Taiko Audio XDMS - Extreme Direct Music Server Software

[EuroDriver]

@EuroDriver

I would like to join the Discord discussions as well

Check for PM for invite

 

[marty]

This is a belated note of thanks to Ed for installing NSM for me last week. He had quite a bit of trouble getting NSM to stream from Qobuz and not just my files. It turns out the problem was not with XDMS.NSM but with Test Flight which does not seem to work well with a Mac OS prior to OS12. The MacBook Air we used for the installation was a 2015 version with an older OS which puzzled Ed for a couple of days. With his usual grace and persistence, he figured it out and ended up installing NSM directly on the Extreme which solved the problem. I use an ipad mini for music listening and his installation on the MacBook Air worked seamlessly on the ipad.. Once again, Taiko's exemplary service and customer commitment is without peer. Thank you Ed.

 

[ctydwn]

Really love stumbling on feedback from folks here on this thread up on Taiko's website in this case specific to NSM...
fun to read it all in one place. Feel like Ed should have his own dedicated accolade page as well!
https://taikoaudio.com/taiko-2020/news/xdms-nsm-user-feedback/

 

[Steve Williams]

TRUE GAPLESS HAS ARRIVED !!!


Well as the lyrics go , "this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius" !!!

I woke up this morning and I can say without reservation gapless is not only here but it is absolutely perfect with immediate and smooth transition from one file to the next.

Gapless has been at the top of everyone's wish list since inception and Im proud to announce that the day has arrived.

A few days ago Ed installed the first version of the NSM gapless player on my computer which shortened the gap to 1 second. It was a start but just OK as they found a bug in the program. Well the genius of Ed and Wilson over the past 3 days has been inspiring as today Ed installed the patch Winston and he created and we listened to the entire Album, DSOTM and it was totally gapless even in "Discovery"mode

Kudos to the Taiko team who as always have found a way to make our wish list become a reality.

Im completely gobsmacked listening to this . Gapless on NSM is exactly as good as gapless on Roon

I bet Ed's messages. are going to light up today in our alpha users group as they also get to finally hear true gapless on Taiko NSM

What a way to start the day

 

[Christiaan Punter]

TRUE GAPLESS HAS ARRIVED !!!


Well as the lyrics go , "this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius" !!!

I woke up this morning and I can say without reservation gapless is not only here but it is absolutely perfect with immediate and smooth transition from one file to the next.

Gapless has been at the top of everyone's wish list since inception and Im proud to announce that the day has arrived.

A few days ago Ed installed the first version of the NSM gapless player on my computer which shortened the gap to 1 second. It was a start but just OK as they found a bug in the program. Well the genius of Ed and Wilson over the past 3 days has been inspiring as today Ed installed the patch Winston created and we listened to the entire Album, DSOTM and it was totally gapless even in "Discovery"mode

Kudos to the Taiko team who as always have found a way to make our wish list become a reality.

Im completely gobsmacked listening to this . Gapless on NSM is exactly as good as gapless on Roon

I bet Ed's messages. are going to light up today in our alpha users group as they also get to finally hear true gapless on Taiko NSM

What a way to start the day

Please note that while we do indeed have Gapless working, there are still a few kinks to iron out. Nothing major, but still, I don't think it is ready for broad roll-out. That said, we are very near, which sure has us super-excited!

 

[Steve Williams]

Please note that while we do indeed have Gapless working, there are still a few kinks to iron out. Nothing major, but still, I don't think it is ready for broad roll-out. That said, we are very near, which sure has us super-excited!

Me too. It sounds perfect

 

[Moladiego]

Please note that while we do indeed have Gapless working, there are still a few kinks to iron out. Nothing major, but still, I don't think it is ready for broad roll-out. That said, we are very near, which sure has us super-excited!

Wait for the official gapless rollout (classical music albums are full of gapless tracks). Also cannot wait for the imbedded PDF document feature in any album (to upload a PDF document for sung-texts and libretti, essential for listening to lieder art songs and operas). The gapless and this embedded-PDF-document-upload features are the only 2 features I miss about Roon. Personal: cannot care less about album photo view and only care about folder view. But XDMS/NSM is still full of bugs: it often cannot process or play DSD albums and often brings up irrelevant or wrong albums (as well as wrong album covers) in the queue. Cannot wait for the day when the 2 features plus the big bugs are overcome. Notwithstanding, I have long stopped using Roon because it cannot compete with XDMS (even the classic version) and NSM (especially) in SQ.

 

[Steve Williams]

I’ve never had the issue of not being able to play a DSD album in queue. I’ve learned to ignore the little bugs. My only interest is the best SQ and for my ears NSM is it True gapless today for my ears was every bit as good as Roon

Wait for the official gapless rollout (classical music albums are full of gapless tracks). Also cannot wait for the imbedded PDF document feature in any album (to upload a PDF document for sung-texts and libretti, essential for listening to lieder art songs and operas). The gapless and this embedded-PDF-document-upload features are the only 2 features I miss about Roon. Personal: cannot care less about album photo view and only care about folder view. But XDMIS/NSM is still full of bugs: it often cannot process or play DSD albums and often brings up irrelevant or wrong albums (as well as wrong album covers) in the queue. Cannot wait for the day when the 2 features plus the big bugs are overcome. Notwithstanding, I have long stopped using Roon because it cannot compete with XDMS (even the classic version) and NSM (especially) in SQ.

