[jjd-uk]

Hi Fritsch, I'll try...

I have mostly FLAC files and several DTS's. I hear the difference mentioned before when listening to FLAC music. The AVR is set to PURE DIRECT mode when I listen to music so I'm talking about the STEREO soundstage I hear from only the front speakers, the others are not working in this case.

With the ...20140404... nightly the soundstage is not only nicely wide but also DEEP. The voice of singers stands out nicely in the center as if they were standing in front of the orchestra. It really sounds as if they were standing there in front of you... The sound is beautifully clean and dynamic, so "snappy", regardless which file I'm playing. There are differences, obviously, but that's because of the quality of the recording. They have always been there.

With the ...20130405... nightly, without changing anything else, the deepness of the soundstage largely disappears. It is kind of like a 3D image becoming 2D. And that snappyness is also reduced, it sounds a bit more restrained. It is still a good sound, don't get me wrong, but much less than before. Singers do not stand out anymore either.

I know all this is very subjective, many might not even care. So I didn't post logs just yet, it would be my first, to save time. But if you want to investigate further I'm happy to do so.

A sample FLAC track uploaded to somewhere like Google Drive, Microsoft Onedrive, Dropbox etc would allow me to attempt to replicate.

Please also grab screenshots of both your Audio Output and Music - Playback settings and upload to somewhere like imgur.com then post the links here.