Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[romaz]

OMG, Romaz! And i thought it was ME who went the extra mile w 16mm SWA feed to 8kVA balanced power transformer and dedicated Oyaides to Furutech duplexes, a full loom of Sablon cables, 18 upgraded SR fuses and full Entreq grounding. I comparison to you, not so much Lol.

A serious Q...if it truly takes SO much trouble to get streaming to perform, so many steps to shield RF/EMI, so much computer power which then by definition produces swathes of noise, isn't some of the joy taken out of streaming as a concept?

Ie, don't you and others at all miss the relative simplicity of cd/sacd? One or two dedicated lines to transport and dac, a couple of good power cords, that green felt tip pen, and you were good to go.

I look at the efforts you've made, and it seems way more complex than optimisation in any other facet of high end audio.

If you think my OCD is bad, Emile's is even worse .

I have found the largest gains by improving the quality of my power delivery, not just with respect to noise but also keeping line resistance as low as possible and so I have worked very hard to optimize my power infrastructure.

Not all of my efforts have been fruitful and what works in one system may not work in another and so one really has to try to know. Fortunately, I have had the good fortune of access to many things and so if the opportunity presents itself to try something, my curiosity generally gets the best of me. While comparative evaluations can be tiring, ultimately, they provide perspective and allow me to better appreciate something that is really well done. And this perspective has shown me that you don't have to necessarily go to so much trouble.

Digital vs analog, I think both are equally challenging to implement to taste as there are so many different permutations on both sides. How long did it take for you to figure out your preferred combination of turntable, tonearm, cartridge, phono preamp, and associated cabling? What is so good with the Extreme is that Emile's OCD is at such a level that he has tried and compared more things than I could ever try given his resources and so for the consumer at large, it is really as simple as buying one knowing that the Extreme has already been optimized and then hitting the play button because as Steve has indicated, Emile himself walks you through the initial setup. If you can figure out how to use Roon, that's all you need to know and as far as ease of use, Roon is the best that I have personally tried..

Will the Extreme benefit from improving what is upstream of it? Sure, in the same way as any other component would, digital or analog. As for going to the level I have with my network infrastructure, if the ability is there, why not do it but during my visit to Emile's shop, as we did comparative testing between a simple inexpensive network cable plugged into one of the stock Ethernet ports of the Extreme and an optical cable plugged into the SFP port, while I had a preference for optical, I found the inexpensive cable to be very good and something that I suspect all could live with..

As I stated in my post about my visit to Emile's shop, his listening room intentionally uses no extraordinary power measures, cables, switches, or fuses because he wanted to simulate real world conditions and yet, his room, to my ears and for my tastes, matched or outperformed any other room that I have recently encountered at audio shows.

 

[Stereophonic]

My observation is that in threads dedicated to "other servers" you do not encounter Extreme users trying to exalt the virtues of the Extreme or denigrate the other servers.

Although in the thread dedicated to the Extreme server there are users of "other servers" that feel it necessary to share their opinions on the design and implementation of the Extreme.

Quite telling in itself, quite flattering to the Extreme, of course imho.

My observation is:
Curiously there aren’t particular owners that own an Extreme on this thread. How could you expect to see them in other forums?

 

[Rhapsody]

My observation is:
Curiously there aren’t particular owners that own an Extreme on this thread. How could you expect to see them in other forums?

Sorry, I don't understand your comment? There are several Extreme owner's on this thread. Maybe I misunderstood your comment??? Please explain.

 

[microstrip]

Ah yes, power on is just a single click, power off is a double tap.

The reason for the double tap is, first press enables the video output which is off by default for better SQ, but does not power off the system, the second press really powers off the system (the light will turn off too).

As almost nobody ever connects a monitor to it I am considering changing it to just a single press for both power on and off.

Good to know, I will try the double tap. The only time I turned it off I pressed the button until it switched off.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Good to know, I will try the double tap. The only time I turned it off I pressed the button until it switched off.

Well that works too but it’s not the preferred method

 

[Taiko Audio]

My observation is:
Curiously there aren’t particular owners that own an Extreme on this thread. How could you expect to see them in other forums?

Assuming you are referring to private persons, I think the mayority of people posting here own an Extreme.

