Posted an initial report here:
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/thre...-external-crossovers.29632/page-2#post-622719
Better quality photos:
Daniele Coen of Alsyvox, EuroDriver and me:
Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
- Start date
Posted an initial report here:
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/thre...-external-crossovers.29632/page-2#post-622719
Better quality photos:
Daniele Coen of Alsyvox, EuroDriver and me:
This is my first post here in WBF although I have been reading through this long thread quite a number of times and also some friends have also cross referenced to my system before here in WBF. So I guess I am not that new either.
I was among the three buddies in our group who purchased the SGM extreme late last year. And before my purchase I have read through this long thread several times. Unlike my friends who paired the extreme with top notch DACs like dCS Vivaldi or Esoteric I am only pairing the extreme with the medium priced Denafrips Terminator. As I can remember in some pages earlier there were discussions on whether one should use the budget to buy the extreme and start off with a less expensive DAC or the other way round. I can testify that pairing the extreme with Denafrips Terminator is definitely a good choice. Before going into the details of how the extreme sounds in my system maybe I can talk a little about my audiophile journey and I hope you can tolerate this slightly long introduction.
I have been an audiophile for almost 40 years by now and I have over 10000 CDs (over 95% classical music) and I have ripped about 2/3 of them into wav files. I am a very amateur conductor and I occasionally do some recording. Since my semi-retirement some 5 years ago I started to build my own music listening studio trying to comply with the best physical dimensions as far as possible. My gears are on the whole more inclined on studio monitor type. DACs I have owned all through the years included PS Audio Ultralink, Audio Synthesis DAX2, dCS Elgar + Purcell, Prismsound ADA8, EMM Labs DAC6e, MSB DAC4, Merging Technology Horus, LKS DAC4, Phasure NOS1a DAC, Holo Spring, T+A DAC8dsd, Denafrips Terminator, Chord Blu2 + Dave. DACs still in my possession includes Merging Horus (which I occasional use to do some amateur recordings using Merging Pyramix), LKS DAC4, Phasure NOS1a, Denafrips Terminator and Chord Blu2+ Dave. MSB DAC4 is dropped because the upgrade path is too steep(Just imagine the DAC now costs more than 10x the price of my DAC4) and also because it is not so Linux friendly. T+A DAC8dsd is dropped also because it cannot go to DSD512 with Linux. As you can see that from the list of DAC I've owned that I have been torn between PCM and DSD and still have not decided which way to go. PCM giving you a better perspective of the orchestra while DSD gives you a bit more of warmth and rich timbre. And the wish has always been to get the best of both worlds. So when I go to orchestral concerts I used to pick the center seats of the 9th to 10th roll( a bit different from Romaz who enjoys more the upfront seats)
My CAS journey began about 15 years ago starting with some very basic Linux systems and pairing with onboard RME soundcard. I am not really familiar with Linux myself and I am actually more a follower of my buddies. There were times when we also tried the modified Windows with RME soundcard by Taiwan p900. Other than that I am more in favour of using Linux as OS because of its warm and analogue sound. In recent years my buddy cum mentor Matthew created his own doppio Linux server using Debian OS and compiled his own kernel. It mainly employs embedded hqplayer + NAA and the sound has been superb in my system. It betters the other Linux systems including Audiolinux and Euphony which I have also tried extensively in my system. All along I am in favour of using HQplayer with upsampling to dsd512 because of its more sumptuous sound. DSD of lower resolution many a time gives too warm a sound as to blur the details as well as limiting the liveliness of the music(this quality I regard as the most important quality of reproducing music). But this also created a problem of requiring a powerful CPU together with its problems like harsh sound. So Linear power supplies including Teradak, Paul Pang, and more recently HDplex have all been used. I have also added OCXO clock whenever possible. These do help to solve part of the harshness associated with high power CPUs. About 2 years ago I changed to using Chord Blue 2 + Dave because it gives a very natural layout of the orchestra together with excellent depth and width and I have been using PCM and output 44.1 to Chord Blu2 +Dave for it to do the FPGA up-scaling. This drives me more to a low power CPU computer. However this combo is outputting a sound which is a bit anemic. Recently Romaz advocated large power CPU in order to give a more dyanmic sound. This has been tested in my system too and I agree entirely with his conclusions. In recent few months there are new modulators dsd7EC in embedded HQplayer and when used in dsd256 it gives an entirely new dimension of sound very different from previous dsd512. The sound is no longer over warm(which is the main drawback of DSD) and the sound becomes so much more transparent than before so much so I am being drawn to DSD again and because the Chord Blu2 + Dave is not the type of gear that suitable for DSD so I have to turn to the Denafrips Terminator which also came up with a new USB module which can reach DSD1024. And I have used the Terminator as my main DAC till now.
