EMM Labs new XSD1 single box player

You really won't get a proper feel for it until 500 hours or so.

I think the best player at the show was the AMR model I heard. It sounded very close to the better Audio Note transport + Dac combinations at a lower price. The EMM I heard was poorly set up. No room I visited had a high end Audio Note digital source, which is what I generally use as a standard.

Also, make sure you get the new November firmware (102_002) off of the EMM Labs site.

How often does EMM come out with new firmware upgrades and how do you know when it has been made available?

This is one of those things that I have complained to EMM about but they do not seem to care; ideally, they should not only list the version number on their site with date but also the change history. At this point, the only way to determine whether there has been a new update is to call and ask or to download the zip file from the site, unzip it and look at the revision number of the file compared to the last file you downloaded.

The XDS1 is relatively new and so far the updates have been monthly but I expect this to taper off over time.