Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[microstrip]

Indeed. Although a CD ripped with two different pieces of CD ripping software, or even with different settings in the software of choice can still sound different even though they appear to be bit-accurate.

Imagine we copy, transmit, process and reprocess the files, several times, always keeping bit accuracy. Will the sound signature keep along forever or will it be lost?

 

[Christiaan Punter]

Are you saying that streaming, such as Qobuz, is not bit perfect?

Copying a file is different from streaming or sending over USB, let alone over AES/EBU or other synchronous methods. But please note that "Bit Perfect" is not the whole story.

 

[Christiaan Punter]

Imagine we copy, transmit, process and reprocess the files, several times, always keeping bit accuracy. Will the sound signature keep along forever or will it be lost?

A straight-up copy action can theoretically be done endlessly with no consequences for the SQ. The crux is to stay out of the time domain.

 

[Christiaan Punter]

Thank you Christian for your response. So very interesting... all testing is done by listening. We should take out insurance on your ears!

Haha, well, I may well have done the most XDMS listening but I'm not the only one There are certain Alpha testers whose opinions are also highly valued and, of course, Emile is also overseeing things. With every new XDMS build, there is a core team testing the functionality of which I am part. The critical listening on my part is not done for every single build, but certainly every handful of builds, and I ring the bell when I find that the sound has suddenly changed. The thing is, since my system's sound has recently changed quite a bit, I have to build up a new reference point. But as far as I can tell with my changed system, the delta between my other digital sources and the Extreme using XDMS remains unchanged.

 

[Moladiego]

Haha, well, I may well have done the most XDMS listening but I'm not the only one There are certain Alpha testers whose opinions are also highly valued and, of course, Emile is also overseeing things. With every new XDMS build, there is a core team testing the functionality of which I am part. The critical listening on my part is not done for every single build, but certainly every handful of builds, and I ring the bell when I find that the sound has suddenly changed. The thing is, since my system's sound has recently changed quite a bit, I have to build up a new reference point. But as far as I can tell with my changed system, the delta between my other digital sources and the Extreme using XDMS remains unchanged.

@Christiaan Punter - It is critical to an exclusive classical music like me for XDMS to have 2 critical features: (1) gapless playing (disastrous to have a hiccup, no matter how brief, between nonstop movement progression, e.g., the magical transition from the 3rd movement to the 4th movement for Beethoven's 5th) and (2) the album page having an embedded PDF document icon (that you can open sung-texts or librettos) - these are the only 2 features that I like about Roon (which I otherwise detest for its inability to be exclusively bound by the grouping of tracks within an album - I wasted countless hours of trying to regroup the tracks). Could you please ensure that XDMS have these 2 features? I much prefer to have an UI that resemble Windows Explorer, rather than album covers. This is how I would search for albums: composer listing - under each composer's last name - titles of works (as organized by myself). I don't care about cover photos or Roon's Similar Artists, Credits or embedded links - understand they may be important for pop music listeners. You cannot please everyone to be sure.

 

[Steve Williams]

@Christiaan Punter - It is critical to an exclusive classical music like me for XDMS to have 2 critical features: (1) gapless playing (disastrous to have a hiccup, no matter how brief, between nonstop movement progression, e.g., the magical transition from the 3rd movement to the 4th movement for Beethoven's 5th) and (2) the album page having an embedded PDF document icon (that you can open sung-texts or librettos) - these are the only 2 features that I like about Roon (which I otherwise detest for its inability to be exclusively bound by the grouping of tracks within an album - I wasted countless hours of trying to regroup the tracks). Could you please ensure that XDMS have these 2 features? I much prefer to have an UI that resemble Windows Explorer, rather than album covers. This is how I would search for albums: composer listing - under each composer's last name - titles of works (as organized by myself). I don't care about cover photos or Roon's Similar Artists, Credits or embedded links - understand they may be important for pop music listeners. You cannot please everyone to be sure.

Are you on Discord. If not you should be as that’s where everything is discussed

 

[EuroDriver]

@Christiaan Punter - It is critical to an exclusive classical music like me for XDMS to have 2 critical features: (1) gapless playing (disastrous to have a hiccup, no matter how brief, between nonstop movement progression, e.g., the magical transition from the 3rd movement to the 4th movement for Beethoven's 5th) and (2) the album page having an embedded PDF document icon (that you can open sung-texts or librettos) - these are the only 2 features that I like about Roon (which I otherwise detest for its inability to be exclusively bound by the grouping of tracks within an album - I wasted countless hours of trying to regroup the tracks). Could you please ensure that XDMS have these 2 features? I much prefer to have an UI that resemble Windows Explorer, rather than album covers. This is how I would search for albums: composer listing - under each composer's last name - titles of works (as organized by myself). I don't care about cover photos or Roon's Similar Artists, Credits or embedded links - understand they may be important for pop music listeners. You cannot please everyone to be sure.

These two features are high priority for us as well.

Folder tree navigation is there, gap between tracks will be further reduced from about 1 second

 

[Moladiego]

These two features are high priority for us as well.

Folder tree navigation is there, gap between tracks will be further reduced from about 1 second

Good to know. True gapless (not even a fraction of a second). Thanks

 

[austinpop]

True gapless (not either a fraction of a second).

Yes, we need true gapless. It's the cold, hard truth.

I know how hard the Taiko team is working on this, and it took a lot for them to get the inter-track gap down to a fraction of a second in Concert mode. We truly appreciate their efforts, but it's important to keep emphasizing that for continuous music, the objective HAS to be 0 seconds, or it's not gapless.

