Hi Peter,

Thanks for the great reply!

I looked into the dsp/volume settings, as far as I can see, they all look correct - nothing being added to the sound.

The songs sound okay in foobar2000, so I can only assume it's the interaction between the sound card and xxhighend.

So maybe dac related...
Guess I will keep listening to new versions of xxhighend, and see if anything changes.
Thanks, Rob

Hi, I was running on Realtek onboard audio, and loved the sound of XXHighEnd.

I just upgraded to the Asus Xonar Essence STX sound card.
http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=2711&l1=25&l2=150&l3=0&l4=0

The songs now sound compressed in XXHighEnd, like certain high impact parts of the song have their volume/impact reduced.
Any idea what is happening here? Could it be a Q setting? Out of phase?

Running on Windows 7 RC, Engine3, but this problem was happening on Windows Vista too.

Thanks, Rob