Indeed^^ I will second the same sentiment on consoles(and NOT using one). I love a nice console, but nothing "affordable" is up to giving actual "sonic improvement"(seen any $2500 Neve's lately
). Now maybe what you really want is "analog summing", which CAN give(arguably) a sonic improvement, while being simple(just leave all the knobs at unity), but as said, if you don't have great converters in both directions, you may negate any possible improvement.
Its a similar story with hardware inserts. If the hardware is "premium", then maybe its worth the hassle. But if you want to patch in that old Alesis 630 compressor and the old Lexicon Alex reverb....plugins will beat that every time
This old dog will stay ITB
