DOES ANYONE REGRET BUYING A TAIKO EXTREME SERVER? ANYTHING BETTER?

[dminches]

Bob has been a staunch XDMS fan since the start. Perhaps he can comment here. I haven’t been active on the Taiko thread for a few months but I recall Bob saying XDMS does not compare to Roon.
You can run both on the Extreme so use whatever you prefer. In my system it’s not even close: Roon sounds terrible in comparison to XDMS (note that I don’t mean to say Roon is terrible sounding - only when compared to XDMS is it far worse)

Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

Save this "end game" post and see if in 2026 it was the "end game":p The Taiko Train will be rolling for a long time! Im out of shelf space so that could be my escape clause :D

www.whatsbestforum.com

 

[Zeotrope]

This is because they broke something in the last XDMS update. You can’t read into these recent posts. Remember that XDMS is still in the alpha version.
I recall Bob preferring XDMS as recently as a few months ago, when the network card was installed.

 

[wil]

This is because they broke something in the last XDMS update. You can’t read into these recent posts. Remember that XDMS is still in the alpha version.
I recall Bob preferring XDMS as recently as a few months ago, when the network card was installed.

You need to read the Taiko thread, lol! Both Roon and XDMS are improving through the Extreme. Some prefer one over the other at this particular moment in time.It’s all good.

 

[Zeotrope]

You need to read the Taiko thread, lol! Both Roon and XDMS are improving through the Extreme. Some prefer one over the other at this particular moment in time.It’s all good.

It’s definitely all good and you can use either. But the preference of Roon is for UI/UX reasons or other reasons not related to SQ.
As an XDMS tester I can tell you no one on the Discord forum prefers Roon. Yes, there is a current issue that has affected XDMS SQ it seems; but you don’t draw conclusions from that.

 

[Rhapsody]

This is because they broke something in the last XDMS update. You can’t read into these recent posts. Remember that XDMS is still in the alpha version.
I recall Bob preferring XDMS as recently as a few months ago, when the network card was installed.

I preferred the sound of XDMS after the net card installation. Since then I have added the switch, router and DCD along with all of the recent sw updates. At the moment Roon sounds better to me in my system(s), but it is user and system dependent from hearing that others prefer XDMS even after installing the latest hw and sw updates.

 

[dminches]

It’s definitely all good and you can use either. But the preference of Roon is for UI/UX reasons or other reasons not related to SQ.
As an XDMS tester I can tell you no one on the Discord forum prefers Roon. Yes, there is a current issue that has affected XDMS SQ it seems; but you don’t draw conclusions from that.

The Taiko team just did a system update and the majority of users prefer XDMS over Roon.

I have been part of the XDMS Alpha team since the beginning and continue to use XDMS to help out the development. However, right now I prefer Roon. When the NSM version of XDMS is released my guess is that I will prefer that over Roon and never look back.

 

[Zeotrope]

Ok, I stand corrected! Never thought that in a span of a few months, the excitement over how much better XDMS sounded over Roon would flip!
This is a good example of what makes digital so crazy.
As mentioned, you can switch between Roon and XDMS easily with the Extreme, so it doesn’t matter.
But I will bet the team at Taiko will make XDMS superior to Roon when it finally launches.
(I’m listening mainly to vinyl since getting the Nagra a few months ago, so I haven’t been active on the Extreme thread…)

 

[Rhapsody]

I "flipped" over to Roon "momentarily" after adding the Router and the DCD. When I had the switch, sans Router/dcd I still preferred XDMS.

 

[kennyb123]

There are plenty of Taiko extreme owners stating on that thread that the latest Roon sounds better than the latest XDMS. To them, Roon is the better optimized software

It’s also been mentioned that improvements are coming to the sound quality of XDMS. Once the dust settles, I suspect more might end up favoring it.

 

[flkin]

Anyone compared Pink FAUN Ultra to Taiko Extreme? I have not but when I am done with obtaining preamp I will do a test Taiko/Pink faun to hear how diffrent they are in my system. Read that acoustical music is better with Pink Faun and the rest somewhat better with Taiko. Any thoughts on this subject?

