November 2023 OS Update User Feedback

Its almost 4:20 am here. Did a brief listen and I am speechless. The sound quality has increased tremendously. The instruments do sound tighter and the separation is very obvious has more weight to it. Thank you again team Taiko!!! I am going to get some sleep for now.

Roon sounds like never before and XDMS becomes stratospheric… Great job Emile and the team!

Report from Asia. Update was quick and easy. All via Taiko router and switch. Sound is more holographic, bass more solid, more 3D. I am solely a Roon user. Cannot be happier!

Oh my!!! What a difference!! I knew I wasn’t imagining the degradation of SQ in 1353. Haven’t even gotten into XDMS yet. Mind blowing the difference!!! To achieve these kinds of results astounds me! To analyze a problem like this so quickly and come up with a enhanced solution is truly impressive. Which also presents the future potential as to where this may go. I’m absolutely floored…

Khyle just did my update and only took around 5mins so thanks heaps Khyle! There is a very obvious SQ jump in my system. As audiogeek says above, more weight to the sound and for me just a better overall flow to the music (once again I don’t know how Emile does it!!). I found myself wanting to turn the sound up more than I would normally. Awesome work Taiko team!

I wanted to thank Taiko Team for helping me with the Roon fix. Thanks to Khyle Levitt who was so quick I could not believe. I sent the request and before I got my tea the fix was done. less than 15 min of waiting I believe and probably less than 5 min fix. But I must say XDMS sounds amazing. This is the most „ realistic” sounding update I ever experienced. Roon also sounds out of this galaxy. Moment like this with so big SQ improvement’s is making every Extreme owner very happy I believe.

Just wanted to express my gratitude to Emile and the team on their hard work on Taiko products, XDMS and exceptional customer service. The update I got this morning made me to write this email. The sound quality that I am hearing is not something I expected. I get a feeling that my soul has elevated to another level listening to the sound quality which I have never experienced before. The background has simply vanished (inaudible).  It’s a surreal experience. I could hear all the minor flaws that were made during the original recording. It’s a totally different experience.  All I can say is thank you all so very much!!! You are looking at a lifelong Taiko fan.

I’m on Roon only at this time. This is not subtle. The update provides better, deeper/wider imaging front to back and side to side as well as more solid bass. The overall sound is more fleshed out and organic. Expect a big uptick in listening pleasure! The Taiko team ROCKS!!!

Mail sent. Waited 5 minutes. In 4 the job was done. Emile, the MAN himself, performed the task. XDMS only user. This is a true step up in SQ. Not just a flavour, like the ones you listen when you change, for instance, a cable in your system and, you choose one and I pick another because, we all are different. Now the music I play is closer to the record event. Bravo Emile and Taiko Team. Thank you very much.

I’m a 100% xdms user (roon has never even been activated here) and this update is huge. i did 30 minutes of listening with stax headphones to get calibrated, then was updated. The difference was immediately obvious on all of my test tracks. I would say that most of the improvement is an even further lowered noise floor, and the accompanying benefits that this provides. the sounds coming out of silence are hugely more natural and nuanced, the vocal micro-modulations are clearly audible, the decays of notes (instrumental and vocal) are much more detailed and quite delicate, the soundstage is wider and more continuous/contiguous (instruments that were more prominent and out front are now more integrated into the overall soundstage). Bravo!

This morning, I opened up a session and emailed in at 8:30 am saying ready when you are. 15 minutes later and my machine is up to date. Just unbelievable, I’ve never experienced anything like it. So how does it sound? Well, I need more time but one thing just smacks me in the face – clarity. Amazing clarity. Incredible. How can they keep on improving things is beyond me. Unprecedented levels of support and a lovely upgrade in sound quality to boot.

One of the most frustrating things in wanting a nice music system is when one spends a (relatively) lot of money on an item only to see it become superseded down the line. Do you stick or upgrade? I have just recently been catching up with things on the Horizon tube rolling thread which has been quite a mind blowing experience and, when added to all of the activity with (updates for the) Extreme, it’s just a whirlwind of positive, invigorating activity. Such a refreshing change from the norm. My ambition 2 years back… was to implement a system upgrade that would be definitive and final and it feels good to actually be at that point.

