Is Bricasti M7 better than plug-ins? Need opinions

For me - yes, the Bricasti has a huge wide soundstage.
I have compared many times to every reverb plug in I could find (and a heap of hardware), the Bricasti always wins.
So much so - that I now have two of them.
One for drum room / band spaces, the other for vocals.

It's not the reverb. Plenty of hits made with plugs.

If you watch a lot of pros, they usually layer many delays and reverbs together for vocals. It's not uncommon to have a short slap-type delay, a ping-pong delay, an ambient reverb and a longer plate all on the vocals at the same time. Layering like this gives you something that no single reverb can do.

We're not in the business of absolute reality. We're in the business of the illusion of realism and that tends to mean drastic measures to create "more real than real".

Stop sharing my secrets..

If you've used an M7, you'll know. For me/just my opinion: the only plug I've heard that comes close is the Inspirata. If you want incredibly realistic halls and spaces, you need the M7. Aside from that, there are two categories of reverb:

1. The M7.
2. Everything else.

Again, just my findings.

-0999999999.... <---signature with reverb)

M7 is awesome, but I sold mine after getting this: slatedigital.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000739367-Bricasti-M7-Expansion-Pack-for-VerbSuite-Classics

It was hard to tell the difference between them in a mix, and of course with a plugin you can have many instances.

Yes, Liquid Sonics.  Pretty amazing plugin with a bunch of other great units in there as well.

... which is kind of what i usually have the sends on a desk doing (and how i set up most sessions ITB too..)

Plate/Spring
Hall/Chamber
Slap
Longer Delay
Micropitchshift (or some kind of modulation)

Something like that... sometimes more, really depends on the music.

but not a bad suggestion at all! way cheaper to try than a Bricasti too 

To the OP - yes, and with @omnicron9 - agreed.

I'd recommend trying the Softube Atlantis Chambers before a big hardware purchase. For me, it sits better in the mix and provides a bigger sound than any other plugin I've tried. Really good at taking things and placing them in a wider space too. Using it on everything makes stuff blend a lot better too. Atlantis was a gamechanger. I've got stuff like UAD 224, UAD 480, UAD AMS-RMX, Capitol Chambers, Seventh Heaven Pro, the Relab stuff, pretty much everything notable. I've yet to try Inspirata though. Like has been mentioned above, I blend a lot of FX. 2-5 reverbs, two or three delays, H3000, etc.

Access Analog has an M7 and using their stuff is a lot easier than using real hardware.

When the M7 first came out I had one on demo for a weekend they where almost cheap way back!

I was very impressed with the spaces it could create and I found myself thinking if I made film music ,TV ads foley etc then it would be a fantastic tool.

For my brand and genres of pop and roll songwriting I didn’t find it so useful and for traditional band instruments and vocals I still prefer the old staples like the Lexicon 224 and 480. Also Eventide 2016 and EMT 250 constant density plate.

Now I’d wished I’d kept it as I would of made a big profit ….. I can’t believe how much the cost of gear has inflated!!

This is all quite true. I remember visiting Al Schmitt at Capitol back in the late 90s.  He actually had his verbs in chains. I won't get the order right, but he'd run dry signal through one of Capitol's chambers, then a TC-6000, then perhaps the EMT250 or 480L. In later years, the M7 got patched in there somewhere. Any single one of those 'verbs would be plenty for someone else, but Al had his own way of getting to a sound and that was part of it.  Hard to argue with the results he got. I don't know that he ever bothered much with plugins, but that was simply because he had a sound he liked and it was more important to get on with it and make records.

But to the original question, the M7 is a fine machine and may be the last of the quality hardware units you can get. Like any other 'verb (hardware or software) it's not going to solve every single problem. But it's got a great track record and I've known Casey and Brian for years. One thing to keep in mind is your own time. if you want it as a primary unit for multiple tracks--even if they're multiple vocal tracks--you'll have to do multiple passes in order to print the verb. So a combination of hardware and software is probably the best way to go.