 

[microstrip]

Sorry, I don't understand your comment? There are several Extreme owner's on this thread. Maybe I misunderstood your comment??? Please explain.

We are invisible. Emile sent us a spray of Nivea Invisible Man anti-perspirant deodorant spray . Owners of all other servers still have a characteristic odor.

 

[Stereophonic]

We are invisible. Emile sent us a spray of Nivea Invisible Man anti-perspirant deodorant spray . Owners of all other servers still have a characteristic odor.

Very funny answer....

 

[spiritofmusic]

Romaz, that's a great summary of the sheer bleeding edge nature of Extreme and it's direct benefit to the end user. My adventures in audio haven't been that logical and well thought out, I pretty much came across my tubes/high efficiency spkrs topology by accident. Analog is like a religion demanding rigour and hygeine from the subject. Tbh, I could not easily contemplate the same level of OCD re analog components synergy/setup/need for chemical assistance (in my case, malt hops barley and water Lol) in the realm of digital.

 

[romaz]

That is a very interesting question because Romaz, Taiko and Eurostar are always putting his HPCPU as and advantge.
I see very clearly that SGM hasn´t a clear goal from its beginning and it explains the actual solution for the Extreme.
They believe that HQPlayer was the solution for cheap Dacs. Classical T+A Dac with SGM2015.
That was the argument they said to me:
" With HQ Player doing PCM to DSD conversion, and the 1-bit data stream being fed to a DSD converter, the actual / functional Digital to Analog conversion is not going on in in the DAC, but in software, in the PC, in PC clock time. This realization started the experimentation with replacing the computer motherboard clock with more short term frequency stable types including TCXO, and OCXO's with different frequency stability specs. From our extensive testing of motherboard clocks, the sound improvements are coming from three sources, the high frequency power supply we power the clock with, the lower low frequency phase noise of the crystal, and the greater short term frequency stability. A very interesting effect is we achieved a 6% reduction in total system power consumption and a 2 degree Celsius overall lower operating temperature depending on the clock model and its surrounding circuitry. The sound quality improvement is not as huge as we get from pushing the RF noise floor down, but it brings a pristine quality to the sound and a coherence, that our other customizations don't bring. For us on the team, it's a must have."
As you can read the only improvement effect was less power consumption and temperature. Even they said the improvement wasn´t as huge as reducing noise floor....
View attachment 60098
That was a bad solution that i´m glad to know they don´t implement on the Extreme because replacing the oscillator that the Asus board itself carried by means of a coaxial cable, welded to the motherboard ruins all accuracy of the device. The difference between the masses to be mounted in this way, the welds of the cable to the plate, etc... and the consideration of that the server runs as slave of the dac. So it is the clock´s dac who manage the jitter.
This is only one example that experimenting isn´t the way to reach your goal.
On the price side, it wasn´t very logic to spend 16000€ on a Server for a 3000€ Dac.
But now they have discovered that bit perfect sounds better than HQPlayer because now top Dacs doesn´t require it.
It is very funny that affirmation.
But why they continue using HPCPU?
Because their technology is still based on HQPlayer.
Bit Perfect is an unaltered signal and both CPU and Ram are a noise focus.
In digital audio application, the critical RAM/CPU parameters are bandwidth and latency, but there are other details that have final influence. The design of the memory chips within the module itself has an influence on the final result. It is the contamination of the masses and the currents of return to the source that makes the final result vary. The only solution is to develop a sophisticated power supply that dampens that 'pollution' obtained from rapid memory and CPU switching. We are not talking about 0 and 1 as Romaz said, each number represents a voltage. The best final processor is the result to balance power and 'silent' electric.
What power needs Bit Perfect? Nothing from bit perfect side. Only for metadata, etc....
Even now less than ever with the launch of Roon Valence...
View attachment 60099
Roon Signal Path shows the speed processor up to 100x. So as you can see, playing both streaming as internal storage the Speed Processor isn’t showed because the processor only works less than 1% of its potential.
View attachment 60100
So SGM is a victim of itself technology.
IMHO the Extreme is a multifuction Server.
It is designed to work in any Dac putting different solutions that are contradictory each one with the other.
Resuming. A top Dac doesn’t need a HPCPU server because all the processing needed is inside the Dac.
Cheers.

