WHOA! What happened to the bass in w9? It is much more powerful in w9 than in w5, regardless of Q settings.

Timing and coherence is nearly as good in w9 as in w5, and much better than in w8. w5 is stil the rythm king though. And w5 has that element of knotting the instruments together, call it musical coherence (or sheer musicality), whereas w9 splits them up. They still sound good, but not as coherent.

w9 seems to have better spatial information (looooove it on well recorded chamber music), but the rythm and snap of w5 is still more enjoyable presentation-wise imo.

But that w9 bass, omfg. It is more sloppy, not as well defined and (and this is not a subtle change) much more powerful. Objects in my room started vibrating with w9, they don't do that with w5. I like mye bass tight as tights (duh...), and my speakers are extremely tuneful and tight in the bass department, but the w9 bass is weird and opulent. I am back with w5.

I love XXHE, having a number of versions to fiddle with is like having a bunch of really good CDPs to try out for about one millionth of the money.

Just my initial thoughts. For now it is w5 ftw! But I like Naim gear so maybe it is just my tastes that are esoteric.

By the way Peter, when will we be able to change songs via remote in XXHE?

I have tried w5, 6, 7 and 8. w5 is fantastic to my ears, w8 is the most tinny and uninvolving of the lot. 6 and 7 are fine, but not up there (especially rhytmically) with w5. But something definately happened with w8.

Generally speaking, the differences are of course subtle, even between w5 and w8. But a subtle change can mean a lot regarding listening pleasure. I'll try them out some more when I have time and try to say something more meaningful if I can.

I don't particulary like w8 either in Attended or Unattended. I think the difference in SQ here is negligible. The sound's characteristics is basically the same. I love w5 in both Attended and Unatt. Rythmic, full sound. w8 sounds rather canny and is muddling e.g. bass lines.

The problem with w8 is that it doesn't sound good to my ears. Sticking with w5, sooo much more rich and airy sounding. w8 sounds a bit thin. I find that w5 has the best SQ of all the versions so far, with v7 close behind.

Peter, w5 is brilliant. I think "round earth" hifi parametres are more prominent in v7 no doubt. Better soundstage bla bla bla. But the musical joy, timing and involvement (call it the foot-tapping-faculty) from w5 is the best I have ever heard from a computer based system. A step in the right direction for me, but maybe not for others. It's a question of taste I guess.

Just spent some time listening to 0.9w-4, and reverted back to v7. v7 is the best sounding version of all I have heard. w-4 blurs transients a bit, timing suffer (this is excellent in v7) and bass is less tight and less defined in w-4. v7 is more in your face, with excellent timing and pace. It sounds really really good. Bass is superb (as in musical and tight).

Jeez...it is $ 120 @ geekstuff4u, insanely good value.

http://www.geekstuff4u.com/audio-video/sound-card-for-pc/onkyo-se-90-pci.html

Seems like most people here use external DACs, whereas internal sound cards are looked upon as noisy and vastly inferior by their very nature. Admittedly, most decent sound cards are external, but there is nothing inherently inferior with internal cards. They are just more difficult to make properly.

My internal card has the advantage og drawing supersmooth current from a dedicated 12V rail from a very good PSU that smashes the wall warts you often get with external DACs, and is virtually noise free. The Onkyo card is a serious piece of kit designed by people who know what they are doing, its only really big disadvantages are people's prejudice against internal cards and its stupendously low price (about EUR 140).

So for people using PCs as their main source (of which there obviously are a few here), this one is worthy of an audition. It smashes bargains like the Beresford and the Linn Sneaky DS imo, and will be competitive with boxes much higher up the chain than those as well.

Threads like this are fun!

When you play a playlist consisting of different songs from different albums, the cover art in the left pane doesn't change when the song changes. One has to manually click the song to change the cover. Perhaps this could be fixed?

I really hope this is coming soon...getting tired of not being able to use my remote. It should really be a top priority imo!

I have this Logitech remote that came with my wireless keyboard and mouse. I have no idea how it works, but I gather it interacts with Windows to the extent than I can use it to play/pause and skip tracks - and that is plug'n'play, no drivers required.

The only player, and indeed app, that I can't use this with is XXHE. It works even in iTunes. Is this something that would be possible to implement?

I need a new one, how to get it?

Is it at all possible that 0.9v-5 has meddled with my Vista activation?

Sorry for the question about adding individual tracks, I had never right clicked albums in the middle pane before.....feel like a total n00b

Thank you for your thorough answers as usual!

/Fidelio