Fairlight-CMI

Yes, the current vogue for different flavours of mic pre might move on
to different flavours of converters. The old Sony PCM F1 had an
interesting colour, that would be a nice one to have around too. 

But surely a DA or AD would be the one thing that an impulse response
could recreate with 100% accuracy? This talk of hardware is all very
interesting, but as has been mentioned, it would likely cost more than
the real thing, which IMO is better to have, even with the clunky UI.

PS. I believe Dan Lavry was the designer of the NED Synclavier
converters, so I would buy one of his devices if I wanted an update of
the Sync. sound in a modern setting.