Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
- Start date
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Christmas Arrives Early In Southern California......My Preliminary Observations With XDMS
For those of us who are Extreme owners we all know that the pie in the sky called XDMS has been under production for the better part of 2 years. For those of us who have been ardent adopters of TAS we all know just how much better TAS is sonically than Roon. The downside over these past few years has been the antiquated platform and the long gap between tracks which for classical musical enthusiasts has been a non sequitur such that they continued to use Roon as they await the final release of XDMS.
FWIW, we were all of the understanding that XDMS was to have surfaced in May and here we are in September and it still has not been completed. Talking to Ed and Emile this task of creating new and better software as well as eliminating the gaps and provide even better SQ than TAS. This started with several coders at Taiko commencing this long and arduous process. Winston, who is based in Toronto worked diligently with Ed in France and I also understand a Romanian team of skilled coders. Everything was going well until Covid hit wiping out many members of the team and thus slowing the process to bring the project to conclusion. In fact the team discovered something in their coding which they felt adversely affected the SQ which was unacceptable and 6 weeks of coding was thrown out and things started over.
This past week Ed and I were talking and he told me that they were finally ready to release a "alpha" version ready for users of TAS. I asked Ed about the "Beta" version which in fact is drafted but hasn't been coded yet. Suffice it to say however the SQ of the Alpha version is identical to the Beta version which will soon be coded. Ed offered me the opportunity to receive this first version for evaluation. It took me less than a nanosecond to say "yes" to his offer.
Before I begin a few things need to be mentioned.....first off, I know that all of us have been waiting patiently for the release of XDMS. Having the alpha version merely had parts of the software that were still inoperational as they have yet too be coded for the beta version . So, in essence I got a complete idea as to where this was all heading even though full access was forthcoming.
I received an invitation from Team Viewer just as we did for TAS and in a few short minutes the XDMS app was installed. It is important to note that XDMS is for iPad only and not iPhone. Further the job of starting with a clean slate became a long and arduous process as the Taiko team realized just how much infrastructure there is behind each app screen. As a result, when I received my version this past week Ed still spent 2-3 hours debugging some of my screens. Initially things were fine but we could only pay PCM and hires files but not DSD. This disappointed me but Ed asked me to leave Team Viewer open as he talked to Wilson who found the bug and eliminated it. I was up in Los Angeles Saturday and by the time I returned DSD was playing fine on my Extreme all the way to DSD 512. Then Ed discovered that there was some sort of update to a RAM app that was being used. Ed felt there would be an improvement to update this which he did but once done I no longer could play DSD. After sitting on line with me for several hours Ed found the bug after much trial and error was able to eliminate it and restore the integrity of my XDMS.
There were also a few glitches on the Mac being able to sign into Tidal and Qobuz but Ed too found and fixed the bugs.FWIW TIDAL works perfectly fine with XDMS as it has been down for a few weeks using the TAS player. So Tidal is restored and played perfectly. Here's another pearl.....te Taiko team included a 3rd streaming service Calle Adagio which is only Classical Music done with the original masters and CD quality only. I must admit that after downloading the free version Adagio and really liking it, I went on to order a full paid subscription. So I now have 3 streaming services on XDMS
Once the XDMS app is installed I still had to wait a few days for ed and Christiaan to finish the coding so that they could deliver the Alpha version to me. I received this on Saturday and have been hidden for the past 2 days in my audio room listening.
What I would like to do first however is to share some screen shots of the pages in the app and what is behind each page. There is still much to do from my perspective but I have always said, that for me, it is and always will be the best SQ that I chase. So before I discuss what I heard, let me share with everyone some screen grabs of the app pages. I will conclude with SQ at the end because, as the saying goes, you always save the best for last and this is no exception.
For those of us who are Extreme owners we all know that the pie in the sky called XDMS has been under production for the better part of 2 years. For those of us who have been ardent adopters of TAS we all know just how much better TAS is sonically than Roon. The downside over these past few years has been the antiquated platform and the long gap between tracks which for classical musical enthusiasts has been a non sequitur such that they continued to use Roon as they await the final release of XDMS.
