I just finished watching the new demo video (all 90 minutes of it) and have some questions and observations.
 
Although I purchased X1 a while back, I have not installed it yet.  I'm still running 8.5.3 Producer because I was in the middle of a project (which I recently finished) and did not want to upgrade in the middle of the project.
 
Looks to me like X1/X2 is really being aimed at production of electronic music as opposed to what I do, which is mostly acoustic guitar, vocals and real instruments (besides drums).  Makes me wonder if Sonar is still the DAW for me.  But I don't know of any other/better options out there.  I've been a long-time cakehead, so I'll probably stick with it.
 
So a question I have is...  If I decide to upgrade to X2, should I bother installing X1 first or should I just wait and just X2?
 
I'm guessing it's too soon to tell, but I already have Slate VCC and wonder how the new Console Emulations in X2 will compare.  I like VCC, and what I heard in the X2 demo sounded pretty good too.  I also wonder about CPU-demand.  VCC is very low.  How will the Cake Console Emulation compare?
 
Any thoughts?
 
Thanks.

Well I don't do electronic music either. Vocals, Guitar, Bass and drums is pretty much all I need, but I like having those tools when needed. I use the midi and PRV a lot for drums for example. The things I'm looking forward to in X2 are...The console sims, The added pro channel features, Breverb, Overloud TH2, and the improved LP64 EQ. The Pro channel has been very good on cpu so I would expect the same on that. I would install X1 and play around with it, and then get X2. You can always keep 8.5.3 too.

To me it looks like X2 is gonna be a lot easier to use in regards to manipulating actual audio clips. Now that I've stuck my hands into X1 a bit I can say the lanes, the auto zoom and the new snap grid look like they are gonna be really useful. Also for the price it's a darned good deal. The only DAW with as many goodies in it's price range is probably Ableton and that ain't for us flesh and nail musicians.

I wouldn't say X1/X2 is aimed at electronic music any more than 8.5 is (or earlier versions for that matter). Pretty much the same tools in both. Mostly there are just workflow changes, and of course all of the pro channel stuff.

From everything that I have seen so far X2 is what X1 should have been. But Cake had to generate some revenue between 8 and X2 so we got 8.5 and X1.

Looks like you are still on XP (no longer supported with X2). I am in the same boat and thinking about building a new DAW with Windows 7 Pro. gs

Yes, I'm still running XP SP2.

I mainly record acoustic music, but have learned to love X1 and now don't much like returning to 8.5. I just think the workflow is better in X1 and expect it to be better again in X2. I also like the pro-channel for acoustic stuff.

Looks like you are still on XP (no longer supported with X2).

 
Does that mean that X2 will not run on Win XP?

Doesn't mean it won't run, it means if you install it under XP and run into problems, you won't get Tech support