Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

I believe Emile has answered that question here :

Well, I don't see how Emile's answer about internet radio has to do with the BPS + BMS + Batteries inside the current Extreme.
 
Well, I don't see how Emile's answer about internet radio has to do with the BPS + BMS + Batteries inside the current Extreme.
Click on the link and all shall be revealed!
 
Well, I don't see how Emile's answer about internet radio has to do with the BPS + BMS + Batteries inside the current Extreme.

This should be the correct post.

Steve Z
 
I missed that post. He had the idea that the external BPS would have a size similar to that of the current Extreme, due to the "large number of cells needed" to be able to play 24 hours. How the hell did they manage to fit the 3 PCBs + all the battery cells in the small space that the current PSU occupies? Wow !
 
I missed that post. He had the idea that the external BPS would have a size similar to that of the current Extreme, due to the "large number of cells needed" to be able to play 24 hours. How the hell did they manage to fit the 3 PCBs + all the battery cells in the small space that the current PSU occupies? Wow !
That was a later development, initially indeed thought impossible, but later, Emile succeeded anyway:)
 
This week's XDMS Alpha release warrants a special announcement!

XDMS Alpha Build 36 promises quite an array of fixes and new features, among which some are long-awaited! Below are a few of the most interesting fixes and additions:

? Enable adding individual tracks to playlists for local library albums
? Create playlist from search Page
? Track results now link to the associated album in progress
? Display library statistics for the “Clear XDMS DB and Scan” function in the box next to the button
? Extreme Restart button
? Extreme Shut Down button
? XDMS restart button

And last but not least:
? Single-toggle Switch from Roon to XDMS and back :)

Note that although the functionality is there, and importantly, the XDMS-Roon toggle was well-tested and does indeed work, more thorough testing may reveal that some aspects may need tweaking. But if there are any lingering issues, these will be next on the list to solve.
 
This week's XDMS Alpha release warrants a special announcement!

XDMS Alpha Build 36 promises quite an array of fixes and new features, among which some are long-awaited! Below are a few of the most interesting fixes and additions:

? Enable adding individual tracks to playlists for local library albums
? Create playlist from search Page
? Track results now link to the associated album in progress
? Display library statistics for the “Clear XDMS DB and Scan” function in the box next to the button
? Extreme Restart button
? Extreme Shut Down button
? XDMS restart button

And last but not least:
? Single-toggle Switch from Roon to XDMS and back :)

Note that although the functionality is there, and importantly, the XDMS-Roon toggle was well-tested and does indeed work, more thorough testing may reveal that some aspects may need tweaking. But if there are any lingering issues, these will be next on the list to solve.

Outrageous! Things like this should be published on the XDMS Alpha feedback board, not dangled tantalisingly in front of those who can only sit and wait patiently for their turn. ;)
 
Outrageous! Things like this should be published on the XDMS Alpha feedback board, not dangled tantalisingly in front of those who can only sit and wait patiently for their turn. ;)
Hahaha, yes, totally! Sorry about that! :) :) :) But the XDMS-Roon single-switch toggle was too eagerly awaited for me to confine that news to Discord only (where I will post the complete release documentation shortly).
 
Hahaha, yes, totally! Sorry about that! :) :) :) But the XDMS-Roon single-switch toggle was too eagerly awaited for me to confine that news to Discord only (where I will post the complete release documentation shortly).
Small paradigm shift for XDMS!
 
Hello,
Some customers asked me news about the Taiko TACDA/TACDD project with Totaldac.

I talked with Emile, we think that because AES-EBU has no limit in the Totaldac design there is no point integrating a Taiko board in the Totaldac DACs or reclocker. It is just equivalent when this board is mounted in the Taiko server.
So for the best sound from a Taiko + Totaldac system, a Taiko server should be equipped with the future Taiko AES-EBU output (based one of the new TACDA/TACDD board).
The link from the Taiko server to a Totaldac DAC or Totaldac reclocker would be AES-EBU.

The best result should be found when using a d1-digital-sublime reclocker, which is the reclocker developed for the new d1-sublime DAC.
You can find some talk about this DAC and reclocker here: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/totaldac-new-dacs.36082/page-4
 
Hahaha, yes, totally! Sorry about that! :) :) :) But the XDMS-Roon single-switch toggle was too eagerly awaited for me to confine that news to Discord only (where I will post the complete release documentation shortly).
reading about this new build seems to suggest that we are close to being out of alpha phase of development

Looking forward today to a full day of listening as this build looks to be one of the most dramatic to date
 
This week's XDMS Alpha release warrants a special announcement!

