Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
- Start date
Doesn’t sound like a good start for that product both in QC and/or user friendliness.
There's always a small risk for shipping damage. In the EU you have to drop your appliance 50 times from a 1 meter height after which there's a maximum allowed deformation in the 0.x mm range. You are allowed to place your appliance on a platform luckily so you don't entirely destroy it.
We luckily have only had 2 cases of shipping damage to SGM's, both demo machines, 1 was returned to us without the internal packing foam, just sitting in the box, needless to say the chassis was unsalvageable but it was miraculously still operating! The other was recently, it had some small dents in the front plate and had a malfunctioning OCXO.
We luckily have only had 2 cases of shipping damage to SGM's, both demo machines, 1 was returned to us without the internal packing foam, just sitting in the box, needless to say the chassis was unsalvageable but it was miraculously still operating! The other was recently, it had some small dents in the front plate and had a malfunctioning OCXO.
Gosh - what kind of careless idiot would send back such an expensive demo device like an SGM without any internal packaging? Sounds like an absolute tw*t. Hope you billed them for the damage, Emile.
Seemed to be an honest mistake actually, not a big deal. We had some fun with the chassis
I would like to share with you a wonderful discovery that I made this afternoon and that could perhaps serve Emile in his developments.
Before explaining it, I would like to comment that I have an incessant war against the noise of the Network: Switch Aqvox, LPSU for the Aqvox, Cable Entreq RJ45 to the Entreq box and Cable Entreq from the Neutral of the DC connector of the Switch to ground. I say this because I suppose if I had a normal commercial switch, the effect would still be greater.
Well, I had always used my Melco to transmit to the DAC with an app on my Ipad. Once I tried to turn off the switch (to eliminate noise) when the DAC was already playing, but the music simply stopped. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the Switch is the DHCP server for the Melco.
This afternoon, out of curiosity, I used a Melco utility that consists of the possibility to manually operate the device with the buttons on the front panel. I have located a concert and I have given the play button. Almost instantaneously I realized how wonderfully my system sounded. At the same time I saw that the Melco disappeared from the IPad app and then I thought that maybe the designers blocked the RJ45 port when manually playing a USB DAC. I turned off the switch and the music was still dreaming. An email to Alan Aísle from Melco Europe, has confirmed what I thought.
That is to say, for the first time in my life I have managed to hear music totally isolated from the NET and it is something big.
I understand that of course you can not do Streaming and that manually managing the Melco is a "nightmare" but the important thing has been to prove something in what you firmly believed: the future of music in RED, goes by eliminating the "damn" noise that the network itself produces because the result musically is wonderful.
Before explaining it, I would like to comment that I have an incessant war against the noise of the Network: Switch Aqvox, LPSU for the Aqvox, Cable Entreq RJ45 to the Entreq box and Cable Entreq from the Neutral of the DC connector of the Switch to ground. I say this because I suppose if I had a normal commercial switch, the effect would still be greater.
Well, I had always used my Melco to transmit to the DAC with an app on my Ipad. Once I tried to turn off the switch (to eliminate noise) when the DAC was already playing, but the music simply stopped. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the Switch is the DHCP server for the Melco.
This afternoon, out of curiosity, I used a Melco utility that consists of the possibility to manually operate the device with the buttons on the front panel. I have located a concert and I have given the play button. Almost instantaneously I realized how wonderfully my system sounded. At the same time I saw that the Melco disappeared from the IPad app and then I thought that maybe the designers blocked the RJ45 port when manually playing a USB DAC. I turned off the switch and the music was still dreaming. An email to Alan Aísle from Melco Europe, has confirmed what I thought.
That is to say, for the first time in my life I have managed to hear music totally isolated from the NET and it is something big.
I understand that of course you can not do Streaming and that manually managing the Melco is a "nightmare" but the important thing has been to prove something in what you firmly believed: the future of music in RED, goes by eliminating the "damn" noise that the network itself produces because the result musically is wonderful.
Hi Francisco,
Thank you for sharing. It is a very interesting phenomenon I noticed as well. I was able to get Tidal sounding better then local SSD storage, but it depends a bit on network utilization. I have not yet managed to get better sound from Tidal then from local PCIe storage which we use in the Extreme, but I can get pretty close.
