It has taken me the past 6 hours to break away from my sound room as I felt the following post was going to detail something special and I was pondering as to what I should call this following post.........
WTF Did I Just Hear
I need a Depenz As I Just Peed My Pants
I'm Pinching myself to Be Sure I'm Not Dreaming
Or
I Heard NSM
As many know I have been in Hawaii for the past week and haven't had a chance listen to my system until yesterday after 9 day absence. I turned everything on and let it warm up for an hour and had a great couple of hours listening to XDMS mainly and a finally a few demo tracks on Roon. I thought honestly both were excellent and I understand the dichotomy of preferences here at WBF. It's a flavor and both to my ears sounded excellent.
I woke up this morning with a text >>>>"do I want NSM installed"
That was when I called for the Depenz and said 'Duh' 
As always it happened via Team Viewer and I watched the install which took less than 10 minutes and a few trouble shooting minutes confirmed something that another Taiko member heard I, had the same problem and an instant patch was done and it was business as usual
I was told that I am only the 6th person in the world to hear NSM so I was stoked as I have been awaiting this since it was announced in June
For now NSM is being used over the XDMS control app until Monday when there will be a new control app specific for NSM. My XDMS app is Build 81 and Scanner version 95 ( the latest)
Before signing off, I asked if there is any thing that I should avoid and was told not to use the forward button on the mini player but was told how for now to stop what you are playing and how to advance to whatever track you wish to play. It was no big deal.
As soon as I played the first file I knew immediately I was hearing something special
Thats when I said "WTF did I just hear?"
Cut to the chase and to try to put some understanding to what I heard the best comparison is this. Yesterday when I listened to XDMS and Roon, I felt both were equal and pick your flavor. Today I can say in no uncertain terms that NSM has not only equalled the beauty of Roon but sonically it was giant steps ahead of not only Roon but so also XDMS
That's when I said "I'm Pinching myself to Be Sure I'm Not Dreaming"
To address Roon, which I felt essential, as I admittedly have bias to XDMS, I found Roon when compared to NSM sound somewhat grainy and distant and veiled when compared to NSM
I played 4 different demo discs that I always use and in every format. I can tell you that it didn't matter what format was being played as the SQ was so magnificent.
But here is the interesting part, NSM has a Roon sound to it but so much better
As the saying goes, you cannot unring a bell once heard and such was the case with NSM
I have referenced many files I play to demo certain features and heard me talk about Duende by Black light syndrome . The deep bass from about 17-33 seconds is the best resolution I have ever heard. I made the same statement a few weeks ago when Emile didi the fix for the Roon update problems and added some NSM special sauce. Well today it was the best I've heard by a long shot.
Forget the proverbial deeper, wider...etc, etc what was immediately noticeable in no particular order was huge improvement in
Decay, texture, and micro detail. I was , as the saying goes hearing things I had not noticed before. The snap of the drum skins and the sound coming off a plucked guitar string literally brought me to attention. What I am pretty certain I also heard with respect to XDMS was a reduction in high frequency noise which somehow must have been affecting the signal as I once again found the need to reduce the gain on my preamp. Beyond that I have no idea what Emile, Ed, Pavel and especially Wilson have been doing as unbeknownst to me NSM has been a complete rewrite of XDMS by Wilson
Al of the above brings me back to memories several years ago when with a new update the SQ of Roon took a nose dive and there was great discussion in the Taiko Extreme thread as to cause. Several days later Emile posts something to the effect that he did some research into the cause and proudly said with no hesitation that he felt he could produce a product such as Roon but with only one thing in mind and that wa stop deliver the best SQ. That caught my attention. Too thereafter TAS was introduced by Emile to start the ball rolling and I blame an alpha tester and have been on this amazing Taikoride through TAS, then every control app build and scanner update of XDMS which has now received Qobuz licensure and hopefully Tidal too to follow at which time I gather NSM alpha will be introduced. I would encourage anyone who is on the band wagon still with respect to Roon and switching to XDMS, updating to NSM is an absolute must I listened for hours and everything I played brought such a sense of presence that I knew that Emile long go promised the two biggest sonic upticks were to be
NSM followed by the Battery Power Supply which he felt would bring the biggest sonic uptick to date with the promise that NSM is going to become better still
After today I believe this and am convinced that Emile and his amazing Taiko team are on the verge of breakthrough in advancing the state of digital audio and I a looking forward to Emile's presentation on Wednesday
For now I can deal with the fact that the forward button doesn't work because today was a day in digital that I never knew possible and I say this from someone who prior to obtaining my Extreme was virtually all analogue. To say that Taiko has reached the sound of analogue has been reached by NSM is still a stretch but it used to be a hop, skip and a jump
I, for one, cannot wait to hear the BPS and as I understand it there is an easy field installable version and a one box version. My interest lies with the latter for no other reason that I have run out of shelf space
For now however, once all the alpha users who huddle every day in Discord helping to iron out the bugs and make great suggestions, if you are given the chance to have NSM installed on your system, I can tell you the hype with this update is more than I ever imagined possible, yet I find myself saying the same thing with each Taiko update. So run, don't walk the the opportunity presents itself
BTW, having NSM is backward incompatible if you wt to go back to compare although Ed said there are 4 files which can be installed that allows one to go back to XDMS
TBH, once you hear NSM, you won't feel the need to listen to XDMS and compare. I certainly don't
For now there are 3 assigned alpha users of NSM and I am privileged to be one of them. I have no idea who the other two are
My kudos to Emile, Ed and the great Taiko team. The past few years watching all of this happen has been a privilege for all of us devoted users
OK, I've said enough and am going back to listen.
and that's when I said, "I heard NSM"
