Found myself being most satisfied with the Softube emulation.
Compared it to the UAD Spark one as well as Analog Obsession, but Softube seems to do the job best for me personally.

 

Ah, now it makes sense - even to me.

 

does that includes plugins they did for the Native Instruments as well ?

 

I think you meant Native Instruments passive EQ:

Though this thing sounds nothing like a Massive Passive when shooting out against the hardware and UAD.

Right, Kirchoff. I had no idea the other two had Pultec curves as well, though I never heard of that UNIQ thing until now, so it must be unique I suppose? :^)
I can't add it to the poll because the textbox disappeared after so many entries? Mods help me out

You can just make a post it in this thread if you happen to favorize said EQs or one that is not listed (yet).

Added Nomad.

What?
I thought he was making a joke and you missed it, or did I miss your joke now?

TimP makes Nebula (Acustica Audio tool) convolution libraries that are out of this world, at least in compressor land, so I was curious if someone uses his EQs as well. I haven't checked all his libs out but according to Paul Third it's his La2a/3a and SSL bus compressor that sounds the best, and I have to say:

This doesn't sound like a software compressor, at all.
I haven't really used hardware units, so I can't say "this sounds like hardware", but this is the closest I can come to telling you exactly that

Pulsar Massive is okay, NI Passive EQ is meh, UAD is closest to the real unit but falls apart at more extreme settings. Wouldn't give much of a shit how accurate those emulations are and rather go for flavour, in this case you want rather unusual curves like PA PassEQ.

Ah, nevermind me then. Sorry I was too lazy to google there :P

Ah shit I thought Apogee was DSP only, but they also have native versions. I should've added it, my bad.
Though, it being licensed and endorsed doesn't mean anything, Waves old SSL channel strip was also licensed and endorsed.

I watched this video in preparation of this thread. Look at the comments, one guy explained that the Apogee controls are reverted like a 1176s Envelope or something.
Regardless of what the details were, he guy who made the shootout fucked up.

Bruh at least make the effort to go beyond "this sounds ass thus plugin sucks and it's not the users fault, just check out and see for yourself" if that's clearly not the case :/

Get Kirchoff if replicating curves is your main desire.

I'm not including Analog Obsession and I have my reasons. It's my thread and a little power tripping never hurts :P

 

NI Passive EQ was based on the Manley Massive Passive, the one that was based on the Manley Enhanced Pultec EQ is the NI Enhanced EQ. The picture below. It is a Pultec style EQ with added frequency selection but wasn't modeled directly from a Pultec, rather a modified/reimagined Pultec-style EQ. If that count as a "Pultec emulation", then a Manley Massive Passive emulation should be considered as one too since it was created after the success of the Manley Enhanced EQ as an "added feature" unit



From this :


upgraded to this :


then they've made this as full upgrade :



I added the NI Passive EQ picture on that post because I was answering about the suggestion to other EQ that is alternative to Pulsar Massive.

 

Ah true, no idea why I confused that.
Though the difference from any Pultec EQ to Massive Passive is huge, isn't it?
So it's related to the original unit, or should I say original original unit? :D

 

Actually no, I forgot they made a Pultec clone for NI for a second there. I meant the Softube-Softube Tube-Tech plugin.
I would've written Native Instruments Pultec then, even though the code is from Softube.

 

Oh no, It is totally different.