In the meantime, I finally have a III Mkii Turbo and FC12 on the way. My hands will be full learning that.
My Fractal Audio journey started back with the II and FW9, IIRC (and pre-Quantum, right? I think). (with various Xitone speaker cabs)
Then the amazing AX8.
Then I had the FM3 for a few years.
Now, I've been really into analog "modeling" zero-watt amp pedals, and switching back and forth between way too many pedals, the HX FX, and of course the FX8 in the loop. Some of these solutions seem to work better than others.
There's not specifically a "perfect" solution, but I've been happy with how the FX8 works. It's just so transparent, and I think overall higher quality than the HX FX. I do enjoy the more type-specific presets available on the HX FX. But with the 3rd gen product line, we now get plenty of that, with less programming involved on our part.
Regardless, everything sounds really good either through my EV PXM or the FR-10s. No hiss with the FR-10s will just be icing on the cake. And who knows, maybe I'll even get into the whole W-D-W thing. Changing up the monitoring solution has made a big difference.
At this point, I'll likely only be keeping one of the analog modeling zero-watt amp pedals (the actual simplest one to use and get the best sounds out of), and just work on getting the most out of all that the III has to offer. Nothing holding me back except myself, at this point. It's more a matter of trying to make the most out of the time we all have, and moving forward instead of backward, right?