ray-dude

Giving the striking premium price being charged for Roon, full privacy should be 100% expected. There is no barter here that benefits the end user (unlike cheap Vizio TVs or streaming services, etc)

Folks, as OP, I think we're into non-productive territory here. There is a PGGB vs HQP thread if you want to compare and contrast the different design approaches and intent, but these have been covered multiple times here. There are differences in approach and design philosophies, and that's OK. Both PGGB and HQP very generously offer free trials so folks can come to their own conclusions about what works best for their ears and preferences.

Given the scorched-earth/witch-burnings/spanish-inquisition that happen over in the Roon forums when one even vaguely suggests that differences between servers (or playback software) are audible, will be interesting to see how this cognitive dissonance plays out

I'm on Extreme/NSM right now. XDMI has not been released yet (for Olympus server as an Extreme replacement, or Olympus I/O as an add-on to the Extreme) I can't wait to hear it! Since the terminology is confusing, XDMI is Taiko's proprietary replacement for USB Audio, which operates over PCIe. The Olympus server can have a XDMI audio card (for digital audio out or analog audio out). There is a separate Olympus I/O box that can be added to an Extreme to support XDMI audio card, or can be used with an Olympus server to externalize the XDMI audio card All this is extremely exciting from a fundamentals perspective. The proof of the pudding will be in the listening though. Can't wait to hear this next generation kit

Mine is ordered. Looking forward to doing the full comparison with Extreme (and sharing learnings from this next step of the journey here)

Anyone with an idle/unused lifetime sub that has moved on, please drop a PM...I'm tempted to get back into Roon, despite of these changes

I'm a huge advocate for highly opinionated software for this reason. There are 50 ways to do anything. If your software enables all 50, it becomes a mess (unless you have ridiculously gifted designers) Roon had no serious competition on the feature front, so no excuse for where it has drifted except lack of focus (or feeling they needed to justify the ever increasing fees) Really feels like they were looking for a way to justify a more premium revenue model

One of my favorite experiences at Axpona this year was FINALLY being able to see Amber in person. What a delight of a person and artist

The challenge is usually related to how they buffer or stream the next file while the current one is playing. If the files get too big (whether 16fs or DSD256), things can get glitchy. As soon as you layer in what the player has to do to support music seeking (jumping forward or back in a track that is playing), and things get complicated again with very large files. If the player is reading and playing the file from disk (playing music as it is reading the file vs, say, loading the whole file into memory then playing), then gapless is much more robust. I have yet to hear Roon or HQP stumble on this stuff (as Rajiv said, solid)

I know nothing about this company or their products, but calling a company or product out as fraudulent is a very serious accusation. Respectfully, perhaps the bar for calling out the integrity of business owners or defaming the business practices of a company should be a bit higher than questioning the utility of a product category?

"It's a very compact system" (!)

Chris, if you make it by the Voxativ booth, would love your impressions of their new streamer (they built their own DAC?). Also, impressions of the Ampeggio speakers vs the 9.88's Wish I was there with you!

USB Card is in my system, switch/NIC, and (hopefully) router are soon inbound. When all the dust (and testing) settles, looking forward to doing an update to this review encompassing all that has happened in the Taiko ecosystem over the last several years