Not at all
The bbe is just an eq
yup, the eq, that sucks your tone in the first place when is off and then it tries to tell you how much better it sounds when you turn it on
So....it's not an EQ the way you probably think of one. It's not using shelf/bell filters, and it doesn't give you the control most EQs do.
What they do is use low and high-pass filters to split the signal into frequency bands, give you a gain control on some of them (how many depend on the model, usually one), and run the input of the high band into the VCA that controls it, creating an upward expander (more treble at the input means even more treble at the output). There's also some filtering happening on the output, mostly normal band limiting and also preventing the exaggerated treble from getting too insane.
Regardless of what they claim about fixing phase problems, the filters they use also
create "phase distortions" which manifest as dips in the frequency response at the crossover points (actually fairly deep and narrow ones), which also ring (like all sharp filters).
Mostly, it exaggerates high transients and gives you a little control over bass (and sometimes mids) and adds deep, narrow dips and filter ringing at the crossover points.
I remember watching a video a while ago about some guy programming synths in Ableton Live using a bunch of copies of EQ3 (none of the other EQs in Ableton do it) set flat in series specifically to get filter ringing at the crossover points because he thought it was a cool effect.
I'm not saying that Sonic Maximizers are totally snake oil. They
are doing things to the signal. But....a lot of the things written about them is just vague BS. It's not a "sound better" device.
The multiband compressor in the Fractal might be able to do that sound....if it lets you set the high band as an upward expander and uses MP crossover filters, neither of which I know because I don't use it. A lot of multiband compressor/expander plugins won't do it because their designers were "smart" enough to use linear-phase filters for the crossovers....which prevents those narrow dips but also shifts the ringing to sound like it's sstarting before the sound that creates it (which is
usually easy to ignore).
