Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[Christiaan Punter]

Please trust that at Taiko, we want all the same things as users have expressed here and in the Discord threads. XDMS is a work in progress and we are committed to making it better and better. We absolutely intend for XDMS to dot all the i's and cross all the T's but some developments take more time than others.

We have implemented Bins as this was necessary to facilitate the reliable and robust browsing of large libraries. We will introduce an A-Z ribbon for more direct browsing and when we find a solid way to browse large libraries without needing bins, then we will entertain the idea to make them optional.

Following the chat about software development costs, I can confirm that the XDMS app will remain free for owners of an Extreme Music Server.

 

[steve williams]

Following the chat about software development costs, I can confirm that the XDMS app will remain free for owners of an Extreme Music Server.

Game, set and match. Congrats to Team Taiko Where are the naysayers now

 

[kswanson27]

Please trust that at Taiko, we want all the same things as users have expressed here and in the Discord threads. XDMS is a work in progress and we are committed to making it better and better. We absolutely intend for XDMS to dot all the i's and cross all the T's but some developments take more time than others.

We have implemented Bins as this was necessary to facilitate the reliable and robust browsing of large libraries. We will introduce an A-Z ribbon for more direct browsing and when we find a solid way to browse large libraries without needing bins, then we will entertain the idea to make them optional.

Following the chat about software development costs, I can confirm that the XDMS app will remain free for owners of an Extreme Music Server.

Are you saying Bins/Buckets will be with us indefinitely?

 

[cat6man]

No, he said until they come up with something better. Plus they are adding an alphabetical slider.
What would you like to see implemented?

Full disclosure:. I only use folders so I have no dog in this fight.

Are you saying Bins/Buckets will be with us indefinitely?

 

[kswanson27]

No, he said until they come up with something better. Plus they are adding an alphabetical slider.
What would you like to see implemented?

Full disclosure:. I only use folders so I have no dog in this fight.

That's not the way I read it. CP is talking about "entertaining the idea" to make them optional. Anyway, let's go back to Discord to talk about this further.

 

[bryans]

Game, set and match. Congrats to Team Taiko Where are the naysayers now

LOL this is so funny.

 

[EuroDriver]

XDMS is now playing Hi Res streams from Qobuz

We look forward to SQ reports from the Alpha Testers

 

[Rhapsody]

It's night and day from a few hours ago.

Edit- I had started switching and comparing Roon recently as XDMS with Qobuz wasn't sounding special to me. I was liking Roon as much or better than XDMs. But try XDMS now. Night and day vs Roon or what XDMS sounded like earlier today.

 

[steve williams]

XDMS is now playing Hi Res streams from Qobuz

We look forward to SQ reports from the Alpha Testers

Powered on and warming up. As Ed explained to me, the sample rate can be seen on the DAC but XDMS control app is still showing 16/44.1
Ed says this display info will be fixed this week

 

[cat6man]

XDMS is now playing Hi Res streams from Qobuz

We look forward to SQ reports from the Alpha Testers

the sound is glorious!

 

[steve williams]

For me it is as if nothing changed. Back to where things were before. The down time gave me a lot of extra moments to revisit my own internal files which stream just as fine as ever

 

[ctydwn]

For me it is as if nothing changed. Back to where things were before. The down time gave me a lot of extra moments to revisit my own internal files which stream just as fine as ever

Living vicariously while away from the system for 5-6 weeks…. are initial impressions that the hi-res files do in fact sound better via streaming than they did before today’s update via XDMS (previously all 16/44)? Also, DACs like the Pacific/Horizon of course do not tell u the res of the file being played making things a bit tricky to know for those in that camp.

 

[wil]

It's night and day from a few hours ago.

Edit- I had started switching and comparing Roon recently as XDMS with Qobuz wasn't sounding special to me. I was liking Roon as much or better than XDMs. But try XDMS now. Night and day vs Roon or what XDMS sounded like earlier today.

Night and day with regards only to high res or the sq of xdms streaming in general? I wonder what would account for the drop in sq and then what would account for the sudden rise?

 

[oldmustang]

Night and day with regards only to high res or the sq of xdms streaming in general? I wonder what would account for the drop in sq and then what would account for the sudden rise?

