Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[dminches]

The arrogance and absolute inability of anyone from Roon to even entertain the possibility that their sound quality could be improved is really beginning to tick me off. Given the five year head start they have on TAS and the much greater resources they have to devote to development it's not surprising that their UI would be (mostly) more mature and full-featured.

However, I'm rapidly getting to the point that even were Roon (totally unlikely) or Taiko (much more likely) able to eliminate the sound quality penalty of Roon, I likely wouldn't use it anymore. And I am an early Roon adopter with a lifetime subscription long since paid for.

Steve Z

I am in no way defending Roon and its developers but it is for a different crowd than those who are looking for the best sound quality. Roon’s strengths are its interface and its ability to bring a lot of information to the user. Stuff like sound quality is in the next tier and probably always will be. Fortunately, there are good alternatives, especially TAS for Taiko clients.

 

[oldmustang]

I am in no way defending Roon and its developers but it is for a different crowd than those who are looking for the best sound quality. Roon’s strengths are its interface and its ability to bring a lot of information to the user. Stuff like sound quality is in the next tier and probably always will be. Fortunately, there are good alternatives, especially TAS for Taiko clients.

I understand and am not trying to argue the point. However the very strong vibe I've gotten when I've tried to address SQ issues to Roon staff (not the general fanboys on their forums, who will pretty much rip anybody apart who dares question Roon about the topic) is that their player is bit perfect and that's all you need to know. End of discussion.

No possibility of improvement in SQ is ever admitted by Roon staff.

I agree that they appear to be doing just fine with their particular business model and that we are by and large not the target customer base. However, Roon could be so much more if they would devote a fraction of the resources they must spend on rolling out ever more bells and whistles, instead on investigating and implementing sound quality improvements.

Heck, I'd be happy if they devoted even a fraction of their R&D budget fixing the well-documented problems that have been on-going for some time with some of their "mature" bells and whistles.

I can't express how grateful I am to have discovered Taiko Audio, with their superior server and most importantly, their commitment to continuously improving sound quality for their customers.

Steve Z

 

[austinpop]

I can't express how grateful I am to have discovered Taiko Audio, with their superior server and most importantly, their commitment to continuously improving sound quality for their customers.

Amen to that.

Yes, the cost of an Extreme is prohibitive, especially if you're not independently wealthy, but I have not regretted the expense for one femtosecond.

I view my precious $$$$$ to be an investment not just in the product, but in Emile, Ed, Wilson, and the Taiko team, and so far they are exceeding even my high expectations!!

 

[kennyb123]

We may take for granted how good a system has to be to hear the harm that Roon does. A few months back I waded into Roon's forums and found that many of those open to the idea that Roon might degrade sound quality hadn't taken the care to reduce sources of even greater harm than Roon - like cabling for example. I think that's likely what we're up against.

 

[howiebrou]

It's interesting to read the tirade of anti-Extreme rhetoric on the Roon Forums with words bandied around such as 'elite', 'snobbish' etc when they describe Taiko or their users.

 

[oldmustang]

It's interesting to read the tirade of anti-Extreme rhetoric on the Roon Forums with words bandied around such as 'elite', 'snobbish' etc when they describe Taiko or their users.

Life is so unfair. . .

Steve Z

 

[Ackcheng]

I understand and am not trying to argue the point. However the very strong vibe I've gotten when I've tried to address SQ issues to Roon staff (not the general fanboys on their forums, who will pretty much rip anybody apart who dares question Roon about the topic) is that their player is bit perfect and that's all you need to know. End of discussion.

No possibility of improvement in SQ is ever admitted by Roon staff.

I agree that they appear to be doing just fine with their particular business model and that we are by and large not the target customer base. However, Roon could be so much more if they would devote a fraction of the resources they must spend on rolling out ever more bells and whistles, instead on investigating and implementing sound quality improvements.

Heck, I'd be happy if they devoted even a fraction of their R&D budget fixing the well-documented problems that have been on-going for some time with some of their "mature" bells and whistles.

I can't express how grateful I am to have discovered Taiko Audio, with their superior server and most importantly, their commitment to continuously improving sound quality for their customers.

Steve Z

Fully agree with you ! I doubt if anyone working inside Roon has a system as revealing as ours. It’s more a tech company. If their system is not up to a certain standard they will not hear the difference

 

[cat6man]

Amen to that.

Yes, the cost of an Extreme is prohibitive, especially if you're not independently wealthy, but I have not regretted the expense for one femtosecond.

I view my precious $$$$$ to be an investment not just in the product, but in Emile, Ed, Wilson, and the Taiko team, and so far they are exceeding even my high expectations!!

anxiously counting the femtoseconds now that mine has shipped!
as in, how many femtoseconds since i last hit refresh to see where my package is on its journey

 

[austinpop]

Regarding Roon, a Heinlein quote comes to mind:

Never Attempt To Teach a Pig To Sing; It Wastes Your Time and Annoys the Pig.

 

[EuroDriver]

I found possibility of K-POP playback with SGM Extreme TAS.

My IPAD has the biggest K-POP and others streaming service app [BUGS].

I opened Bugs and entered player select option, then....


View attachment 74519


ExtremeDirect~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then TAS???


View attachment 74520


TAS showed Korean language and connected each other~!!!!!!

But

No Sound Yet...

