What Is Your Favorite Soft-synth?, Soft-Synths Options

I am interested in hearing from the synth savvy liberace like musical masters out there...what do you think are the great, quality, analog quality soft synths out there? Would it be pluggo? reaktor? halion? fm7? i want to seperate the men from the toys so to speak. Some of the synths I have heard sound too campy and cheesy. What are the rich, thick sounding pro soft-synths?

[Synthetic]

well.. i think it really depends on what type of sound you are looking for... most of the synths you mentioned approach synthesis in different ways and you will get differences in sound just as if you were comparing a Nord Lead (real) synth to Moog Synth (real). I really haven't heard any "cheesey synths" from any of the major commercial manufacturers but it depends on what you like. Some really like the FM& because many like the edgy and clean sound of the 80's music which the dx-7 was popular in. Depending on how you use the sounds (dry, lead, rhythmic, or saturated with effects) determines how it will work in your music. I am true believer that with some good FX... almost anything can sound cool... even a cheap casio keyboard can sound 100% better with added reverb, chorus, flang etc.

But, from what I have heard... the FM7 is good choice, the Reaktor is good but very complex, Absynth has constantly been many people's favorite (it incorporates several different synthesis methods) and the ES-1 and ES-2 from emagic are fairly good. Reason is a good choice because it comes with several different synths now days and more. Pluggo... well I am not reall sure about it... it comes with tons of plugs for synths etc. but its mainly a shell for running plugs and don't know if I trust that their plugs that come free are truly all that impressive but I have not seen or heard anyone using it so don't know.