Hi Daniel,
I was in a similar situation several years ago. I didn’t have a lot of money to spend, but needed some fairly decent orchestral sounds for a project I was working on. My preference was a VST plug-in, so I ended up narrowing my choices down to GPO and MOTU Symphonic Instrument (both were below 300). BTW…I believe GPO will still work as a VST plug-in.
I liked both, but felt the MOTU sounds were a little more realistic when demoing the product, so I went with that one. The results of the project were decent, but looking back, I honestly wish I would have just saved a little longer and picked up East West Symphonic Gold or something similar.
I hope this helps some.
Steve
www.northsounds.com