Whether you are still trying to be humorous or not is unclear to me but your English is good enough to know that your intentions are to show disrespect given that you are speaking from ignorance rather than simply experiencing for yourself what a high power CPU can do for bit-perfect playback.

As previously stated, the Extreme is not just about a high power CPU. If you've read Emile's posts, then you know the lengths he has taken to optimize RAM and the noise it creates. Same thing with its power supply and so the things that you describe as being most important for bit-perfect playback have been addressed, probably to a higher degree than with most servers.

When I first encountered the SGM 2015 in Munich in 2017, I liked what I heard but really had no interest in a high power server designed for HQP upsampling. At the time, I was still very much of the mindset that low power CPUs were the way to go. Moreover, and this is just my personal preference, I never liked the softness of DSD and so to convert a native PCM file to DSD never made sense to me. When the EVO was released, as it was really just an updated version of the SGM 2015 and was still intended for DSD upsampling, I still had no interest and so perhaps, I felt then how you feel now.

But my conclusions about the impact of a high power CPU are my own and I came to these conclusions independently from Emile and they are well documented on another site. I'm sure Emile figured this out for himself based on what he had learned from the SGM 2015 and EVO and so regardless of what your speculations might be about what bit-perfect playback needs, you have 2 unrelated entities that have come to the same conclusion and many who have actually listened to the Extreme who are claiming it is the best that they have heard for bit-perfect playback.

You have already made it clear that you have problems with the Extreme even though you have never actually experienced it but there's really no point to keep stating it over and over as it's not helpful.

 

[Stereophonic]

Whether you are still trying to be humorous or not is unclear to me but your English is good enough to know that your intentions are to show disrespect given that you are speaking from ignorance rather than simply experiencing for yourself what a high power CPU can do for bit-perfect playback.

I’m not showing disrespect. I’m explaining and showing examples and argumentations why bit perfect doesn’t need HPCPU
And i’m not the only one.

As previously stated, the Extreme is not just about a high power CPU. If you've read Emile's posts, then you know the lengths he has taken to optimize RAM and the noise it creates. Same thing with its power supply and so the things that you describe as being most important for bit-perfect playback have been addressed, probably to a higher degree than with most servers.

Until now, i’m still waiting what is wrong with my explanation.

When I first encountered the SGM 2015 in Munich in 2017, I liked what I heard but really had no interest in a high power server designed for HQP upsampling. At the time, I was still very much of the mindset that low power CPUs were the way to go. Moreover, and this is just my personal preference, I never liked the softness of DSD and so to convert a native PCM file to DSD never made sense to me. When the EVO was released, as it was really just an updated version of the SGM 2015 and was still intended for DSD upsampling, I still had no interest and so perhaps, I felt then how you feel now.

But my conclusions about the impact of a high power CPU are my own and I came to these conclusions independently from Emile and they are well documented on another site.

If you refers to MonoandStereo one, i’ll reserve my opinion to don’t disrespect anybody.

I'm sure Emile figured this out for himself based on what he had learned from the SGM 2015 and EVO and so regardless of what your speculations might be about what bit-perfect playback needs, you have 2 unrelated entities that have come to the same conclusion and many who have actually listened to the Extreme who are claiming it is the best that they have heard for bit-perfect playback.

You have already made it clear that you have problems with the Extreme even though you have never actually experienced it but there's really no point to keep stating it over and over as it's not helpful.

I disagree. I understand my posts like a good way to explain where are the Extreme weakness. But i’m going to repeat it, i don’t have still a technical based answer.
But it seems all of us have to write only good things about Extreme.
To make everybody happy Extreme is the best Server made ever and i recommend everybody to run as quick as possible to the near dealer to buy one !!!!

 

[Rhapsody]

My observation is:
Curiously there aren’t particular owners that own an Extreme on this thread. How could you expect to see them in other forums?

Sorry, I don't know your name, so I guess it's Stereophonic, and I am not familiar with any of the Wadax products. I have not seen them at the shows and I have not heard them. What I do observe is that they seem like great products, both the servers and dacs as well.

Imho the Wadax, Innuos and the Pinkfaun products as well look like great products and I'm sure great and enjoyable digital music systems can and are built around every mentioned server.

