Hi,
Just a word of warning on plugins. Once you get into the world of plugins there are a lot of claims made that certain plugins can increase soundstage, recreate the spatial dimension of speakers, reproduce the harmonic warmth of expensive analog gear. This is a really complex matter. Plugins and software recreations of hardware have been the fulfillment of the promise begun by the move to digital in the audio recording/mastering industry. In the hands of trained audio technicians, judicious--and radical amounts--of plugin use have fundamentally altered the way music is produced.
It is a different ballgame for music consumption
Audio engineering plugins are now at the level where they are truly usable. However, they are meant to change the sound in "musical" ways. This has limited use for audiophile sound reproduction as this also often introduces certain kinds of degradation. For example, a plugin promising "tube sound" may warm up your digital signal, but it will also decrease detail resolution. A stereo widening program may widen the soundstage but at the cost of decreasing depth, introducing phase problems, smearing transients, and generally confusing imaging. In other words, all the metrics of sound quality that you pay so much to gain in terms of source and amplification can be decreased through plugins. You may, at first, be impressed and amazed because you are only focusing on the new feature: "Whoa, my soundstage is so much wider." When you start bypassing plugins though you realize what you lost in the other areas, e.g., the stereo widening plugin also had left a sonic hole in your center image. The best studio grade plugins mitigate some of these kinds of problems--if used knowledgeably. But these are very expensive. They are not aimed at the consumer audio market. The cheap plugins that promise similar effects are, well... trash. It is like putting your carefully selected, matched, tuned system and putting it through a karoke-level reverb.
Since I have a few thousand dollars worth of some of the best of studio-grade plugins, I've tried some of them through pure music, audirvana, etc. I've kept only one plugin which I think generally improves the sound and then have gradually dialed that down to a minimum. There is no parallel development (or market) on the audio consumer side to the recording plugin industry. It took a long time for the recording side to get to where they are. I think it'll be some time before we see genuinely usable plugins on the consumer side, that go beyond "audio tricks." If there were software recreations of the Smyth Realizer--now that would be something. Until that time, I would really counsel caution. Unfortunately, for now, there are no shortcuts or cheap solutions to great sound. Plugins are fun, but time and money is better spent finding the best proverbial "bang for the buck" gear. Just my two cents on where I'll be spending my pennies--okay hundreds and thousands of dollars (sigh).
