Aloha a,
and thanks for the link.
Before I read the ‘reveal’ I had already picked
the IK unit.
I don’t own that particular plug
but I have always found IK stuff to be very ‘musical’
so it did not surprise me.
Thanks again.
{‘-’}
Rather odd test to me, a subjective test against LA2A plugins, the real LA2A’s can all act differently due to the T4B response, but none of the plugins were compared to the hardware they are supposed to emulate!
I have, in the past, compared the original UAD LA2A (plugin) to my Bloo LA2A and found it to be very close indeed, apart from the rather nice colouration that the hardware unit does. and all the plugins I’ve used get a bit odd with very high gain reductions that the hardware does not.
The Waves La2a is nice in it’s own right, but is nothing like the hardware.
I really like Ik multimedias plugins they are very nice to look at too. 
The la2a is quite cpu friendly which is always good for a nice sounding plug.
I agree split shame their is no real unit in the comparisons
Funny how perception goes. I got an inexpensive buy in to the IK world years ago with T Rex. I never liked it and never went back to trying to use the plug ins. I should take another look if a sale comes up. I can see not including the hardware as what would that do? Pretty sure no plug would be especially close and the real ones are so expensive 99% of folks reading this shoot out aren’t going to buy one. If you were you wouln’t reading a comparison ,right?