As for the SGM I have been keeping an eye on it all these years from the original SGM2015, SGM EVO and the present extreme and it is only with the present extreme that I think it has reached a level that other servers can hardly come close. It is an excellent product in all aspects including software and hardware , electronics as well as mechanical construction. And this has culminated into a product capable of giving some very realistic music reproduction. Since it started to sound in my system on the second day of 2020 it has continued to shine. The best is in orchestral music and opera where one can really get the feel of listening at the conductor's rostrum. All the instruments are in their natural position (not the over-sharp focus giving you tension type of HiFi sound) but the sound just comes forth naturally. Phrasing of the orchestra are so well displayed that you cannot ask for more. Playing opera recordings can really draw you into the scene. But for these to happen one has to use the internal storage as source of the files. I have tried to play files from my NAS and then it is not that same story. It drops to a level that is probably not as good as my previous system even though it is using all the excellent clocks and switches. And I have been very satisfied with the performance of the extreme so far and I can expect more improvements as it gets past 30 days.
So anything I would like to ask for? Yes.
The Terminator is capable of accepting dual AES input. I hope that I can try to compare the dual AES input with the USB input that I have been using now. Unfortunately I understand that the dual AES format is not standardized at present. For example the dCS format is different from Esoteric format. So I don't have any idea what format the Terminator dual AES is ? Hope that can be solved
Second thing is I really hope that one day I can try the HQplayer on the extreme. It seems that at present noone has tried HQplayer on extreme yet. Maybe the CPU is not powerful enough for the newer modulators. Hopefully some day that can be solved too.
I am all ears to advise from all the experienced audiophiles here in WBF. And Bravo to Emile!!
I was among the three buddies in our group who purchased the SGM extreme late last year. And before my purchase I have read through this long thread several times. Unlike my friends who paired the extreme with top notch DACs like dCS Vivaldi or Esoteric I am only pairing the extreme with the medium priced Denafrips Terminator. As I can remember in some pages earlier there were discussions on whether one should use the budget to buy the extreme and start off with a less expensive DAC or the other way round. I can testify that pairing the extreme with Denafrips Terminator is definitely a good choice. Before going into the details of how the extreme sounds in my system maybe I can talk a little about my audiophile journey and I hope you can tolerate this slightly long introduction.
