I have used the Nova to record classical ensembles and other acoustic music with amazing results. I did a back to back comparison with the SD888 and the Nova had the edge in my opinion for this use case. I always had the Cantar in mind if I were to take it to another level and they upgraded the long-in-the-tooth X3 - but the sad news about Aaton means that is unlikely to ever happen. Would still be keen to compare an X3 against the Nova though