I haven't read of any widespread consensus, or even scattered comments, about a dip in XDMS sound quality other than Bob's from alpha testers. I haven't experienced any dip in SQ with XDMS in the last week or two.

I'd expect that being able now to successfully access high-resolution files in Qobuz via XDMS might result in an uptick in reported sound quality, once more alpha testers have had a chance to do so. I haven't yet had the time to put this to the test as I took my DAC out of the rack today to take it to the dealer to have the dCS APEX upgrade installed tomorrow. So my observations of SQ attributable to XDMS development going forward for a few days at least are going to be somewhat unreliable since I expect (hope!) that the APEX upgrade will prove to be the major upgrade most APEX users have said it is.

Steve Z

 

[romaz]

I’m glad to hear this. I’m really impressed a company like Taiko could invest in software development to support what must be a tiny community. What’s the ROI here (forgive the Bay Area lingo, it’s Return on Investment)? How many Taiko Extreme servers have been sold? I’m guessing a few hundred at best, perhaps I’m wrong. For comparison, Lampizator made an extraordinary effort at designing the Horizon DAC, a no holds-barred design, but seems to have sold a few dozen, not surprising to me given its cost. So, out of this relatively small Taiko community, how many would opt for XDMS over Roon? Again. an even smaller number. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled that Taiko is taking the effort to design the Extreme server, both the heroic effort needed for hardware and the software. But the ROI? It can’t be financially all that profitable. Other than a sheer labor of love, which is highly creditable, is this going to financially rewarding to keep them in business?

Emile will correct me if I'm wrong but XDMS wasn't developed so that "a few hundred" could enjoy a boost in SQ, it was created out of necessity and as a means of being able to control Taiko's destiny so that it would not be beholden to the whims of 3rd parties who do not prioritize SQ. For those of us who purchased our Extremes before April 2020, we were elated with Roon...and then this happened:

Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

I agree with you. I don't think it's an across the board improvement, particularly in the sub 30Hz region. Extension is good but transient rise and fall is very very slightly inferior to what I experienced with the penultimate build. I might be willing to give it the benefit of doubt in the...

www.whatsbestforum.com

A disastrous Roon update brought my Extreme to its knees and made it sound very average. @EuroDriver went on to the Roon forum and got soundly thrashed for even suggesting that a Roon update could alter SQ. That pretty much told me everything I needed to know, that no one at Roon is listening critically or else they are using music servers that are so densely opaque that their servers are incapable of revealing the sonic penalties of their actions. Emile was able to salvage the dip in SQ caused by Roon but he expressed privately that he might not be so lucky the next time. For someone like Emile who is so passionate about how the Extreme is voiced, it made sense that he would embark on this journey that has led to XDMS.

Has XDMS been more challenging and expensive than anticipated? My guess is absolutely yes. I think we were all optimistically hoping for XDMS to materialize by late 2020, then 2021, and here we are at the end of 2022 and we are still at the alpha stage with seemingly a long way to go. For those of us who have been on this journey, we know that roadblocks were encountered and discoveries were made resulting in the reset button being hit a few times causing delays but that is the nature of creating something from scratch and delving into uncharted waters with a perfectionist at the helm.

I'm guessing the naive Roman complained to Michelangelo why it was taking years and years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. They were possibly even questioning whether the "ROI" was worth it. I won't dare suggest that XDMS is a comparable undertaking or that the end result will be as glorious but I do expect that when all is said and done, XDMS will be just as important (if not more) to the Extreme as the hardware and will allow the Extreme owner to finally realize the full potential of their investment.

Those who don't own an Extreme or just recently received their Extreme won't fully grasp the significance of this last statement but those of us who have had to endure the Roon roller coaster and have now had a taste of XDMS understand better just how much Roon can hold the Extreme back and how important software is. I would agree, in the absence of any A/B comparisons, Roon right now is sounding perfectly competent but give them time because they'll surely find a way to f#ck it all up again and so I look at XDMS not as a cute alternative software player but as a necessary investment in infrastructure. The Extreme's hardware can be copied. It's already being attempted at the DIY level and there are now even commercial manufacturers who are selling high-powered multi-CPU servers for NOS file playback but what will always be the Extreme's trump card and what will allow its sophisticated hardware to be optimally utilized will be XDMS. As far as I can see, XDMS is not about "sheer labor of love" or mere "ROI", it represents a means for long term viability. XDMS had to happen.