XDMS Alpha Build 36 promises quite an array of fixes and new features, among which some are long-awaited! Below are a few of the most interesting fixes and additions:

? Enable adding individual tracks to playlists for local library albums
? Create playlist from search Page
? Track results now link to the associated album in progress
? Display library statistics for the “Clear XDMS DB and Scan” function in the box next to the button
? Extreme Restart button
? Extreme Shut Down button
? XDMS restart button

And last but not least:
? Single-toggle Switch from Roon to XDMS and back :)

Note that although the functionality is there, and importantly, the XDMS-Roon toggle was well-tested and does indeed work, more thorough testing may reveal that some aspects may need tweaking. But if there are any lingering issues, these will be next on the list to solve.
Great news,
This week's XDMS Alpha release warrants a special announcement!

XDMS Alpha Build 36 promises quite an array of fixes and new features, among which some are long-awaited! Below are a few of the most interesting fixes and additions:

? Enable adding individual tracks to playlists for local library albums
? Create playlist from search Page
? Track results now link to the associated album in progress
? Display library statistics for the “Clear XDMS DB and Scan” function in the box next to the button
? Extreme Restart button
? Extreme Shut Down button
? XDMS restart button

And last but not least:
? Single-toggle Switch from Roon to XDMS and back :)

Note that although the functionality is there, and importantly, the XDMS-Roon toggle was well-tested and does indeed work, more thorough testing may reveal that some aspects may need tweaking. But if there are any lingering issues, these will be next on the list to solve.
Great news, Christiaan, thank you! And to employ this cornucopia of improvements, all an Alpha Tester need do is update via Test Flight, correct?
 
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Hello,
Some customers asked me news about the Taiko TACDA/TACDD project with Totaldac.

I talked with Emile, we think that because AES-EBU has no limit in the Totaldac design there is no point integrating a Taiko board in the Totaldac DACs or reclocker. It is just equivalent when this board is mounted in the Taiko server.
So for the best sound from a Taiko + Totaldac system, a Taiko server should be equipped with the future Taiko AES-EBU output (based one of the new TACDA/TACDD board).
The link from the Taiko server to a Totaldac DAC or Totaldac reclocker would be AES-EBU.

The best result should be found when using a d1-digital-sublime reclocker, which is the reclocker developed for the new d1-sublime DAC.
You can find some talk about this DAC and reclocker here: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/totaldac-new-dacs.36082/page-4
That is a great idea as this will also enable all of us to use it with any DAC that is eqipped with AES input.
But the question I have is that this will NOT require the new format ?
It will be internally converted to AES EBU signal any way.
Will sending the signal from Extreme to TotalDac with AES be as good as
using a new Taiko Digital format?
 
Great news,

Great news, Christiaan, thank you! And to employ this cornucopia of improvements, all an Alpha Tester need do is update via Test Flight, correct?
I guess there are a few bugs to squash first with Build 36 as Wed seems to be the target for its release
 
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That is a great idea as this will also enable all of us to use it with any DAC that is eqipped with AES input.
But the question I have is that this will NOT require the new format ?
It will be internally converted to AES EBU signal any way.
Will sending the signal from Extreme to TotalDac with AES be as good as
using a new Taiko Digital format?
I prefer to let Emile talk about the format that he would use when the Taiko board is mounted in a DAC.
Totaldac is optimum with AES-EBU anyway.
 
Hahaha, yes, totally! Sorry about that! :) :) :) But the XDMS-Roon single-switch toggle was too eagerly awaited for me to confine that news to Discord only (where I will post the complete release documentation shortly).
i appreciate you posting it here. I would not have seen it otherwise (although I suspect it would have appeared here eventually).
 
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I think it would be interesting to re-read Emile's explanations about his new DAC-Server interface.

For some time, the question on many people’s collective minds was: “When will Taiko bring some form of DAC to market?”
As you all know we have been advocating the use of the USB interface to connect to your DAC while most other server vendors advocate the use of SPDIF/AES/I2S and in a few rare cases Ethernet. The reasons for this are pretty straightforward.
You aspire to meet or exceed cd transport playback performance for 16/44.1 files at a competitive retail price level. This first issue you will run into is a quite obvious one, you need a very significantly larger amount of PCB real estate, functionality and processing power which require much more filtering to have competitive electronics noise levels. You could argue that a CD transport comes with additional expense for rotational stability and vibration control (jitter) but then you're disregarding the streamer hardware possibly being equally sensitive to this, but you do have the luxury of the

