrument seems to meld with the room in a magical way without pushing away the instruments natural qualities. It is instantly noticeable when doing an on/off scenario of each tested reverb I tried.
2. The ear fatigue is unbelievably better on the hardware unit. I am to stupid to tell you why. I just know for a fact, that when I play instruments in the hardware unit, my ears never tell me it hurts, or to stop. Every software I try eventually gives me that feeling. Some take much longer though. As soon as I get that feeling, I simply play the same instrument at the same volume in the Bricasti and it's absolutely smooth as butter to my ear. I know that the hardware unit goes through an AD/DA conversion so perhaps it has something to do with the convertors in the hardware unit. If you're wondering, I have an individual channel setup with the same instrument, exact settings for that instrument, with the only unique thing being a different single reverb on that channel.
I loaded up an analyzer and compared the sounds and they are almost 100% the same no matter what the results of my test/ears heard. I thought for sure I would see the peaks that are causing me fatigue. Nope, not there. And it's not in my head, the headache isn't an illusion or placebo. There's something else happening that I don't know the answer to so I can't provide that insight. Not to mention, once the instrument has been reduced in the soundstage you'd have to create a way to smooth it out a little and increase it's body size to compete. Maybe that's something you'd do just prior to sending it through a different reverb.
So what reverbs have I tested so far:
1. Seventh Heaven - I can see why so many people love this. The first thing that jumps out to me is it looks and feels very similar to my Bricasti so it's an immediate comfort with no learning curve to transfer. The basic room tone it has is right on queue. It cannot present the instrument in the same size as the real unit though. I am sure things could be done to help with this but just pointing out that doing a perfect 1:1 settings test, the Bricasti Hardware has a bigger presence and no ear fatigue. Interestingly, this also isn't consistent across the presets. My favorite of all presets is called Boston Hall A. What I described above happens. However, for my brass, I really enjoy the preset called Brass Hall. When I play a solo cornet from VSL through this setting and the hardware unit, I have to work hard to find the slightest difference. One of the only real differences I hear is the size of the soundstage. It's absolutely bigger on the hardware, but the room tone, etc. is very well done. My verdict on this plugin? It's absolutely awesome, makes me feel right at home and will help me save some money as I was debating buying 3 more hardware units. I am going to spend more time with this plugin and the rest below to finish all my testing first. This plugin is a home run. If you don't like it, you are probably not someone who prefers Bricasti Hardware either (perhaps Lexicon etc.).
2. Cinematic Rooms - This plugin has similar qualities to Seventh Heaven but offers surround capabilities. I can get very similar room sounds with it and it only took me about 5 minutes to get it to decently match my Bricasti in room tone. Again, the biggest different I felt was the instrument size and overall soundstage is not as big. This is one super cool plugin and allows true surround sound which was more cool than I though it would be. I think if you're trying to emulate a Bricasti sticking to Seventh Heaven is the easier path. If you want something that's not emulating the Bricasti this one becomes a consideration for you between these 2. It has a great sound and great tweaking ability. I feel it has more tweaking power than Seventh Heaven. I also love the purple interface
. If I was doing multi-channel this would be my one and only choice and I would be very happy with it.
3. 2C Audio B2 - Of all the plugins I have tried, this one gets the closest to presenting the instrument the same size as the Bricasti while also coming incredibly close to the same room sound without any muddy buildup. I didn't expect it to beat the Seventh Heaven plugin for this job but it does. I own all of the preset packs and I found one "Boston Hall". When I loaded that up, the only thing I changed was the tail length to match my Bricasti to 2.10 seconds and wow. I can barely tell any difference. This one is almost indistinguishable from the real thing. It has the same non-muddy, smooth warm sound, huge instrument image but sweet baby jesus! This thing takes 15% of my CPU per instance! Dear god! I can run 15 instances of Cinematic Rooms and Seventh Heaven for the cost of ONE of these! I don't know what it's doing, but whatever it does with all that CPU works. I know I could fool easily 95 out of 100 of even the best ears with this one. They would be simply guessing and hoping they get it right with their 50/50 chances. I really failed purchasing this as a bundle (I just wanted precedence) and never gave it a try. Now that I have found this, I have to figure out if all the CPU hit is worth it or if I can just be happy with any of the other options I am testing, so let's keep going. This plugin? Incredible and highly recommended if you want world class reverb in a software version but you better bring a strong machine.
4. Lexicon MPX - I really don't know what to say here. I had zero intentions of trying this test because this came FREE with my Studio One purchase a while back. The dam thing costs like 29$ to buy. It's not even the upgraded father which is $99.00. It's the little redheaded step child version with zero tweakability. I absolutely am astounded at how awesome this thing sounds for the money. It uses almost no CPU and the sound is incredibly warm and smooth. It's not harsh and caused me no ear fatigue. It doesn't sound like my Bricasti in comparison to "room tone" however, it throws a huge instrument image and after dialing down the wetness to about 23% I was stunned at how comparable it became to my hardware unit from the perspective of beautiful sound and no fatigue. I seem to recall a while back we all did a huge test of like 10 reverbs and I believe this plugin almost came in first place. I totally understand why now. I can only imagine how great the 99$ version would have been where I could have changed the room size, tail etc. I could have gotten a very comparable sound that I could have been very happy to live with. I see why some of you love Lexicon Reverbs. I highly recommend anyone on a super budget to consider this reverb, it's truly stellar for the cost. **I see the full tweaking version is only 49.00 at Sweetwater right now.**
5. Vienna Suite & Vienna Suite Pro Reverbs (I have been using this for years) - None of these sound like my Bricasti but I have loved them and used them for many years because they sound different. It has allowed me to color the sound in endless ways because the colors are so different. These ones are dear to my heart and have been my most used reverbs. I am currently awaiting the updates that are going to be happening to MIR Pro and Miracle which I use frequently. I can't give you a comparison against the Bricasti because MIR Pro positions the instrument into a room and then I add tail with Miracle. I can just tell you it makes beautiful sounds but it does not sound like my Bricasti unit. It's great to have other options to you know
.
I hope this helps but so much of it is personal preference of sound as well. Some people like lots of reverb, some people like dry in your face mixes (conductor style sound). Some people really focus on having many dimensions and some try to just get one single room sound. There's really no right way in my mind so all of these tools are useful and frankly, the differences between some of these plugins and my hardware unit? Is it worth it? Hmm. I don't know. Software is easier to work with, requires no fancy setups and allows you to bounce offline. You also don't have to worry about getting feedback loops or accidentally setting it up on 2 bus channels because you didn't pay attention and within 5 seconds your speakers are blowing up because of your stupidity and not paying attention. I have the money to buy these hardware units and even so, I am going to stick to just the 1 unit as my final melding reverb and use the ones listed above to do 99% of all the lifting and work. I don't think enough people that I deal with can hear the difference between say Seventh Heaven, Cinematic rooms or 2C B2 compared to my hardware unit. I think if they can, you've probably not done a good enough job on setting them up.
M