I have been collecting and accumulating IRs for years, and I noticed at least from three major venders, e.g. OwnHammer, RedWirez and York Audio, that their IR approach have changed quite a bit, from OH's (r)Evolution Bundle, to RedWirez's BigBoxX remaster and the YA's newly released IRs.
I have tons of old OH IRs from years ago, IRs in the new Evolution pack sounds obviously more polished, more balanced, without either the typical OH excessive low mids, or the piecing highs in the old OH IRs. (though I can still immediately recognize certain OH sound signature in them.) OH put a lot of efforts on a large variety mic mixes, different bright/dark/tight/scooped flavor, which is quite nice!
By the way, York Audio IRs somehow have a similar sound and feel with the new OH IRs...
As for RedWirez, I have the original RedWirez big box, and I know my ways among that jungle fairly well, certain cabs sounds really good originally already and those remains largely unchanged in the remaster, however, many of the not-so-good sounds one are now wonderfully redone, I was in for such a surprise! And similar things happened here, these new IRs are more polished, balanced.
Axe III IRs still largely sound old school, meaning they often requires quite a bit of work to wrestle with when dialing the preset, I gave them up long ago but go back to audit them from time to time.
And the RedWirez mixIR3 makes selecting/auditing IRs from ten of thousands of them feel like a breeze, this is the interface NC Quad Cortex adopted, and I REALLY REALLY hope Axe III could support some interface like that working with one IR vender perhaps.... @FractalAudio
Anyway, the IRs are certainly evolving and the new crops from various venders are mostly largely improved when compared to the old generation.
I have tons of old OH IRs from years ago, IRs in the new Evolution pack sounds obviously more polished, more balanced, without either the typical OH excessive low mids, or the piecing highs in the old OH IRs. (though I can still immediately recognize certain OH sound signature in them.) OH put a lot of efforts on a large variety mic mixes, different bright/dark/tight/scooped flavor, which is quite nice!
By the way, York Audio IRs somehow have a similar sound and feel with the new OH IRs...
As for RedWirez, I have the original RedWirez big box, and I know my ways among that jungle fairly well, certain cabs sounds really good originally already and those remains largely unchanged in the remaster, however, many of the not-so-good sounds one are now wonderfully redone, I was in for such a surprise! And similar things happened here, these new IRs are more polished, balanced.
Axe III IRs still largely sound old school, meaning they often requires quite a bit of work to wrestle with when dialing the preset, I gave them up long ago but go back to audit them from time to time.
And the RedWirez mixIR3 makes selecting/auditing IRs from ten of thousands of them feel like a breeze, this is the interface NC Quad Cortex adopted, and I REALLY REALLY hope Axe III could support some interface like that working with one IR vender perhaps.... @FractalAudio
Anyway, the IRs are certainly evolving and the new crops from various venders are mostly largely improved when compared to the old generation.