Just curious as to the other fellows in my position.  I own an ES8 and find the pianos and EP’s especially, perfect in the studio for what I do.  I use some basses as well as a few nylon guitars off the ES for recording as well.  My music is more acoustic in nature and I honestly don’t use a lot of “synth” type voices, DX/AN etc.  To fill my sonic needs I really need better acoustic/classical guitar samples and would like more realistic orchestral sounds.  I’ll reserve judgment until I hear it, but I don’t think the XS will fill these voids any better than the ES, so....

For studio use (not gigging), would I not be better off spending the $$$ on a nice computer and a couple of sample libraries?  I already use BFD for percussion and like it very much.  There is a new guitar sample library for Kontakt just out and EWQLSO is quite impressive.  I could get all that plus a new computer capable of running it for less than the XS.  Any opinions?

(BTW, I will continue to gig with the ES and/or P90 and/or UF6.  I don’t think people listening to live rock and roll will notice much difference between the ES and XS.)