I saw BUGS Setting and found good infos...


View attachment 74521


???? ???? = "Open Source License"

So BUGS is free license app~!!!


View attachment 74522


Emile

Edward

Please check BUGS app again.

Because TAS supports DLNA, Extreme users may enjoy K-POP.

BUGS' total musics are about 20,000,000 songs.

Among them, 10,000,000 songs are over 16bit / 44.1KHz.

If two heroes support BUGS, I'll request oversea payment to BUGS.

Emile and Edward are very very busy I know.

When you have time, please check BUGS.

Esotar,

Great finding by you ! We will look for a workable solution for BUGS and K-POP after we are done with the Beta installations and bug bashing

 

[Taiko Audio]

There is an underlying issue here. A significant part of the market is operating under the assumption that Ethernet provides full isolation. Therefor the reasoning becomes that it does not matter what you do on the core as the sound quality is defined by a lightweight endpoint, everything before that is irrelevant and does not affect performance. There is significant market adaptation of this idea by both manufacturers as software designers. They would all question your sanity as what you are implying is impossible.

Another example of far reaching consequences of market adaptation is MQA, a good idea in principle in a bandwidth limited world, which is now largely a thing of the past, but a significant number of manufacturers and software designers embrace and market MQA with the side effect that Tidal is now replacing all their lossless high res content with MQA versions. Of course they save bandwidth and money, but it diminishes its value for the audiophile community. I'm convinced I'm not alone willing to pay 10% more for the real thing.

Roon 1.8 meanwhile looks incredible and I'm sure they are meeting or exceeding 99% of their customer base expectations, they are fully delivering on their claim to provide an immersive browsing and music exploration experience and this rich experience does nothing to degrade sound quality as long as you use an ethernet endpoint.

We obviously operate on a different theory.

In the end it's all driven by market adaptation and customers define direction by purchasing products.

 

[spiritofmusic]

We may take for granted how good a system has to be to hear the harm that Roon does. A few months back I waded into Roon's forums and found that many of those open to the idea that Roon might degrade sound quality hadn't taken the care to reduce sources of even greater harm than Roon - like cabling for example. I think that's likely what we're up against.

The record industry didn't care two hoots on complaints during the whole brickwalled/hot master phase during the 1990s to mid 2010s. For them, it was all about making music sound great on personal stereo headphones, car stereos, in public. Why would anything be different w Roon?
Audiophiles comprise, what, 0.01% of their market. Extreme owners? How many more zeroes do you want to add?

 

[Esotar]

Esotar,

Great finding by you ! We will look for a workable solution for BUGS and K-POP after we are done with the Beta installations and bug bashing

Wow Edward~!!

Fantastic~!!!

Thanks~!!!

 

[Blue58]

I may be imagining this but TAS sounds tighter with more punch since Wilson solved my file problem and ‘fettled’ with the system. And, when you turn the volume up you just get more juicy goodness.

 

[Kingsrule]

Amen to that.

Yes, the cost of an Extreme is prohibitive, especially if you're not independently wealthy, but I have not regretted the expense for one femtosecond.

I view my precious $$$$$ to be an investment not just in the product, but in Emile, Ed, Wilson, and the Taiko team, and so far they are exceeding even my high expectations!!

I find this statement rather ridiculous. You obviously compare Extreme to Mojo, SGC, Nucleus, etc. Just look at cables and PC's that cost 2,5,10,000 dollars and you think Extreme at $30k cost is prohibitive?? Heck, racks cost as much as Extreme

Extreme is an audio bargain, ESPECIALLY with TAS now included.

 

[Taiko Audio]

I may be imagining this but TAS sounds tighter with more punch since Wilson solved my file problem and ‘fettled’ with the system. And, when you turn the volume up you just get more juicy goodness.

You are not imagining things.

 

[spiritofmusic]

I may be imagining this but TAS sounds tighter with more punch since Wilson solved my file problem and ‘fettled’ with the system. And, when you turn the volume up you just get more juicy goodness.

Barry, it seems you'll be answering the phone from me much less often in future...no pause function on TAS..better SQ from TAS...better friends who have TAS...lol

 

[austinpop]

I find this statement rather ridiculous. You obviously compare Extreme to Mojo, SGC, Nucleus, etc. Just look at cables and PC's that cost 2,5,10,000 dollars and you think Extreme at $30k cost is prohibitive?? Heck, racks cost as much as Extreme

Extreme is an audio bargain, ESPECIALLY with TAS now included.

Wow, such vitriol! Having a bad day?

For the record, I have been outspoken in my praise of the Extreme. See, for example:

A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

audiophilestyle.com

 

[dminches]

Wow, such vitriol! Having a bad day?

For the record, I have been outspoken in my praise of the Extreme. See, for example:

A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

audiophilestyle.com

Everything you have said has been the highest of praise.

99% of the world either can’t afford or aren’t interested in a gear like the Extreme. It interests the most limited of markets. Maybe all of us spend too much time among people like ourselves and forget we are unique animals.

 

[wil]

I may be imagining this but TAS sounds tighter with more punch since Wilson solved my file problem and ‘fettled’ with the system. And, when you turn the volume up you just get more juicy goodness.

The curious want to know: was the sq-enhancing fiddling with the system related to the file problem or some other un-related fiddling?