This thread has global attention with a LOT of high end digital users and buyers. I don't think that you are doing Wadax any favors by your contributions/posts on the Taiko Audio/Extreme thread. Maybe Wadax doesn't care and admires your allegiance to Wadax, and your constant intervention, I don't know. My impression would be that Wadax would want their product's merits to shine on their own vs. having to try to compare them to the Extreme or any other products especially in an Extreme titled thread.

Not saying that the WBF members should not debate which is best or which one individuals might prefer, what I am saying is that it appears that your constant flame throwing, which you call "explaining to us all" again only imho does not reflect positively on probably the super company that Wadax is. Just my opinion, nothing more.

 

[romaz]

I’m not showing disrespect.

Lol.

I understand my posts like a good way to explain where are the Extreme weakness. But i’m going to repeat it, i don’t have still a technical based answer.

A technical answer was provided. You just refuse to believe it.

But it seems all of us have to write only good things about Extreme.

I have no problems sharing what I think are not so great about the Extreme. It's large, heavy, and expensive.

 

[Rhapsody]

I have no problems sharing what I think are not so great about the Extreme. It's large, heavy, and expensive.

Love this statement....so true!

 

[Stereophonic]

Sorry, I don't know your name, so I guess it's Stereophonic, and I am not familiar with any of the Wadax products. I have not seen them at the shows and I have not heard them. What I do observe is that they seem like great products, both the servers and dacs as well.

Imho the Wadax, Innuos and the Pinkfaun products as well look like great products and I'm sure great and enjoyable digital music systems can and are built around every mentioned server.

This thread has global attention with a LOT of high end digital users and buyers. I don't think that you are doing Wadax any favors by your contributions/posts on the Taiko Audio/Extreme thread. Maybe Wadax doesn't care and admires your allegiance to Wadax, and your constant intervention, I don't know. My impression would be that Wadax would want their product's merits to shine on their own vs. having to try to compare them to the Extreme or any other products especially in an Extreme titled thread.

Not saying that the WBF members should not debate which is best or which one individuals might prefer, what I am saying is that it appears that your constant flame throwing, which you call "explaining to us all" again only imho does not reflect positively on probably the super company that Wadax is. Just my opinion, nothing more.

If you see my posts i have never compared Wadax Vs SGM. Please don’t misrepresent my posts.... i have always talked about SGM exclusively.

 

[Taiko Audio]

+1

Matt

Post #2000

 

[Rhapsody]

If you see my posts i have never compared Wadax Vs SGM. Please don’t misrepresent my posts.... i have always talked about SGM exclusively.

Your posts speak for themselves.......

What I meant by you comparing Wadax to the Extreme is perception. Your posts on WBF other than in this thread are as a strong supporter for Wadax as you say it is the best technology in existence.

Then you come here talking about the inadequacies of the Extreme design.

It doesn't matter exactly the wording of your posts, it's the very visible intent from a strong Wadax owner trying to flame the Extreme. Whether you say it or not there is no ambiguity in your intention dear sir.

 

[Stereophonic]

Lol.



A technical answer was provided. You just refuse to believe it.



I have no problems sharing what I think are not so great about the Extreme. It's large, heavy, and expensive.

Ok. You are treating me like a fool.
Thank you and accept my apologies, god of sound.

 

[adyc]

My observation is that in threads dedicated to "other servers" you do not encounter Extreme users trying to exalt the virtues of the Extreme or denigrate the other servers.

Although in the thread dedicated to the Extreme server there are users of "other servers" that feel it necessary to share their opinions on the design and implementation of the Extreme.

Quite telling in itself, quite flattering to the Extreme, of course imho.

They can’t accept the truth Extreme is the best computer server and they need to criticise Extreme in order to justify their inferior servers.

 

[Rhapsody]

Ok. You are treating me like a fool.
Thank you and accept my apologies, god of sound.

Stereophonic, why can't we leave it that we ALL understand that you don't think a server needs high power CPUs. We really do get and understand your opinion.

I don't think anyone has any issue with your opinion, it is what it is. Your opinion means nothing to anyone that knows and understands what the Extreme is all about, which is much more than the CPUs.

But again, it's your opinion, you've stated, we understand it, can we please move on???