Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[Steve Williams]

Well I just had to call it a day for now as Ive been stuck to my seat unable to move. (Good thing for Depenz ). I too have my faithful demo disks that have been with me for well over 15 yers and I know every note of every song. Today was an eye opener that I just don't know how or leader pulled this one out of his magic hat. Im mesmerized. Simply put this is a must have
@Rhapsody, @dminches...I am convinced that one's preferences are system sdependent as well as personal. For me I can say that the tube rolling I have done with my Horizon in the past 6 months along with a few other tweaks , along with the Taiko router and DCD with chosen filters has brought me to the place I enjoy most and that is XDMS. Yes I listened to Roon and it is spectacular so one can't go wrong but fir me, following the Taiko audio path has not only been fun and informative (much of which is above my pay grade), but the enjoyment I get from digital now is something I never thought possible
Here are some initial thoughts of XDMS and what I heard today
- Presence, presence, presence.....you are there. Ive said it before but there seems to be a layer of fog lifted off (sorry for the cliche) - that makes, the dynamics, timbre, tone so real that the sound stage is 3D and holographic. The bloom of the note coming off a - plucked guitar string left goose bumps
- No brightness at the top end and a deep bass that I never knew achievable because I have never heard it before until today
- Mid range magic !!!

if BPS is going to trump this, I say bring it on but for now if you XDMS users want to experience some magic (Roon users too) this patch is a must have

 

[cat6man]

OK, I’m going out on a limb here and say I’m experiencing the opposite to what you’re hearing. XDMS updated, to me, sounds much softer/silkier and less dynamic as though the music is slowed down. I’m sensitive to timing more than frequency for some reason and the update is not thrilling me.

Now you may point to the lower quality of my system which I accept compared to many of WBFs systems. I have also yet to listen to Roon after the update due to previous issues with Roon and I have guests coming to listen tomorrow to XDMS.

My precious post commenting on improved SQ after update relates to the increase in resolution and detail and the above comment after a day listening.

I have no idea why I am not hearing increased dynamics, liveliness, or ‘mind blowing improvements’.

I do not have the switch/net card or router/ddc which could be the reason.

Any thoughts guys?

cheers
barry

you are hearing what i hear, it seems. i absolutely agree with the feeling of slowing down time, and i have always loved it and associate it with the more micro detail i'm hearing, which makes notes/chords sound 'longer', as if time has slowed. but i'm hearing notes decaying longer into the silence, which keeps me more intensely following the music. i hear an increase in delicacy and soundstage integration, so prominent instruments no longer have the same centrality and dominance, which is related to dynamics.

so i think you are hearing something like what i'm hearing, and as i said, it may not be everybody's cup of tea for this reason.
as for me, i'm in heaven.

fyi--totalDAC tri-unity, fed by battery powered sotm usb->aes/ebu reclocker followed by totalDAC sublime reclocker==>DAC

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...yes, the decay is *very* tasty. The Ellington and Bobby Hutcherson titles give a lot of that. I didn't frame it as slowing down, but I know what you mean, and that is a way to describe it...that insight and dynamic flow. Very tasty.

 

[Taiko Audio]

OK, I’m going out on a limb here and say I’m experiencing the opposite to what you’re hearing. XDMS updated, to me, sounds much softer/silkier and less dynamic as though the music is slowed down. I’m sensitive to timing more than frequency for some reason and the update is not thrilling me.

Now you may point to the lower quality of my system which I accept compared to many of WBFs systems. I have also yet to listen to Roon after the update due to previous issues with Roon and I have guests coming to listen tomorrow to XDMS.

My precious post commenting on improved SQ after update relates to the increase in resolution and detail and the above comment after a day listening.

I have no idea why I am not hearing increased dynamics, liveliness, or ‘mind blowing improvements’.

I do not have the switch/net card or router/ddc which could be the reason.

Any thoughts guys?

cheers
barry

Hi Barry,

Reach out to support@taikoaudio.com tomorrow and we’ll reverse it for you, no problem!

 

[cat6man]

...yes, the decay is *very* tasty. The Ellington and Bobby Hutcherson titles give a lot of that. I didn't frame it as slowing down, but I know what you mean, and that is a way to describe it...that insight and dynamic flow. Very tasty.

