Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

cat6man

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Feb 6, 2013
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Thx Steve. I had not looked at the settings under "sw updates". You can control to ck for the updates and even check to have them downloaded automatically. Learn something new everyday:)

on android app, it downloads the LMS software update, but does not appear to install it

it says "afterdownloading, open the installer application and follow the on-screen instructions",
so i assume i have to vnc into my server and run the installer.

is this not the case for apple/mac folks?
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
on android app, it downloads the LMS software update, but does not appear to install it

it says "afterdownloading, open the installer application and follow the on-screen instructions",
so i assume i have to vnc into my server and run the installer.

is this not the case for apple/mac folks?
I use Mac and everything updated by pushing the "update now "button
 

Taiko Audio

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Roon doesn't do this because there is no track stop command? It's pretty unpleasant. Can i defeat the buffer in the Totaldac? Otherwise how can it be fixed?
No it doesn’t because it has delay functionality. Recommend switching back to Roon if it is unpleasant for now.
 

kswanson27

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Nov 21, 2018
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No it doesn’t because it has delay functionality. Recommend switching back to Roon if it is unpleasant for now.
Switching back to Roon would be giving up too much SQ. There must be a better way.
 

seatrope

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Mar 9, 2017
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Switching back to Roon would be giving up too much SQ. There must be a better way.
We have to all remember that this is still beta software! I'm struggling with the same issue - can't go back to Roon, but the pauses between tracks for operas and continuous music do disrupt immersion. But just flabbergasted at the improvement over Roon. I guess we just have to weigh the pros and cons to see which is more distasteful, for now, and hope that Emile and team can come up with a solution.

Regardless, we cannot expect performance at the level of a completed release from beta code, that's what we are here to test and discover.
 

kswanson27

Well-Known Member
Nov 21, 2018
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We have to all remember that this is still beta software! I'm struggling with the same issue - can't go back to Roon, but the pauses between tracks for operas and continuous music do disrupt immersion. But just flabbergasted at the improvement over Roon. I guess we just have to weigh the pros and cons to see which is more distasteful, for now, and hope that Emile and team can come up with a solution.

Regardless, we cannot expect performance at the level of a completed release from beta code, that's what we are here to test and discover.
Indeed, patience and Beta tests go hand in hand, a concept I do forget on occasion. And my particular problem is probably unique to my gear and its requirements. Like most of us in the Beta I'm just amazed at the sound quality TAS is putting out and how much I've been missing with Roon.
 

Taiko Audio

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I have created a flowchart to visualize the building blocks which make up TAS in an attempt to increase understanding of what is going on where. The green blocks are all our own code and/or under our control. The red blocks is not our code and/or not under our control.

TAS flowchart.jpg

I will now describe each block and it's purpose individually.

Starting with our own developed code:

1) "My Taiko Cloud" is a webserver hosted on the internet which enables functionality like discovery of the Extreme on your local network by the Taiko remote control app and it can host future TAS software updates which can be installed from the Taiko remote control app.
2) The "Taiko Remote Control App" provides the interface to remotely control the Extreme
3) The "Communication Protocol" is a secure protocol we designed to allow the remote control App and the Taiko Cloud to interface with the Extreme and to control all internal processes without any negative effects on Sound Quality. We had to design a new protocol from scratch as all the existing ones, like telnet and ssh for example, turned out to have quite an influence on Sound Quality. This protocol is partially responsible for negating negative influences from your network environment.
4) The "File Treatment Protocol" negates differences in where your files are sourced from and how they were created. It very significantly improves Sound Quality as a cherry on top, even of files on local storage. This part of TAS is responsible for the delays before a track or a batch of tracks start.
5) The "Serial Play Bridge" makes the "File Treatment Protocol" pre process one file at a time and then feeds that file to the "Extreme Direct Player".
6) The "Batch Play Bridge" makes the "File Treatment Protocol" pre process up to 25 files at a time and then feeds those to the "Extreme Direct Player", this causes a larger initial delay then the "Serial Play Bridge" but it will be able to play an Album gapless, the gapless feature is a phased development as we are working to make this to sound as close as possible to the "Serial Play Bridge".
7) The "HQPlayer bridge" is similar to the "Batch Play Bridge" but it places files into the HQPlayer playlist Queue in stead of feeding them to the "Extreme Direct Player".
8) The "Extreme Direct Player" is the file playback engine, aka "The Player" which plays files and outputs to the selected ASIO driver.
9) The "Taiko ASIO driver" is the driver which drives the output, typically USB but it can also drive AES/EBU or ASIO network protocols. Quote from wikipedia.org: Audio Stream Input/Output (ASIO) is a computer sound card driver protocol for digital audio specified by Steinberg, providing a low-latency and high fidelity interface between a software application and a computer's sound card.
10) The "USB firmware" controls the USB controller which we have under our control with our USB card scheduled to arrive here tomorrow, shipping to customers in a few weeks.

