Taiko Audio XDMS - Extreme Direct Music Server Software

[Steve Williams]

FWIW I feel this is a bit of a play tool without major uptick. The bigger pie in the sky for my ears was when Ed changed my adaptive listening from a “3” to a “1” (which was part of the Qobuz SQ uptick). That change was so dramatic that I kept asking Ed what was that he just did. As I posted before the explanation was very interesting after he did the end of December back end up date. My adaptive was changed then rather than with the Qobuz update. Ed suggested that Taiko found the best bit depth for SQ to be 16 and Ed played a 24/192 file of mine and said I’m now listening in a yet undefined format of 16/192.

 

[John T]

What would be a valuable more accurate way to ascertain Default/Alternative is to have someone switch between the two without you knowing. Play the same track and see if you could accurately ascertain the difference. It would make for some fun wagering!

 

[Steve Williams]

What would be a valuable more accurate way to ascertain Default/Alternative is to have someone switch between the two without you knowing. Play the same track and see if you could accurately ascertain the difference. It would make for some fun wagering!

I’ve done that with my wife . I can tell I can guess right sometimes depending on the song but not all times. The best way I can describe alternative is a bigger, fuller sound that brings me closer to the music As I said before sometimes I feel I can see the singers vocal cords

 

[John T]

I’ve done that with my wife . I can tell I can guess right sometimes depending on the song but not all times. The best way I can describe alternative is a bigger, fuller sound that brings me closer to the music As I said before sometimes I feel I can see the singers vocal cords

Your wife is a good sport Steve...

 

[Steve Williams]

Your wife is a good sport Steve...

I wish I could hear as good as her. Women just hear better than men IMO

 

[Taiko Audio]

I wish I could hear as good as her. Women just hear better than men IMO

They hear everything

 

[Steve Williams]

My wife can hear a pin drop at high noon in the middle of busy traffic.

 

[oldmustang]

I am listening now on Default now and it sounds great. But Alt sounds really good to me as well.

After a couple of evenings of doing the Default/Alternate dance I've come to the conclusion that they are different but both good. Since the toggle doesn't require any restarting or reboot, just a simple stop the playing track and then start playing again after the switch, I see this as something I might use on a track by track basis.

It is interesting that my impressions of each are opposite many of the descriptions here -- I hear Default as more energetic, more forward, very strong bass, can be a bit edgy at times with less favored digital tracks.

Alternate in contrast sounds smoother and more liquid on top with fewer hard edges, somewhat less forward, and while none of the deep bass content is missing, bass doesn't jump out at me like Default does. Overall, Alternate seems more forgiving of any high frequency harshness that may have crept into the recording at hand.

Tonight I've promised myself an evening of just listening to music before I take up the X0, 1, 2 and 3 ASIO adaptive profiles. I did take a quick aural peek at X1 and can say I like it more than X0 but at this time I haven't tried to characterize what I'm hearing, other than to say I want to listen to the end of a track when X1 is selected, not so much when X0 is selected.

Steve Z

 

[Steve Williams]

, I see this as something I might use on a track by track basis.

Completely agree Bob. That its exactly what I am doing as well although right now I have to admit that I am playing more in default but when I play the ones in ALT that I know so well, they sound so much better in ALT

 

[austinpop]

As I understand it, Sound Profile is a setting that changes how a file is "refreshed" while it is loaded from storage and placed into the Z:\tmp ram disk, before being played by the xdplayer. If you just stop a track, switch setting, then play the track, my assertion is that you're not making a change at all. The music file is already sitting in ram disk and will be unchanged. One way you can confirm that is to note that when you hit play the second time, the track starts almost immediately, without the new spinning arrows animation to indicate that file load is happening.

So to really test this setting, you have to force the cached copy of the track out of the ram disk so it gets reloaded and refreshed, first with the default, and then with the alternate method.

@Taiko Audio could you please confirm?

The procedure I've been using to compare default vs. alternate is as follows. Make sure your test track was not the last track played.
1. Set Sound Profile to default
2. Play your (not previously played) test track. Observe the spinning arrows loading your file with the default method
3. Listen
4. Stop test track and play something else. This is purely to push the test track out of the ram disk. Once the new track starts playing, press Stop
5. Change Sound profile to alternate
6. Play the test track. It will now be reloaded into to the ram disk, this time with the alternate method
7. Listen

Your comparison points are what you hear in step 3 and step 7.

 

[Steve Williams]

Austin

now I know why you get the big bucks. Fabulous read. Thank you for taking the time to help illiterates such as myself have some understanding .i understand the logic of your post.

 

[Steve Williams]

As I understand it, Sound Profile is a setting that changes how a file is "refreshed" while it is loaded from storage and placed into the Z:\tmp ram disk, before being played by the xdplayer. If you just stop a track, switch setting, then play the track, my assertion is that you're not making a change at all. The music file is already sitting in ram disk and will be unchanged. One way you can confirm that is to note that when you hit play the second time, the track starts almost immediately, without the new spinning arrows animation to indicate that file load is happening.