MB--i just added the ellington to my test folder, then created a flac version. the difference is not subtle and you're missing a lot (imho) with the flac.........try a WAV version of the ellington track and let us know if you hear what i hear.

 

[Kingsrule]

MB--i just added the ellington to my test folder, then created a flac version. the difference is not subtle and you're missing a lot (imho) with the flac.........try a WAV version of the ellington track and let us know if you hear what i hear.

I don't know what your system is all about but I find it very difficult to distinguish between Flac and WAV files in my system. U have always raved about WAV files but I'm very dubious, especially with Extreme serving up my files. FYI because of your WAV vs. Flac position I have downloaded/converted to both formats for many albums. The differences between the two formats is very subtle at best. Seems like u enjoy your contrarian position to be contrarian IMO...

 

[cat6man]

I don't know what your system is all about but I find it very difficult to distinguish between Flac and WAV files in my system. U have always raved about WAV files but I'm very dubious, especially with Extreme serving up my files. FYI because of your WAV vs. Flac position I have downloaded/converted to both formats for many albums. The differences between the two formats is very subtle at best. Seems like u enjoy your contrarian position to be contrarian IMO...

I'm not sure why this has you bent out of shape. Systems are different as are listening preferences. Audio buds who have visited my house are unanimous that local wav is clearly preferable to local flac, listening to my speaker system. I find the differences even more obvious with a high resolution headphone, the stax SR-009.

I only mentioned this to MB because he heard very much what I hear from the update and he was listening to flac files, which made him a good candidate to see if his system displayed the differences that I hear.

Perhaps your system does not exhibit the same differences in SQ that I perceive. Perhaps the differences are simply not important relative to your listening preferences/values. Perhaps you listen to types of music where these differences are not as noticeable or sonically important.

I'm not interested in a public debate. Please contact me privately if you wish to discuss this further. As for your comments that I enjoy taking a contrarian position, I call bullshit.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...I may revisit the .flac vs. .wav evaluation at some point. I have some .wav files, but very few. I recall reading Emile was downloading .wav from Qobuz and that's a strong reference.

Perhaps 6-7 years ago, testing the concept of streaming for the first time with a WD Red NAS/RaspberryPi into my Luxy SACD dac, a long-time friend who records professionally (engineering side), and is knowledgeable about the arguments, recommended .flac. I read around a bit and settled on that format. Could have gone either way.

If the "guts" are both lossless, I guess we are thinking the electronic energy required to "unwrap" the .flac wrapper is the source of the sonic difference. I'm not qualified to claim a technical position either way.

That said, I'm sure we would find proponents on both sides. Maybe similar to DXD or DSD vs. PCM: folks feel strongly about one vs. the other. I have excellent versions in all formats.

It's food for thought. I may review a few things in .wav and .flac for the comparison. How much better can all this stuff get? It's already kind of mind-blowing, frankly. I appreciate inbound comments that suggest opportunities for gains, however small. That's part of the game. Cheers, fellas.

 

[nuway]

In my case,the latest Roon update has not affected me that bad since I have been listening to local music lately, and did not notice any major differences in local SQ before and after the Roon update. What I noticed was a discernible decreased in streaming SQ when compared to my local counterpart after the update when recalled months back. This is not happen before Roon update where both local and streaming were very, very closed . Emile update not only brought back streaming SQ to what it was before , in my short listing sessions and in my system, but I feel more spaciousness and bass definition in my local reference tracks now. Great job Emile and Taiko Team

 

[Music2move]

I seldom write, though HAVE read almost all posts on this Topic here.

Historically, have both EMM Labs XDS1v3 ( updated from v2 ) then Nagra Tube DAC w Classic PSU. Running XDMS v81 now into Nagra Tube DAC, and previously Roon into EMM ( Meitner driver ), then also updated manually to Roon v.1353. Also couldn't access any DAC on Roon, kept Audio Device ( DAC )"disappearing",...until I realised that Ed had selected as Nagra Tube DAC as Taiko Audio Device , so Switched Nagra Tube back ON and rebooted Taiko.

Then had to go back to Roon Settings Audio and VERY quickly grab Taiko-Nagra ASIO driver in Roon , activate it, then BOTH drivers (ASIO), and select the Taiko-Nagra . Lo and behold...both were available to freely select between them, within Roon. AND the previous XDMS selected change to Roon ( on Extreme Player settings ) was auto-selected back to XDMS!! ( without me intervening)

Now listening to both Roon into EMM and then Roon into Nagra ( from Roon v1353 on Taiko ), sounds different of course though both better ( system and DACs produce slightly different sound pictures, both great IMO ), and XDMS v81 into Nagra sounds VERY close to Roon v1353 into Nagra Tube DAC w Classic PSU.