External code used, not under our control:

1) HQPlayer software, its main function is Realtime up-sampling.
2) Vendor supplied ASIO drivers, we have developed some means to control it / enhance its behaviour, but that control is limited to supported functionality.
3) Logitech Media Server and its Tidal and Qobuz plug-ins. This indexes and serves your music, provides metadata and is what you are currently using to browse and select the music you want to play. It therefor currently defines the look and feel of TAS. We are going to replace this with our own server application, but this will be relative large project and this will take time, not as much as it took us to develop and code the 10 parts listed above, but a considerable project nonetheless which now has to timeshare its development with support for over 100 BETA users. As you can understand we are willing to change some bits and pieces of code of Logitech Media Server to remediate the most urgent quibbles, but we are not putting significant resources into this particular part of TAS as we are going to replace it entirely a few months down the line. We are fully aware of its limitations, especially when compared to Roon, hence TAS will remain BETA code until we finish coding our own server application.

I hope this provides more insight into the TAS project and environment, and to where we are heading.
 

dminches

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Oct 22, 2011
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Emile, this is a great illustration to help us understand what's going on under the hood.

Maybe at some point you can provide more detail about the File Treatment Protocol without giving away trade secrets.
 

Taiko Audio

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Feb 10, 2017
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Emile, this is a great illustration to help us understand what's going on under the hood.

Maybe at some point you can provide more detail about the File Treatment Protocol without giving away trade secrets.

Hi David,

We are indeed keeping this as a trade secret for now. It's the answer to over a decade of wondering about differences in sound quality for file based playback. Why for example CD's ripped with different software like EAC or dBPoweramp, or when ripped with different drives, or on different systems "sound" different. Or why files stored on a NAS sound inferior to those on local drives, and for local drives on which make or type of drive. Or even when streamed using different switches, or routers, or different ISPs (at least the part we hadn't figured out yet).
 

austinpop

Well-Known Member
May 23, 2017
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Austin, TX
I have created a flowchart to visualize the building blocks which make up TAS in an attempt to increase understanding of what is going on where. The green blocks are all our own code and/or under our control. The red blocks is not our code and/or not under our control.

View attachment 75466

Hi Emile,

Thanks for this. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words, and this is an excellent representation of the TAS universe. I wanted to clarify, as it might be confusing, this section of the diagram:

1614618230978.png

Since only a single bridge is active at any given time, I believe this is representing that each bridge gets the output of the file treatment protocol, and there is no data flow from serial bridge to batch bridge to HQP bridge, as the vertical arrows seem to suggest.

Please correct if I misunderstood.
 
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Taiko Audio

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Hi Emile,

Thanks for this. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words, and this is an excellent representation of the TAS universe. I wanted to clarify, as it might be confusing, this section of the diagram:

View attachment 75471

Since only a single bridge is active at any given time, I believe this is representing that each bridge gets the output of the file treatment protocol, and there is no data flow from serial bridge to batch bridge to HQP bridge, as the vertical arrows seem to suggest.