For me the ultimate goal is to have the same sound quality no matter the source as you can never have a local library matching the selections available on Tidal / Qobuz.
Absolutely mandatory for competitive network based music sources is fiber networking. Which is why we include a STP interface in the Extreme by default now.
Thank you for sharing. It is a very interesting phenomenon I noticed as well. I was able to get Tidal sounding better then local SSD storage, but it depends a bit on network utilization. I have not yet managed to get better sound from Tidal then from local PCIe storage which we use in the Extreme, but I can get pretty close.
For me the ultimate goal is to have the same sound quality no matter the source as you can never have a local library matching the selections available on Tidal / Qobuz.
Absolutely mandatory for competitive network based music sources is fiber networking. Which is why we include a STP interface in the Extreme by default now.
Hello, Guys~!!
Here is SGM Extreme sound quality movie.
No cable matching and devices matching~!!
Here is SGM Extreme sound quality movie.
No cable matching and devices matching~!!
Francisco, some of this could be defeating the Wifi? I use my Mac Mini with wifi defeated and it does sound better. On Total v SSD (local) I already have better sound from Qobuz than local inside Roon. Tidal app itself is garbage as a stand alone player.
Roon may have a lot to do with this, as it now beats all other players I have tried recently.
On Ethernet to the router and fibre to the outside of my apartment, if I have any other devices on the network via Wifi not active, I think this also increase sound quality. So you are correct, any and all devices or wifi live on the same network adds noise.
As I told, S. Korea is very very poor country.
But SGM Extreme is Super Massive Hit in Korea.
Korean audiophiles said SGM Extreme is the only one music server that has all strong points.
FLAWLESS~!!!
Although Extreme has super massive reputation, the possibility of the sales is very low.
But WBF members are rich
Highly recommended~!
Order it~!!
But SGM Extreme is Super Massive Hit in Korea.
Korean audiophiles said SGM Extreme is the only one music server that has all strong points.
FLAWLESS~!!!
Although Extreme has super massive reputation, the possibility of the sales is very low.
But WBF members are rich
Highly recommended~!
Order it~!!
There's something more to this then meets the eye.
This particular client is using an Aurender W20 with an external 10MHz clock reference, 0.05ppb, 130dB/10Hz phase noise. 1hz not specified but an educated guess puts that the range 110-115dB (not counting cherry picking).
He auditioned the EVO initially but was not entirely satisfied.
Subsequently forum member Esotar lent his Extreme to him which did satisfy him, in fact he wants to order one.
The reason I'm mentioning this is, the EVO is using a 24MHz OCXO which can never match the specifications of purposely built 10MHz references, it's easily 15-20dB worse at 1Hz. Now you can use a 10MHz XO and a multiplier, but unfortunately that has its downsides as well. This is why we spend so much time finding a way bypassing the "need" for an OCXO in the Extreme. Internal clock quality is irrelevant in the Extreme (as it should be for a server). As a bonus, we get significantly better performance out of the whole package.
Now please don't get me wrong, I am absolutely not stating that XO quality is irrelevant, it most certainly is very important, just not in the Extreme. We are investigating options for native 10MHz clocked USB / Ethernet solutions. If this turns out to provide us with something elevating performance even further, it will be made available in the form of a PCIe expansion card. However, cherry picked XO's do come with a considerable price tag and are not available in large quantities.
While on the subject, it's interesting to mention that a 0.015 g2/Hz vibration level has about a 30-40dB negative impact on phase noise up to about 1000Hz.
The last point on vibration induced deleterious measured impacts is amazing, Emile.
Bill, Stacore under my cdp was gobsmackingly awesome, I can imagine Tana/Daiza applied to the Evo and Extreme would be wholly advantageous too.
And those are actually specifications for ruggedized xo's, designed to have acceptable specifications in extreme environments. Very likely to be even worse for "normal" xo's.
Most definitely. What is interesting is, the Extreme was specifically designed to be more immune to external applies vibrations, but it responds even stronger to good vibration control. We have observed this before, my AudioNet amplifiers have a "floating" external chassis, yet they respond even more to vibration control then any other amplifier I've had here. Mike moved his Tana's to his Dartzeel's, those have anti vibration measures like "floating" transformers, yet the effect is even more obvious!
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