Await the new "fix " from Taiko ( Ed ) tomorrow, looking forward to it !!

Anyway, thought I would mention this, as there seem to be alternate ways to solve some problems, but I sure do need help from Taiko a lot with these rapid-fire updates from everywhere .

M2m

 

[Taiko Audio]

We are resuming applying updates now!

It would greatly help us if you supply teamviewer codes from the Extreme itself, we don't need access to your remote desktop.

If you have a or our router in front of the Extreme and send us teamviewer codes from an upstream device we cannot remote into the Extreme from there.

The fastest solution is to either install VNC on your Ipad, or other device you use to control your Extreme, VNC into the Extreme, click the teamviewer icon on the desktop, and send us a screenshot of the codes displayed on your screen. Alternatively you can bypass the router temporarily till we have applied the update!

 

[Blue58]

Hi Barry,

Reach out to support@taikoaudio.com tomorrow and we’ll reverse it for you, no problem!

Hi Emile, no need to roll back, I’ll continue to tweek my system to get the best out of it and know there’ll be updates down the line.

However if I may add that the ‘slowness’ is very similar to when I used an apodising filter in HQP compared to the imo superior linear filters. I also had to turn the bass level down a notch on the Duo subs, not the quickest subs in the world.

You‘re all doing a fantastic job and look forward to installing the switch soon.

cheers
barry

 

[Taiko Audio]

Hi Emile, no need to roll back, I’ll continue to tweek my system to get the best out of it and know there’ll be updates down the line.

However if I may add that the ‘slowness’ is very similar to when I used an apodising filter in HQP compared to the imo superior linear filters. I also had to turn the bass level down a notch on the Duo subs, not the quickest subs in the world.

You‘re all doing a fantastic job and look forward to installing the switch soon.

cheers
barry

What I could do for you is just rollback the network tuning part temporarily till you get networkcard / switch package. It is possible this part can work out subjectively negatively with some switches.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Repeat of the announcement for those who missed it:

Update availability announcement for all Extreme servers:

It's been a hectic 72 hours here at Taiko HQ but I'm happy to be able to announce the availability of a software update to address the changes brought by the much discussed latest 1353 build of Roon software, and XDMS.

You can now reach out to support@taikoaudio.com to request your Extreme to be updated. You will be served faster if you include teamviewer codes, preferably directly into your Extreme, and use "Roon update request" as the subject of your e-mail, the update process itself takes anywhere between 2 minutes and 30 minutes depending on how fast we'll be able identify the nature of your support request and to actually teamview into your Extreme.

This update does not only boost the sound quality of Roon build 1353 but it also includes an improvement for XDMS. It applies to ALL Extreme server setups, with or without the Extreme network card, switch, router and/or dc distributor, running Roon 1353, XDMS or both.

This update does not include the previously announced "NSM" upgrade for XDMS, it adjusts the Extreme operating system to work more efficiently with the current version of XDMS.

For Roon it both increases sound quality back to where it was before the 1353 release, and according to us and a few early beta testers, even beyond where we were with build 1311, but also improves the interface responsiveness. 1353 is, in our humble opinion, actually a superior release over earlier builds, it just operates in a different way which requires a change to how our operating system handles it's new process flow.

Now there are some caveats, it does appear to have an increased sensitivity to other Roon cores/endpoints in your network. If you own the Extreme router this still applies as we allow Roon traffic to pass through the router. We will need to have a good think on how to approach this in the future. For now we will have a firmware update available shortly to address the Wi-Fi disabling when being "pushed" out by other Access Points with much stronger transmission power. The 1352 interface has a few responsiveness issues still, regularly closing and reopening the remote app helps with that, I assume this will be fixed in a near future Roon update.

The bottom line is, if maximum sound quality is desired, you should shut down any other Roon cores/Endpoints in your home..

We expect further improvements in Roon sound quality and remote performance with undoubtedly upcoming Roon fixes and reduction in what appears to be extensive debug logging to an otherwise quite nice release!