I don’t think anyone has compared the latest Extreme (with XDMS, Switch, Network Card, Router) to the Pink Faun.
I briefly looked at the PF before deciding to buy the Extreme - it didn’t seem to be in the same league (which may be fine, it’s less expensive). But if a streamer doesn’t have optimized software, then it’s not going to be as good as one that does. Roon doesn’t cut it if you’re trying to build the world’s best streamer.

That comparison doesn't make any sense, unless you add another $15K worth of network infrastructure to the Pink Faun as well. The products should be evaluated on their own merits.


There are plenty of Taiko extreme owners stating on that thread that the latest Roon sounds better than the latest XDMS. To them, Roon is the better optimized software

I use a modified version of the Pink Faun 2.16x streamer with 3 Ultra OCXO clocks built in and haven't tried the Extreme in my system so I cannot give a direct personal comparison. But I have to say I have heard the Extreme a few times in other systems and cannot conclude it is clearly better. Perhaps quite the opposite actually.

Even though it is an option, nobody that uses the Pink Faun uses Roon but uses a custom version of Euphony instead. The sound of Pink Faun's Euphony is an order of magnitude better than Roon.

One feature of PF's Euphony is that it can load an entire playlist of Tidal, Qobuz or local files into RAM prior to playback. This means there is no further ethernet usage for music during playback. To reduce ethernet activity further, there is an option to power off the ethernet hardware of the motherboard / LAN card during playback for the duration of the playlist.

Once the playlist is consumed, the software powers the LAN hardware back on, reconnects to the network and allow controls to work again. This effectively converts the streamer into a traditionally disconnected CD player thereby suffering none of the sound problems of networks nor needing the complicated myriad of network cleaning devices.

To test if this disconnection system works, I've disconnected the LAN cable from the streamer during playback and could not hear the difference in sound in my own system.

Until I have an Taiko Extreme in my own system for a direct comparison, I cannot say it is any better or any worse than my own Pink Faun. Outside, I haven't heard anything to suggest the Extreme is any better.

 

[Rumpole]

One feature of PF's Euphony is that it can load an entire playlist of Tidal, Qobuz or local files into RAM prior to playback. This means there is no further ethernet usage for music during playback. To reduce ethernet activity further, there is an option to power off the ethernet hardware of the motherboard / LAN card during playback for the duration of the playlist.

Once the playlist is consumed, the software powers the LAN hardware back on, reconnects to the network and allow controls to work again. This effectively converts the streamer into a traditionally disconnected CD player thereby suffering none of the sound problems of networks nor needing the complicated myriad of network cleaning devices.

That seems like a good approach. Are there any other streamers that buffer the download to RAM for playback?

 

[nonesup]

Taiko does it

 

[Zeotrope]

Even though it is an option, nobody that uses the Pink Faun uses Roon but uses a custom version of Euphony instead. The sound of Pink Faun's Euphony is an order of magnitude better than Roon.

One feature of PF's Euphony is that it can load an entire playlist of Tidal, Qobuz or local files into RAM prior to playback. This means there is no further ethernet usage for music during playback. To reduce ethernet activity further, there is an option to power off the ethernet hardware of the motherboard / LAN card during playback for the duration of the playlist.

Once the playlist is consumed, the software powers the LAN hardware back on, reconnects to the network and allow controls to work again. This effectively converts the streamer into a traditionally disconnected CD player thereby suffering none of the sound problems of networks nor needing the complicated myriad of network cleaning devices.

To test if this disconnection system works, I've disconnected the LAN cable from the streamer during playback and could not hear the difference in sound in my own system.

Until I have an Taiko Extreme in my own system for a direct comparison, I cannot say it is any better or any worse than my own Pink Faun. Outside, I haven't heard anything to suggest the Extreme is any better.

The network auto disconnect is interesting. How do you control playback while it‘s disconnected?

 

[kennyb123]

Are there any other streamers that buffer the download to RAM for playback?

Squeeze on Antipodes (and maybe other platforms) seems to do it as music continues to play after disconnecting the network cable.

 

[matthias]

Are there any other streamers that buffer the download to RAM for playback?

Audirvana for sure and apparently Spotify Premium

 

[flkin]

The network auto disconnect is interesting. How do you control playback while it‘s disconnected?

Once the LAN is off, you can’t control the music until the playlist is finished and the LAN turns back on. But there is a shortcut to restart connection by pressing the streamer power button once.