 

[Moladiego]

Yes, we need true gapless. It's the cold, hard truth.

I know how hard the Taiko team is working on this, and it took a lot for them to get the inter-track gap down to a fraction of a second in Concert mode. We truly appreciate their efforts, but it's important to keep emphasizing that for continuous music, the objective HAS to be 0 seconds, or it's not gapless.

Absolutely. Classical music is full of gapless movement transitions - unless you want to have 1 track only for Beethoven's String Quartet #14 in C? minor - 7 movements played without a break (about 40 minutes). A hiccup, no matter how brief, would destroy the magic.

 

[microstrip]

Copying a file is different from streaming or sending over USB, let alone over AES/EBU or other synchronous methods.

Yes, but can you confirm that streaming is bit exact?

But please note that "Bit Perfect" is not the whole story.

Yes, I learned it since long in this thread. Otherwise I would not have bought the Extreme!

 

[cat6man]

Yes, we need true gapless. It's the cold, hard truth.

I know how hard the Taiko team is working on this, and it took a lot for them to get the inter-track gap down to a fraction of a second in Concert mode. We truly appreciate their efforts, but it's important to keep emphasizing that for continuous music, the objective HAS to be 0 seconds, or it's not gapless.

yes, absolutely 0 seconds to be gapless with the best SQ, even if this means more than one mode of operation may be required.
i know this will be contentious (YMMV) but i'd rank order
1. local file gapless + best SQ
2. streaming gapless + best SQ
3. huge file gapless + best SQ
4. other
if there had to be separate settings for each, i could live with that.
if there were internal switching between those different settings, that would be even better

 

[oldmustang]

Absolutely. Classical music is full of gapless movement transitions - unless you want to have 1 track only for Beethoven's String Quartet #14 in C? minor - 7 movements played without a break (about 40 minutes). A hiccup, no matter how brief, would destroy the magic.

Not just classical. There are countless examples of rock music with gapless transitions in musical flow from song to song, regardless of any track numbers assigned for convenience.

Steve Z

 

[jelt2359]

With my Holo May with 32 bit PGGB redbook files, more than half my music doesn’t play on XDMS (probably 80-90% doesn’t play)- is this related to the large file issue?

I’m perfectly ok with fully gapped playback, one second or not, as a start… the Holo May is just gathering dust now unfortunately.

 

[treitz3]

Yes, we need true gapless. It's the cold, hard truth.

I know how hard the Taiko team is working on this, and it took a lot for them to get the inter-track gap down to a fraction of a second in Concert mode. We truly appreciate their efforts, but it's important to keep emphasizing that for continuous music, the objective HAS to be 0 seconds, or it's not gapless.

Wouldn't that be up to the companies that stream? If they offered entire albums as an option, instead of individual songs, the gap would be gone by default.

Tom

 

[dminches]

Wouldn't that be up to the companies that stream? If they offered entire albums as an option, instead of individual songs, the gap would be gone by default.

Tom

What about all of our local files? Making everything 1 big file is not only impossible but right now XDMS can’t play files that are too big.

 

[treitz3]

Good point.

Tom

 

[CKKeung]

Somewhat off topic - I have a stack of CDs that I want to rip and save on the Extreme. Is it true that you can get a bit-perfect copy when you import a CD because the process of copying is not the same as the process of playing back?
Especially if you enable the additional error correction with the Music App on OSX, for example?

Good ripping hardware :

Ediscreation Ultra Silent Ripper : a CAS best-buy made by Edison Wong in Hong Kong

Following his Silent Switch OCXO, the Ediscreation Ultra Silent Ripper is another CAS best-buy made by Edison Wong in Hong Kong : https://nandeaudio.com/product/ultra_silent_ripper/ A friend of mine bought one last month. We together "opened-box" and tested ripping with different add-on...

www.whatsbestforum.com

 

[Christiaan Punter]

@Christiaan Punter - It is critical to an exclusive classical music like me for XDMS to have 2 critical features: (1) gapless playing (disastrous to have a hiccup, no matter how brief, between nonstop movement progression, e.g., the magical transition from the 3rd movement to the 4th movement for Beethoven's 5th) and (2) the album page having an embedded PDF document icon (that you can open sung-texts or librettos) - these are the only 2 features that I like about Roon (which I otherwise detest for its inability to be exclusively bound by the grouping of tracks within an album - I wasted countless hours of trying to regroup the tracks). Could you please ensure that XDMS have these 2 features? I much prefer to have an UI that resemble Windows Explorer, rather than album covers. This is how I would search for albums: composer listing - under each composer's last name - titles of works (as organized by myself). I don't care about cover photos or Roon's Similar Artists, Credits or embedded links - understand they may be important for pop music listeners. You cannot please everyone to be sure.

Discord is indeed the ideal place for posting XDMS functionality requests. Nevertheless, as Ed mentioned, your concerns are also our concerns

Please have a look at the "XDMS Alpha Build XXX Changes and Known Issues" documents that I frequently upload and pin there for the state of the software, the known issues, and the functionalities that we still intend to implement. For convenience, the latest doc can also be found below this post (but note that it will go out of date as we have weekly XDMS updates).

 

[Christiaan Punter]

Yes, but can you confirm that streaming is bit exact?



Yes, I learned it since long in this thread. Otherwise I would not have bought the Extreme!

I don't know whether or not streaming can be considered bit-perfect as the signal chain is unclear, and also, I don't have all the answers. But I guess even if it could theoretically be bit-perfect, for a given service it still might not actually be, due to any processing that may have taken place.