For XDMS, NSM is still to follow, which is a huge undertaking as it requires a complete rewrite of years of coding, so please try to exercise patience on this, meanwhile with this update you'll have a very nice sonic upgrade to XDMS which may equal the actual uplift NSM brings on it's own.

Khyle, Ed (if available) and Christiaan will be handling most of the upgrades today/tomorrow, I'll be headed off to a Sting concert in Germany later today but will return for the weekend to personally upgrade as many systems as possible, I'm confident we'll have most people up to date before next week.

As always we'd appreciate your honest feedback on this update, it helps us to evaluate our process and if we're headed in the right sonical direction.

P.S. Please try to provide our support team with TeamViewer codes of the Extreme itself, that will significantly reduce the load on our support team.

 

[Blue58]

What I could do for you is just rollback the network tuning part temporarily till you get networkcard / switch package. It is possible this part can work out subjectively negatively with some switches.

I don’t use any switch at all so maybe that’s a reason. Leave as is as my switch should be here next week. Thanks Emile.

 

[Taiko Audio]

I don’t use any switch at all so maybe that’s a reason. Leave as is as my switch should be here next week. Thanks Emile.

That would make it depend on the switching functionality of your router, I'd be more then happy to do it as it would provide me with a good datapoint! I'm just shy of begging here

 

[Blue58]

OK TV codes coming over now to Support.

 

[Malcng]

In the absence of any problems and being generally very satisfied with my setup, I now discover that I have become complacent and have been reminded over the past two days that both sound quality and customer service from Taiko are just ridiculous.

I was catching up on here last night about the new fw update for Extreme and fired off an email to support just to enquire as to whether I needed it as I wasn’t experiencing any problems. I expected a reply sometime next week but, as I sat down to dinner with my wife a few minutes later, I noticed a response from Taiko Support saying that they couldn’t access my Server. WTF! This is Friday night! I got scolded by my wife for tapping away on my phone at dinner - but this was important. I apologised and explained to Taiko Support and, having been told that the update was in my best interest, I asked when we could do it. I was told tomorrow. So this morning, I opened up a session and emailed in at 8:30 am saying ready when you are. 15 minutes later and my machine is up to date. Just unbelievable, I’ve never experienced anything like it. So how does it sound? Well, I need more time but one thing just smacks me in the face - clarity. Amazing clarity. Incredible. How can they keep on improving things is beyond me, but I like it and that high price of entry seems a much easier choice now just having the knowledge that I never again need to worry about my source being up to the task.

So, talking of sound quality, I visited a high end AD on Thursday in order to audition a very highly regarded headphone amp but left feeling very disappointed. On reflection though, I’m not convinced it was necessarily the amp but the source which was the issue. I was using a dCS Rossini Apex Player with Master Clock with the dCS control app. Most would concur that this is a very decent source but, having lived with Extreme into Horizon for so long now, I was a little shocked by just how far below what I hear at home this setup was.

My system has warmed up now and I am very impressed with what I am hearing. Amazing, thank you Taiko.

Edit - Roon remote access using an iPad seems much improved. Near instantaneous response. Definitely get the update done.

 

[engadin]

Thanks to team Taiko and Emile himself performing the update!

To my considerable surprise, now roon sounds better here.
For some reason, XDMS somehow lacks dynamics, excitement now.
I wonder what might got wrong.
No need to go back to the sw before the update, as roon is now pretty listenable and should improve further with the arrival of my Taiko router & dcd. To be replaced with XDMS NSM, some day, ascending to even higher sound quality, no doubt.

A few dumb questions, sorry for that.
1, how do I find the Extreme teamviewer codes?
2, disabling other roon cores: even my bloody tv set appears in roon settings, audio. Should I disable my ipad? Or is it necessary to have an enabled ipad to control roon in the Extreme?
3, in the XDMS settings there is logout/restart/shutdown. Extreme restart is equivalent to restart from Extreme front button.
Should I restart XDMS and roon here?

One last remark: while my t+a dac with included streamer isn’t bad, I did need the Taiko extreme, switch and continuously developing software to achieve emotional content from a digital source. Something I cannot thank enough for.

 

[John T]

In regards to the back and forth Roon/XDMS SQ: I remain neutral. I like having both. I seem to remember an older post from Emile how system dependence can play a major role as to which is preferred or how they can be perceived...