Please correct if I misunderstood.

That is correct, I was trying to keep it as clean as possible, consider those OR not AND. Indeed there is only 1 bridge active at a time, which bridge is determined by which of the 3 players you choose, which should really be which bridge, we may rename those.
 

dminches

Well-Known Member
Oct 22, 2011
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Hi David,

We are indeed keeping this as a trade secret for now. It's the answer to over a decade of wondering about differences in sound quality for file based playback. Why for example CD's ripped with different software like EAC or dBPoweramp, or when ripped with different drives, or on different systems "sound" different. Or why files stored on a NAS sound inferior to those on local drives, and for local drives on which make or type of drive. Or even when streamed using different switches, or routers, or different ISPs (at least the part we hadn't figured out yet).

Completely understand. It sounds like one of the big differentiators for Taiko.
 
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oldmustang

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Dec 1, 2012
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I have created a flowchart to visualize the building blocks which make up TAS in an attempt to increase understanding of what is going on where. The green blocks are all our own code and/or under our control. The red blocks is not our code and/or not under our control.
Thanks very much, Emile. I had inferred some of what you have explained so well from posts here at WBF and conversations with Ed, but this really ties it all together. The flow chart makes the relationship of all the parts crystal clear.

Kudos to you, Ed and Wilson for the massive amount of work you have all put into this.

Steve Z
 

cat6man

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Feb 6, 2013
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USB cards shipping in March.
Bravo!


10) The "USB firmware" controls the USB controller which we have under our control with our USB card scheduled to arrive here tomorrow, shipping to customers in a few weeks.
 
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Rhapsody

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Jan 16, 2013
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Rhapsody.Audio
the other thing I found is in the server settings(these findings are in the TAS manual when we install Tidal...

If you click on server settings there first thing we see at the top is "basic settings"...if you click the "down arrow" to the right of basic settings another window opens and if you scroll down there is a button for "software updates"

Yesterday however when I was playing music I noticed that green lit button by the 3 dots to the right of "extreme status" I had no idea what it was an when I clicked it, it said "software updates available and told me that it was for "plugins". There was a button below that that said "click to update". I did that and the update was done in under a minute. I received a message that then told me I was disconnected from TAS, I chose "serial player" and turned it on and everything was working fine. Listening for a few hours I personally could not notice any adverse sound changes
My TAS/updates is acting differently. Today is the first time that I saw the green update arrow next to the 3 dots. When I click it then it says "information"- Updates available. When I click the Updates available it takes me to the Server - Libray- Plugin page. Under server is show "new version available", BUT with all of that there is no icon to press for "click to update".
 

kennyb123

Well-Known Member
Nov 30, 2012
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Kirkland, WA
Before signing off for today I'd like to share a few photos of our brand new assembly space as long as it's still this clean and empty :)

I think I have found my new Zoom background. :)
 
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Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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My TAS/updates is acting differently. Today is the first time that I saw the green update arrow next to the 3 dots. When I click it then it says "information"- Updates available. When I click the Updates available it takes me to the Server - Libray- Plugin page. Under server is show "new version available", BUT with all of that there is no icon to press for "click to update".

ok, i'm the last person who should be giving advice. :rolleyes:

but last week when i saw the green dot i went to plug-in page and i clicked on the 'new version available' words and it did the update. so it's a stealthy sort of thing.:cool:

at least it appeared to do something.
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
ok, i'm the last person who should be giving advice. :rolleyes:

but last week when i saw the green dot i went to plug-in page and i clicked on the 'new version available' words and it did the update. so it's a stealthy sort of thing.:cool:

at least it appeared to do something.
Mike
that is exactly what I did except when I clicked on “ see updates” it took me to a page of plugins. There were a few at the top that said needs update and a bunch at the bottom of the page that were up to date. As you stated there was a button below the few oluguns that said update now.
 

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