Forgive the long post, but I wanted to share my experience of visiting Taiko Audio in Oldenzaal.
A little background first. My Extreme has been packed away for a year now for house renovations, so I’ve been following developments here with greater than usual interest. I hope my report here will give something back, for all the reports I've been reading (albeit with some jealousy).
It was such a pleasure to meet Emile in person as our previous contact had only been through messaging. I was also able to meet the whole Oldenzaal team and tour the factory to see how the Extreme’s come together. There were 8 in the process of production when I visited.
I was then able to spend some time in the new listening room (still a work in progress with acoustic treatment).
While I was there, I was able to hear XDMS for the first time and to hear the new switch. The system was using the new battery power supply for the Extreme, and this was in place for all my listening.
My visit coincided with the release of a new XDMS update which Emile advised was a significant upgrade over the previous iteration, the product of some six weeks of recoding. Emile said only one customer had this version of XDMS at the time of my visit on 23 November.
As I didn’t want to take up too much of Emile’s time, the listening session focused on A/B comparisons using a small number of tracks.
We started using Roon, first listening without the switch and then with the switch. I can report that the switch made a dramatic improvement in the sound. It may sound a bit clichéd, but the effect of the switch seemed very like focusing a camera lens: everything became clearer and it it was easier to discern the subtleties of the music.
Memory is a tricky thing, but at the time, the improvement in sound provided by the switch seemed to me to be significantly larger than the improvement I remember hearing after installing the new USB card and TAS.
We then changed tracks and listened using Roon with the switch and then using XDMS with the switch. Moving to XDMS improved the sound further by a significant degree. The bass in particular was clearly more extended and articulate, and overall dynamics were improved.
The final comparison we did was to listen to another track with XDMS with the switch and then without the switch. The surprising result was that listening using XDMS without the switch sounded significantly better than with the switch. In particular I felt that voices were more natural sounding and the sound was more three dimensional.
It was not just me who thought the sound was better without the switch. Emile agreed that the combination of XDMS and the switch is no longer always an improvement compared to just XDMS. He explained that before the latest XDMS upgrade, the addition of the switch improved the sound but not nearly as much as it did with Roon. He suggested that, before, when using Roon, the switch was a 'must have' while using XDMS the switch was a 'nice to have'.
Emile explained that the XDMS and switch combination was not providing the same improvement due to the focus on coding the Extreme to improve the sound of Roon while XDMS presents a different profile to the switch. Emile said he needs to do about 50 hours of coding to ensure the switch will work optimally with XDMS as it does now with Roon. I’m not technically literate so I’ll leave it to Emile to correct or clarify my reporting of this.
Since my visit I touched base with Emile and he has advised via email:
'I am pleased to be able to report that since your visit we've already adjusted the code to make the switch a significant improvement for XDMS as well, it now builds on XDMS by increasing its clarity even further and it improves dynamics and bass extension!'
It was real pleasure to visit Oldenzaal, and to hear the progress being made in improving sound quality. I now understand why many of you are raving about XDMS and the improvements in sound quality you are hearing. As someone with no technical smarts, I am awed by the improvements in sound being achieved through coding.
I am also looking forward to hearing the revised set up of the switch and XDMS to see what extra magic Emile is now delivering. A visit to the Munich High End show in May may be on the horizon!
Michael
BTW I can highly recommend Qobuz downloads. The quality has always been great and they are usually also the most affordable option.
parttimeaudiophile.com