Pretty sure most players buffer some part of the music prior to playback. The unusual thing is to buffer the entire playlist including multiple streaming files and then switching off the power to the LAN.

I’m not aware this is available outside the latest version of Euphony v4. And only recently this function works fully. In the past for streaming tracks they only buffered a max of 2 - probably to handle gapless playback.

Once fully buffered, the RAM then seems to act as a high speed storage with direct access to the CPU. Probably one of the reasons why the choice and settings of the RAM affects the sound quality too. In my own tests, RAM voltage and RAM speed (over/under clock) affects the sound a great deal and it’s worth trying this out if it can be adjusted in the streamer’s BIOS.

 

[Kris]

I preferred the sound of XDMS after the net card installation. Since then I have added the switch, router and DCD along with all of the recent sw updates. At the moment Roon sounds better to me in my system(s), but it is user and system dependent from hearing that others prefer XDMS even after installing the latest hw and sw updates.

Same here in Europe !
For some reson I agree with Bob In many aspects.

 

[kennyb123]

The unusual thing is to buffer the entire playlist including multiple streaming files and then switching off the power to the LAN.

That requires tighter integration with the hardware as the software would need to have a sufficient amount of RAM available to accommodate an entire playlist.

Sound would be degraded while the buffer is being filled so some might argue it’s best to only fill the buffer during the silence between tracks. That doesn’t leave room for too large of a buffer.

Once the playlist is consumed, the software powers the LAN hardware back on, reconnects to the network and allow controls to work again.

I guess I should ask how that impacts playback. Do you have to wait for the playlist to be consumed before it starts to play?

What’s been fascinating to me is that XDMS doesn’t yet support gapless playback. I think that speaks to how difficult it is to fill RAM buffers only during the very short time between tracks. With gapless both the current and next track(s) need to be fetched and appended into a single continuous track. Not enough time exists between tracks to accomplish that. I suspect their gapless solution might lean somewhat on offloading XDMS processing to the Taiko switch so the noise generated from that network activity occurs on a separate box. Pure speculation on my part though and I’m guessing that I’m probably wrong about this. My reason in raising this was simply to point out that filling a buffer with an entire playlist sounds great in theory but it likely brings with it some tradeoffs, which may be why we don’t see others doing it.

 

[flkin]

That requires tighter integration with the hardware as the software would need to have a sufficient amount of RAM available to accommodate an entire playlist.

Sound would be degraded while the buffer is being filled so some might argue it’s best to only fill the buffer during the silence between tracks. That doesn’t leave room for too large of a buffer.
..

Yes it’s true you would need a reasonable amount of RAM to start with. I personally use 32G which is enough for many Redbook albums and can even fit an entire 512k album. The playlist I construct for the purpose of a listening session isn’t usually that large. Mostly 5-20 tracks per session and it’s a mix of locally stored and Tidal/Qobuz tracks.

The concept of a Euphony buffered playlist is to do the entire buffering prior to the start of the first song. So there is no network data during playback. For normal 44.1K resolution files it’s takes a second per track only to buffer. Tidal a little slower and Qobuz the slowest at say 3 seconds each. Not really much of a wait in total, mostly the buffering is complete in under a minute.

..
I guess I should ask how that impacts playback. Do you have to wait for the playlist to be consumed before it starts to play?
..

When I say consumed I meant that the entire playlist has been played. And not during the loading of the music into the RAM.

When I say the power down occurs, it’s not the entire motherboard, it’s only the LAN card/section of the board.

This way there is no network influence during playback and with the LAN card powered down, there is less electrical activity.

The steps are:

1 - select some tracks from local, Tidal or Qobuz into a playlist queue
2 - click the buffer and play button
3 - wait for the data to enter the ram
4 - once the loading is complete the LAN card (or part of the motherboard) powers down
5 - Playback of the queue starts. There is no music control
6 - once the queue finishes, the LAN powers back on and music controls work again

7 - optional: you can interrupt this by physically pressing the Pink Faun power button which causes the LAN to power back up. I never do this, mostly sit back, relax and enjoy the music. It’s a good feeling to remove controls during playback actually, less fiddling and more in the moment like in a real concert.

 

[Sampajanna]

This is a cool feature. How do you find the Euphony software experience in general?