So to really test this setting, you have to force the cached copy of the track out of the ram disk so it gets reloaded and refreshed, first with the default, and then with the alternate method.

@Taiko Audio could you please confirm?

The procedure I've been using to compare default vs. alternate is as follows. Make sure your test track was not the last track played.
1. Set Sound Profile to default
2. Play your (not previously played) test track. Observe the spinning arrows loading your file with the default method
3. Listen
4. Stop test track and play something else. This is purely to push the test track out of the ram disk. Once the new track starts playing, press Stop
5. Change Sound profile to alternate
6. Play the test track. It will now be reloaded into to the ram disk, this time with the alternate method
7. Listen

Your comparison points are what you hear in step 3 and step 7.

Austin

i have to tell you that for me, this was the BEST read of the day. I understand why everyone says it is close

Im shut down for the day but tomorrow this will be my first thing to do

 

[austinpop]

now I know why you get the big bucks.

Hahaha I get zero bucks from anything audio related. But I'm glad that you found my post useful.

 

[EuroDriver]

As I understand it, Sound Profile is a setting that changes how a file is "refreshed" while it is loaded from storage and placed into the Z:\tmp ram disk, before being played by the xdplayer. If you just stop a track, switch setting, then play the track, my assertion is that you're not making a change at all. The music file is already sitting in ram disk and will be unchanged. One way you can confirm that is to note that when you hit play the second time, the track starts almost immediately, without the new spinning arrows animation to indicate that file load is happening.

So to really test this setting, you have to force the cached copy of the track out of the ram disk so it gets reloaded and refreshed, first with the default, and then with the alternate method.

@Taiko Audio could you please confirm?

The procedure I've been using to compare default vs. alternate is as follows. Make sure your test track was not the last track played.
1. Set Sound Profile to default
2. Play your (not previously played) test track. Observe the spinning arrows loading your file with the default method
3. Listen
4. Stop test track and play something else. This is purely to push the test track out of the ram disk. Once the new track starts playing, press Stop
5. Change Sound profile to alternate
6. Play the test track. It will now be reloaded into to the ram disk, this time with the alternate method
7. Listen

Your comparison points are what you hear in step 3 and step 7.

You are correct, if the track is already cached as the next track to be played, one needs to play another track, and then come back to that track to get the track processed with new processing setting.

So my advice to Steve about restarting XDMS after changing the Sound Profile was clearing the cache

 

[Rhapsody]

After a couple of evenings of doing the Default/Alternate dance I've come to the conclusion that they are different but both good. Since the toggle doesn't require any restarting or reboot, just a simple stop the playing track and then start playing again after the switch, I see this as something I might use on a track by track basis.

It is interesting that my impressions of each are opposite many of the descriptions here -- I hear Default as more energetic, more forward, very strong bass, can be a bit edgy at times with less favored digital tracks.

Alternate in contrast sounds smoother and more liquid on top with fewer hard edges, somewhat less forward, and while none of the deep bass content is missing, bass doesn't jump out at me like Default does. Overall, Alternate seems more forgiving of any high frequency harshness that may have crept into the recording at hand.

Tonight I've promised myself an evening of just listening to music before I take up the X0, 1, 2 and 3 ASIO adaptive profiles. I did take a quick aural peek at X1 and can say I like it more than X0 but at this time I haven't tried to characterize what I'm hearing, other than to say I want to listen to the end of a track when X1 is selected, not so much when X0 is selected.

Steve Z

Agree with all Steve, I have found that it depends on what track I test with, as to which setting I prefer. And then add in overall system configuration that might have an effect on certain tracks......and the beat goes on. Fun stuff and all for free!!!

 

[John T]

Fun exercise with Default/Alternative. As Steve (@oldmustang) said they both sound good. I gravitate towards Default, but as several of you indicated certain recording could benefit from one or the other...

 

[Opabin]

Could someone kindly fill me in on the current state of interface functionality in XDMS Alpha? Obviously, sound quality is not the reason I’ve yet to participate. Hoping to browse album images of files organized by:

• Date added
• Composer and
• Record label

My DAC needs DSD converted to DoP, so that is also on wish list, along with DSD sample rate conversion. Of course, building complex software is a huge amount of work and takes time to do properly, so these features will not magically appear all at once.

 

[EuroDriver]

Dated added filter functionality we don’t have, need to think about this could be added

Composers and Directors we do have

Record label is low on the wish list

 

[EuroDriver]

When we don’t find a photo of the Composer, we use the album cover art

 

[Opabin]

Dated added filter functionality we don’t have, need to think about this could be added

Composers and Directors we do have

Record label is low on the wish list

So many ways to navigate and select from a music collection, it's bound to take a while for Taiko coders to flesh out all the requested filters. For one who likes buying albums, a filter that shows the 30 or 40 most recent purchases would be hard to live without. I can understand why a record label filter is probably not a high priority for many users but in Roon, I sometimes want to browse my collection of Mercury Living Presence or Reference Recordings titles, for example.

I guess DSD over DoP will be a much bigger coding job. Maybe next year?

Many thanks for your reply, Ed.