absence of a motor. Then you need an interface to the DAC. Very low noise SPDIF/AES/I2S solutions have been around for decades with not much, if any, mystery surrounding their sound quality performance. And obviously, using the same interface as a CD transport, it becomes easier to approach a CD transport sound signature. However, with a limitation of a 24/192 data rate over a single line, and due to how the interface works, increased noise levels at higher sample rates. Typically, this interface will not sound better for higher sample rate files than 16/44.1 (note that the source master quality tends to exceed any of these differences at all time), and worse than 16/44.1 with DSD/DXD files due to the need of significant conversion processing. Ideally you have managed to have CD transport quality playback, for all sampling rates... To us this has been an unacceptable approach from day 1, which is why we went all in on USB. USB data packet rate is fixed and does not change with sampling rate, the interface is universal, the interface sound signature does not change with sampling rate, and it's the same for all receivers, or at least, that was the design goal... Today we know and have proven this is not true. Sure, we have developed an USB card with noise levels at or below those of an AES/SPDIF/I2S interface without the jitter/timing sensitivities of those interfaces. But still there were deviations and discrepancies from expected performance. It took designing our own USB driver, querying all DACs our customers support, and designing our driver to be adjustable to... different implementations of USB receivers in DACs. This was quite an elaborate project, but as you have all witnessed the performance delta can be dramatic. However, as you also all know by now is that the playback software has its signature too, and Roon's signature has changed over time. Roon currently sounds more expansive than the average CD transport, but also softer and less clear, and some prefer this over CD, some don't. We now have XDMS (currently in Alpha state) to level the playing field once more. For 16/44.1 (local file playback), XDMS on the Extreme sounds like a mix of CEC TL0 3.0 timing, Kalista color shading, and the bass of a Mark Levinson 31.5. We like to think that what we have today is competitive performance at 16/44.1 to top flight CD transports, and we deliver on the promise of better performance at higher sample rates (again assuming corresponding master quality).”
 
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I think it would be interesting to re-read Emile's explanations about his new DAC-Server interface.

For some time, the question on many people’s collective minds was: “When will Taiko bring some form of DAC to market?”
As you all know we have been advocating the use of the USB interface to connect to your DAC while most other server vendors advocate the use of SPDIF/AES/I2S and in a few rare cases Ethernet. The reasons for this are pretty straightforward.
You aspire to meet or exceed cd transport playback performance for 16/44.1 files at a competitive retail price level. This first issue you will run into is a quite obvious one, you need a very significantly larger amount of PCB real estate, functionality and processing power which require much more filtering to have competitive electronics noise levels. You could argue that a CD transport comes with additional expense for rotational stability and vibration control (jitter) but then you're disregarding the streamer hardware possibly being equally sensitive to this, but you do have the luxury of the

absence of a motor. Then you need an interface to the DAC. Very low noise SPDIF/AES/I2S solutions have been around for decades with not much, if any, mystery surrounding their sound quality performance. And obviously, using the same interface as a CD transport, it becomes easier to approach a CD transport sound signature. However, with a limitation of a 24/192 data rate over a single line, and due to how the interface works, increased noise levels at higher sample rates. Typically, this interface will not sound better for higher sample rate files than 16/44.1 (note that the source master quality tends to exceed any of these differences at all time), and worse than 16/44.1 with DSD/DXD files due to the need of significant conversion processing. Ideally you have managed to have CD transport quality playback, for all sampling rates... To us this has been an unacceptable approach from day 1, which is why we went all in on USB. USB data packet rate is fixed and does not change with sampling rate, the interface is universal, the interface sound signature does not change with sampling rate, and it's the same for all receivers, or at least, that was the design goal... Today we know and have proven this is not true. Sure, we have developed an USB card with noise levels at or below those of an AES/SPDIF/I2S interface without the jitter/timing sensitivities of those interfaces. But still there were deviations and discrepancies from expected performance. It took designing our own USB driver, querying all DACs our customers support, and designing our driver to be adjustable to... different implementations of USB receivers in DACs. This was quite an elaborate project, but as you have all witnessed the performance delta can be dramatic. However, as you also all know by now is that the playback software has its signature too, and Roon's signature has changed over time. Roon currently sounds more expansive than the average CD transport, but also softer and less clear, and some prefer this over CD, some don't. We now have XDMS (currently in Alpha state) to level the playing field once more. For 16/44.1 (local file playback), XDMS on the Extreme sounds like a mix of CEC TL0 3.0 timing, Kalista color shading, and the bass of a Mark Levinson 31.5. We like to think that what we have today is competitive performance at 16/44.1 to top flight CD transports, and we deliver on the promise of better performance at higher sample rates (again assuming corresponding master quality).”
Note that Totaldac doesn't use at all the clock transported by the AES-EBU link, it uses exclusively the data. The clock is built completely in the Totaldac DAC or reclocker.
 
Note that Totaldac doesn't use at all the clock transported by the AES-EBU link, it uses exclusively the data. The clock is built completely in the Totaldac DAC or reclocker.
Is there a need for the quality digital signal that comes out of the Extreme to be clocked (or reclocked) by any DAC regardless of the interface used to transport the signal? Asking as a novice, as I would hope that the only thing that really needs to happen (ideally) is for it to be converted to analog with as little processing as possible, but I don’t know what can be gotten away with, and it may be interface- or format-dependent.
 
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Note that Totaldac doesn't use at all the clock transported by the AES-EBU link, it uses exclusively the data. The clock is built completely in the Totaldac DAC or reclocker.
That is of course very good, but if I have not misunderstood Emile's explanation, for frequencies higher than 44.1 noise is generated in the conversion process.
 

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