 

[Moladiego]

I’ve never had the issue of not being able to play a DSD album in queue. I’ve learned to ignore the little bugs. My only interest is the best SQ and for my ears NSM is it True gapless today for my ears was every bit as good as Roon

I have quite a few DSD albums that cannot be properly scanned, and therefore cannot be played in XDMS/NSM (just see those albums in NSM but cannot play them, but such albums can be played in Roon without any issue). Other DSD albums are scanned and can be played. I repeatedly rescanned those albums to no effect. Nor can NSM play a DSD4x album (the only one I have, NSM would skip the tracks or produce some scratching sound when a track is played; Roon has no issue with that album either). I sent a sample to Ed for diagnosis; I believe I have the latest scanner. But for the fact that I happen to have many DSD albums, I otherwise would not care about DSD - the vast majority (99%) of my albums are in WAV and the best sounding albums are all in WAV format, most often just simple Red Book format. The Hi-Res is often a hype in my experience. Even though Horizon is said to be a Sigma-Delta DAC, it reproduces WAV format in better SQ than DSD, as it seems to me subjectively. Disclaimer, I have no intention to engage in any debate about the merits of format superiority; all subjective experience on my part and I have no tech knowledge.

 

[Christiaan Punter]

I have quite a few DSD albums that cannot be properly scanned, and therefore cannot be played in XDMS/NSM (just see those albums in NSM but cannot play them, but such albums can be played in Roon without any issue). Other DSD albums are scanned and can be played. I repeatedly rescanned those albums to no effect. Nor can NSM play a DSD4x album (the only one I have, NSM would skip the tracks or produce some scratching sound when a track is played; Roon has no issue with that album either). I sent a sample to Ed for diagnosis; I believe I have the latest scanner. But for the fact that I happen to have many DSD albums, I otherwise would not care about DSD - the vast majority (99%) of my albums are in WAV and the best sounding albums are all in WAV format, most often just simple Red Book format. The Hi-Res is often a hype in my experience. Even though Horizon is said to be a Sigma-Delta DAC, it reproduces WAV format in better SQ than DSD, as it seems to me subjectively. Disclaimer, I have no intention to engage in any debate about the merits of format superiority; all subjective experience on my part and I have no tech knowledge.

Just to confirm we have some challenges with higher than DSD64 (1x rates) in XDMS, and we are working on this.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...as a datapoint: I played a half-dozen 4x DSD files last night, with no banshee-scream or track stop. I have NSM. However, some of these same files have had issues before. It's hit or miss. But very nice when working as intended.

 

[Steve Williams]

...as a datapoint: I played a half-dozen 4x DSD files last night, with no banshee-scream or track stop. I have NSM. However, some of these same files have had issues before. It's hit or miss. But very nice when working as intended.

I have yet to hear any screeching when I play DSD files. Maybe I am just selecting the ones that play but I have not heard any extraneous sounds

 

[oldmustang]

One more DSD anecdote, and admittedly a very small sample size so far but I've routinely played DSD128 files (the limit of my current DAC) with no bad behavior (so far!). One feature request -- and I've left it over on the Discord XDMS-NSM channel -- is the ability to play DSD files which originate from multiples of the 16/48 kHz family via upsampling, rather than just 44.1 kHz family DSD.

Steve Z

 

[theaudiogeek]

I do the NSM with gapless last night. Thank you Ed! I am noticing a much more refined sound quality. Not sure if its just me or if others also felt the same way? Just for the record, I had NSM installed previously which was outstanding in terms of sound quality.

 

[dminches]

One more DSD anecdote, and admittedly a very small sample size so far but I've routinely played DSD128 files (the limit of my current DAC) with no bad behavior (so far!). One feature request -- and I've left it over on the Discord XDMS-NSM channel -- is the ability to play DSD files which originate from multiples of the 16/48 kHz family via upsampling, rather than just 44.1 kHz family DSD.

Steve Z

Steve, can you explain why this is a unique situation? I thought DSD files are defined by their own resolution.

 

[oldmustang]

Steve, can you explain why this is a unique situation? I thought DSD files are defined by their own resolution.

When doing integer upsampling from 16/44.1 kHz (1fs) to lets say DSD64 (64fs) the resulting 1-bit file runs at a frequency of 64*44.1 = 2.882 mHz. A 48 kHz file will be 1-bit at 3.072 mHz. Not all players and not all DACs will handle the latter.

Steve Z

 

[Moladiego]

Just to confirm we have some challenges with higher than DSD64 (1x rates) in XDMS, and we are working on this.

The DSD albums (except 2) which cannot be scanned properly are all 1x DSD - I see them in the Folder view but they cannot be played (but can be played in Roon). I sent a sample to Ed @EuroDriver for diagnosis. Hope you can find a solution.

 

[EuroDriver]

The DSD albums (except 2) which cannot be scanned properly are all 1x DSD - I see them in the Folder view but they cannot be played (but can be played in Roon). I sent a sample to Ed @EuroDriver for diagnosis. Hope you can find a solution.

Moladiego's problem should be resolved by moving cover art and liner pdfs from a subfolder, to the parent folder where the music tracks reside

Stay tuned for Moladiego's report tomorrow

 

[Malcng]

I don’t know whether I am the last of the Mohicans in terms of finally jumping into XDMS, but Ed did the installation for me last Friday. We had a video call since my machine was Roon only and Ed was using a new installation tool. I have to say what a nice guy he is - and so calm and patient. Mind you, having read through this thread, he really needs to be.

Also, thanks to Khyle for his dogged perseverance in chasing it all down.

 

[Moladiego]

Moladiego's problem should be resolved by moving cover art and liner pdfs from a subfolder, to the parent folder where the music tracks reside

Stay tuned for Moladiego's report tomorrow

@EuroDriver Amazing! You apparently have solved the problem. What prevented proper scanning of the DSD folders was caused by having a photo subfolder in each album folder. For 2 albums, I followed Ed's direction to move the photos to the album parent folders and deleted the photo subfolders - now they can be played. Will do the rest to see all the problems will go away. Thanks, Ed, you are the best!