My friend had recently purchased the HX and he said he hated it as soon as he played on it.
He felt it sounded more digital and it wasn't mixing well with his tube amp.
Now, he does buy and sell things more quickly than anyone I have ever known in my life and he has very little patience for figuring things out so he might not have spent much time with it (he said he did but I have heard that before from him, lol).
He did decide to get an FX8 again.
I had several FX8's and I felt they were the best you can buy for what it can do for you and I totally loved the sound/tone of the effects and it was extremely easy to set up with the FX Edit.
I wasn't a big fan of using the many cables to run in in the 4CM configuration since I am more of a rack guy with one midi cable running back to the rack so I sold them after I finally figured out how to use my XL+ the same way with the 4CM configuration.
The FX8 was the device that helped me to understand how to modify the effects in the Fractal stuff and I would get it again if I needed an all-in-one set up (midi controller, triggers, effects, and expression pedal connections).
Also, the FX8 does sound a little better than my XL+ through my system.
I believe it has something to do with the FX8 having a better DAC than the XL+
