Looking for cabinet IRs and your opinion/experience [metal]

[Amon1973]

Anyone with direct experience with multiple IRs and specifically into metal (death, black, doom, thrash)?

Cab IRs are key to a good ITB guitar sound and I'm not sure I'm 100% satisfied with what I have... I have used and have a few IRs: Redwirez (the whole v1 package), Recabinet (whole package + Remaster), Giacomo Pasquali IRs, and some freebies.

I didn't get anything new in quite a few years and wonder if you could recommend new releases that are high quality and would fit extreme metal (I dig Mesa, Engl, Marshall, but open to others). Wouldn't mind a couple extra packs for clean / experimental (i.e. Fender).
Often you can't demo IRs, hence asking for opinions.

I heard great things about York Audio, ML Sound Lab, OwnHammer, Bogren, GGD.
Very much looking to keep it clean and limited, if possible... I mean, I'll need different mics, positions and distances, but I don't need another 50 cabinets captured with 30 mics is 70 positions
When micing, I mostly used a Powerball or Dual Rectifier head with Mesa or Marshall cabs and recorded with SM57 plus a condenser or ribbon (which varied each time: 414, 121, a few Neumanns).

As IR loaders I have MixIR2, Cab Lab 4 and currently demoing Cabinetron (find it fantastic, but very expensive)... got them to almost null with the same IRs, so I'd guess it really doeasn't matter, but still welcome any recommandation about loaders, too.

Would love to hear about your experience.

[CoolGuitarGear]

My favorite are KSR ($19.99). Even the intro pack with just the SM57 and SM58 are awesome ($5). You can hear and feel the difference with chugging and Metal playing. Haven't tried York, but the $5 pack is cheap and will give you a good taste.

[Amon1973]

My favorite are KSR ($19.99). Even the intro pack with just the SM57 and SM58 are awesome ($5).

Nooo, another to consider Kidding, thanks for that, I didn't know they existed (nice amps, too!). Looks interesting, unfortunately it lacks two of the mics I use the most to support the SM57: C414 and R-121. I may get the intro pack.

In the meanwhile I got the York demo pack for 1$, also containing Mesa 2x12 captures (57, 421, 121, 160 and 414). Sounds very nice.

I also did some shootouts... again... the Redwirez still sound fantastic, I'm considering to get the updated Modern Classics Pack. Paired with the Mesa Trad and Marshall 1960 from York plus a couple ML (Engl and Mofo, likely) to have different flavour might be the way to go. It's good to have some choice, right?

[Amon1973]

Following up my own question... was positively impressed with the York demo, so I also bought a Marshall and Mesa pack from York Audio. And started comparing again.

They sound awesome, very different to the RedWirez equivalent, but I can't say one sounds better than the other.
York is very tight, defined, while RedWirez sound a bit "smoother", maybe needing some more refinement / processing. I see myself using both going forward (and none of the others I also have): I'll get another Marshall and the Mesa OS from York and the updated Modern Classics from RedWirez. In the future I'll also get a couple ML packs (the Mesa, Engl and Marshall MoFo sound awesome in the comparisons I heard).

As for IR loaders, between Cab Lab 4, MixIR3 and Boogex, I prefer Cab Lab 4... but after playing with Cabinetron for a while, I see myself eventually getting it. Just wait and hope to get a better deal.