Wow! The sound quality lift from this software patch/update (on top of getting the Router + DCD a week prior) is stupendous! The focus just dialed in on the musical fabric several notches, and with more corporeality and fleshiness. Suspension of disbelief is certainly fuller now. Hats off to the Taiko Team!

I find an increased dynamic/liveliness to the sound. More incisive? Excellent movement. In some ways I find this update gives some of the special sauce we see with the most recent PGGB processing. An open, detailed but generous sound.

Thank you Emile for installing the update. I haven’t yet toggled to Roon but I hear a meaningful and positive improvement in XDMS. I’m sure we all appreciate you including the XDMS upgrade along with the Roon fix. Many Thanks to the Taiko team for the quick response!

As the listening after the update continues, and I keep experiencing a consistent improvement all across the board, I’d like to stress how especially remarkable is the benefit of bass presentation. The improvement is definitely of the extent of a transducer (headphones in my case) upgrade. Not only it digs deeper, but the definition, rise and decay control are enhanced at the same time.

I started my Extreme this morning. Everything connected well. On the sound, I immediately noticed more clarity and texture at the mid. The bass seems to be tighter and clearer. I need to listen more. Its hard to turn off but I need to attend to other chores in the morning. I am very happy with the service and update.

Emile installed the most recent XDMS update/Roon patch early Monday am. Listened this evening after leaving system on since Sunday evening. The only thing left to say, other than expressing gratitude to Emile and the Taiko team, is what the normally unflappable professional golfer Ernie Els said after seeing Tiger Woods hit an amazing wedge shot 190 yards at the third round of the 2000 Bridgestone Invitational out of a very nasty lie in very thick rough with two big red oaks overhanging the the green, and lands the ball on the green: “F**k Me!” 😉

There are already so many accounts from everyone regarding decay, clarity, air, midrange realism, bass incisiveness and depth, I only have one small observation to add, and it is profound. There is this sound we hear from acoustic guitar/banjo/uke in live performance – it is not the fact of accurate resonance of the strings with the chords played; this happens readily with almost any great system. The thing is, that resonance has always come to my ears as the mere sound of strings being plucked or strummed. With ever increasing levels of realistic timbre with each upgrade, it’s still always only just been there emanating from a specific place in the beautifully parsed and distinct soundfield. However, this sound of an actual guitar is the sound resonating from within the guitar itself as it radiates….not from plucked strings, fingers or fretboard, but from within that sound hole of the guitar, a particularly unique sound that helps one conclusively distinguish a recording from even the worse live acoustic performance. I heard this sound for the first time in my entire life on any system I’ve ever listened to, on my system after the most recent Fix Emile created to solve certain issues inherent in roon build 1353. It is not merely my being eerily startled, it’s often with shock I now listen to how realistic my music is each night over the past week. I cry at times when emotion takes me over. Streamed music had been my escape each day for between two to five hours every evening the past four years. It is now my treasured medicine. My gratitude is as profound as the music I am hearing. Emile, Ed, Christiaan, Khyle, thank you so very much for this unbelievable gift that is the sum total of everything you have discovered in the immediate source chain. Thank you, thank you, thank you all and everyone from the very bottom of my heart – Kevin

I have revisited several of my reference tracks over the last couple of hours, but what I have noticed from the get-go was an improvement of spaciousness, resolution, layering of sounds. Dynamic swings are conveyed in an effortless, and therefore even more viscerally affecting, way. Bass, both percussive and fretted, is more articulated and richer at the same time (confirmed by a typical reaction: heart pounding :rolleyes: ). The spatial aspect of the rendition is also what has captured my attention since the first notes of the Ich Habe Genug (a moving masterwork that healed me emotionally in some challenging times), but then I started noticing another side of the new presentation I am hearing from my system, which seems due to a combination of a more nuanced and more embodied characterization of the vocals frequency range. For lack of better words, I’d call this side a humanistic gestalt uplift. I am thankful to @Taiko Audio for relentlessly improving my connection with music, by perfecting an already outstanding product and consistently expanding its ecosystem. Please keep doing that!