FWIW, we were all of the understanding that XDMS was to have surfaced in May and here we are in September and it still has not been completed. Talking to Ed and Emile this task of creating new and better software as well as eliminating the gaps and provide even better SQ than TAS. This started with several coders at Taiko commencing this long and arduous process. Winston, who is based in Toronto worked diligently with Ed in France and I also understand a Romanian team of skilled coders. Everything was going well until Covid hit wiping out many members of the team and thus slowing the process to bring the project to conclusion. In fact the team discovered something in their coding which they felt adversely affected the SQ which was unacceptable and 6 weeks of coding was thrown out and things started over.
This past week Ed and I were talking and he told me that they were finally ready to release a "alpha" version ready for users of TAS. I asked Ed about the "Beta" version which in fact is drafted but hasn't been coded yet. Suffice it to say however the SQ of the Alpha version is identical to the Beta version which will soon be coded. Ed offered me the opportunity to receive this first version for evaluation. It took me less than a nanosecond to say "yes" to his offer.
Before I begin a few things need to be mentioned.....first off, I know that all of us have been waiting patiently for the release of XDMS. Having the alpha version merely had parts of the software that were still inoperational as they have yet too be coded for the beta version . So, in essence I got a complete idea as to where this was all heading even though full access was forthcoming.
I received an invitation from Team Viewer just as we did for TAS and in a few short minutes the XDMS app was installed. It is important to note that XDMS is for iPad only and not iPhone. Further the job of starting with a clean slate became a long and arduous process as the Taiko team realized just how much infrastructure there is behind each app screen. As a result, when I received my version this past week Ed still spent 2-3 hours debugging some of my screens. Initially things were fine but we could only pay PCM and hires files but not DSD. This disappointed me but Ed asked me to leave Team Viewer open as he talked to Wilson who found the bug and eliminated it. I was up in Los Angeles Saturday and by the time I returned DSD was playing fine on my Extreme all the way to DSD 512. Then Ed discovered that there was some sort of update to a RAM app that was being used. Ed felt there would be an improvement to update this which he did but once done I no longer could play DSD. After sitting on line with me for several hours Ed found the bug after much trial and error was able to eliminate it and restore the integrity of my XDMS.
There were also a few glitches on the Mac being able to sign into Tidal and Qobuz but Ed too found and fixed the bugs.FWIW TIDAL works perfectly fine with XDMS as it has been down for a few weeks using the TAS player. So Tidal is restored and played perfectly. Here's another pearl.....te Taiko team included a 3rd streaming service Calle Adagio which is only Classical Music done with the original masters and CD quality only. I must admit that after downloading the free version Adagio and really liking it, I went on to order a full paid subscription. So I now have 3 streaming services on XDMS
Once the XDMS app is installed I still had to wait a few days for ed and Christiaan to finish the coding so that they could deliver the Alpha version to me. I received this on Saturday and have been hidden for the past 2 days in my audio room listening.
What I would like to do first however is to share some screen shots of the pages in the app and what is behind each page. There is still much to do from my perspective but I have always said, that for me, it is and always will be the best SQ that I chase. So before I discuss what I heard, let me share with everyone some screen grabs of the app pages. I will conclude with SQ at the end because, as the saying goes, you always save the best for last and this is no exception.
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
first off, the Playlist function is part of the Beta version soon to be coded 
Last edited:
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
At the top right are two buttons
Discovery
Concert
Concert mode has much shorter gaps than Discovery\but functionality such as shifting order of tracks in the queue is not allowed
Discovery
Concert
Concert mode has much shorter gaps than Discovery\but functionality such as shifting order of tracks in the queue is not allowed
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
At the top right are two buttons
Discovery
Concert
Concert mode has much shorter gaps than Discovery\but functionality such as shifting order of tracks in the queue is not allowed
Discovery
Concert
Concert mode has much shorter gaps than Discovery\but functionality such as shifting order of tracks in the queue is not allowed
I was not aware of the Idagio-service...
Tried it out (free version) and immediately discovered some interesting content.
Seems like a good complement to Qobuz - if it has enough unique content I might become a subscriber - for now I'll be a leech on free-version and use it for Discovery and transfer findings to my Qobuz-playlists.
Tried it out (free version) and immediately discovered some interesting content.
Seems like a good complement to Qobuz - if it has enough unique content I might become a subscriber - for now I'll be a leech on free-version and use it for Discovery and transfer findings to my Qobuz-playlists.