 

[romaz]

If, as Christian says, XDMS is able to add a bit more organicity to the current sound, that would be amazing.
When XDMS makes me lose my temper and I end up switching to Roon, I don't really last long with it, the difference in sound is too big and I go back to XDMS. Now, in this thread I have read some time that there are those who think that over time XDMS could be a library manager similar to Roon in its utilities, I sincerely believe that this will never happen and that it would not even be logical for it to achieve it economically. Roon has been around for many years, has required a lot of financial investment, and charges a substantial amount for its software, while XDMS is (at least for now) free.
I'd just settle for it to maintain its high level of sound quality, and end up being a reasonably good library manager. I will have hope that it will be achieved, although I must admit that sometimes (seeing the evolution of alpha) it is hard for me to be optimistic.

Alpha testing is not ideal for those who are short-tempered.

For all of Roon's faults, it does many things right. It is a master library manager, it is feature-rich, very stable, and has what many consider to be an attractive and usable interface. It is a veritable jack of all trades. I agree with you, it's doubtful XDMS will ever fully match Roon's feature set but it won't be completely due to how many years Roon has been around or the financial investment that has been made because Emile and his group have already indicated that they will not incorporate features that negatively impact SQ and so you have 2 companies with different priorities. In the end, if some of Roon's features are too good to pass up, the Roon option will always be there but I think it would be wishful thinking to imagine that XDMS will ever match all of Roon's strengths.

 

[Rhapsody]

Night and day with regards only to high res or the sq of xdms streaming in general? I wonder what would account for the drop in sq and then what would account for the sudden rise?

Sorry, it was hi res that I was referring to on Qobuz, not all Qobuz streaming. I had been going back and forth with Ed and was focused on the hi res, but did not write it that way above.

Edit- Specifically I had been comparing with one album that was 48K Hz. On Qobuz and Roon I could not decide what I liked better. After yesterday afternoon XDMS made a major jump in the sound quality. I was stunned and had a hard time believing it, because I had been going back and forth between XDMS and Roon for three days with the same album and all of a sudden after Ed said "try it now", it sounded TOTALLY different to me. ymmv as always.

 

[Christiaan Punter]

Are you saying Bins/Buckets will be with us indefinitely?

To be clear, I am saying that the Bins will be there as long as we need them. We continue looking for more elegant solutions. When we find a better solution and they are no longer needed, then we need to discuss internally if they can indeed be removed. Ed likes the Bins and makes a case for them being handy to browse large libraries. That's why I mentioned potentially making them optional so that we can cater to both groups.

See also the below document that details what's implemented, to be implemented, and to be considered for later. An updated version of this document is dropped in the BLOG thread on Discord with every new Build.

 

[dminches]

Alpha testing is not ideal for those who are short-tempered.

For all of Roon's faults, it does many things right. It is a master library manager, it is feature-rich, very stable, and has what many consider to be an attractive and usable interface. It is a veritable jack of all trades. I agree with you, it's doubtful XDMS will ever fully match Roon's feature set but it won't be completely due to how many years Roon has been around or the financial investment that has been made because Emile and his group have already indicated that they will not incorporate features that negatively impact SQ and so you have 2 companies with different priorities. In the end, if some of Roon's features are too good to pass up, the Roon option will always be there but I think it would be wishful thinking to imagine that XDMS will ever match all of Roon's strengths.

This is a great post on many levels.

First, it is unlikely that the power of the Roon interface and all the information made available to the user hasn't negatively affected sound quality. For that reason alone XDMS will likely never match Roon in those 2 areas.

Second, some of the posts over in the Discord group seem to reflect that people have forgotten that this is an alpha release and not even beta. There is an expectation, at times, that all the features are there and working correctly. Part of me understands why since the Taiko team is unmatched in terms of customer service and quality. I do hope people relax a little as they work through their 2-mile-long to do list.

 

[Levitator]

Tonight I had a fantastic listening session using XDMS testing out a few of my high-res favourites. The SQ is really quite amazing, and I’ve never heard digital sound as good as this. I know there is more goodness to come, but really if the SQ were to stay where it is right now, I’d be more than happy!