I have been an audiophile for almost 40 years by now and I have over 10000 CDs (over 95% classical music) and I have ripped about 2/3 of them into wav files. I am a very amateur conductor and I occasionally do some recording. Since my semi-retirement some 5 years ago I started to build my own music listening studio trying to comply with the best physical dimensions as far as possible. My gears are on the whole more inclined on studio monitor type. DACs I have owned all through the years included PS Audio Ultralink, Audio Synthesis DAX2, dCS Elgar + Purcell, Prismsound ADA8, EMM Labs DAC6e, MSB DAC4, Merging Technology Horus, LKS DAC4, Phasure NOS1a DAC, Holo Spring, T+A DAC8dsd, Denafrips Terminator, Chord Blu2 + Dave. DACs still in my possession includes Merging Horus (which I occasional use to do some amateur recordings using Merging Pyramix), LKS DAC4, Phasure NOS1a, Denafrips Terminator and Chord Blu2+ Dave. MSB DAC4 is dropped because the upgrade path is too steep(Just imagine the DAC now costs more than 10x the price of my DAC4) and also because it is not so Linux friendly. T+A DAC8dsd is dropped also because it cannot go to DSD512 with Linux. As you can see that from the list of DAC I've owned that I have been torn between PCM and DSD and still have not decided which way to go. PCM giving you a better perspective of the orchestra while DSD gives you a bit more of warmth and rich timbre. And the wish has always been to get the best of both worlds. So when I go to orchestral concerts I used to pick the center seats of the 9th to 10th roll( a bit different from Romaz who enjoys more the upfront seats)
My CAS journey began about 15 years ago starting with some very basic Linux systems and pairing with onboard RME soundcard. I am not really familiar with Linux myself and I am actually more a follower of my buddies. There were times when we also tried the modified Windows with RME soundcard by Taiwan p900. Other than that I am more in favour of using Linux as OS because of its warm and analogue sound. In recent years my buddy cum mentor Matthew created his own doppio Linux server using Debian OS and compiled his own kernel. It mainly employs embedded hqplayer + NAA and the sound has been superb in my system. It betters the other Linux systems including Audiolinux and Euphony which I have also tried extensively in my system. All along I am in favour of using HQplayer with upsampling to dsd512 because of its more sumptuous sound. DSD of lower resolution many a time gives too warm a sound as to blur the details as well as limiting the liveliness of the music(this quality I regard as the most important quality of reproducing music). But this also created a problem of requiring a powerful CPU together with its problems like harsh sound. So Linear power supplies including Teradak, Paul Pang, and more recently HDplex have all been used. I have also added OCXO clock whenever possible. These do help to solve part of the harshness associated with high power CPUs. About 2 years ago I changed to using Chord Blue 2 + Dave because it gives a very natural layout of the orchestra together with excellent depth and width and I have been using PCM and output 44.1 to Chord Blu2 +Dave for it to do the FPGA up-scaling. This drives me more to a low power CPU computer. However this combo is outputting a sound which is a bit anemic. Recently Romaz advocated large power CPU in order to give a more dyanmic sound. This has been tested in my system too and I agree entirely with his conclusions. In recent few months there are new modulators dsd7EC in embedded HQplayer and when used in dsd256 it gives an entirely new dimension of sound very different from previous dsd512. The sound is no longer over warm(which is the main drawback of DSD) and the sound becomes so much more transparent than before so much so I am being drawn to DSD again and because the Chord Blu2 + Dave is not the type of gear that suitable for DSD so I have to turn to the Denafrips Terminator which also came up with a new USB module which can reach DSD1024. And I have used the Terminator as my main DAC till now.
As for the SGM I have been keeping an eye on it all these years from the original SGM2015, SGM EVO and the present extreme and it is only with the present extreme that I think it has reached a level that other servers can hardly come close. It is an excellent product in all aspects including software and hardware , electronics as well as mechanical construction. And this has culminated into a product capable of giving some very realistic music reproduction. Since it started to sound in my system on the second day of 2020 it has continued to shine. The best is in orchestral music and opera where one can really get the feel of listening at the conductor's rostrum. All the instruments are in their natural position (not the over-sharp focus giving you tension type of HiFi sound) but the sound just comes forth naturally. Phrasing of the orchestra are so well displayed that you cannot ask for more. Playing opera recordings can really draw you into the scene. But for these to happen one has to use the internal storage as source of the files. I have tried to play files from my NAS and then it is not that same story. It drops to a level that is probably not as good as my previous system even though it is using all the excellent clocks and switches. And I have been very satisfied with the performance of the extreme so far and I can expect more improvements as it gets past 30 days.
So anything I would like to ask for? Yes.
The Terminator is capable of accepting dual AES input. I hope that I can try to compare the dual AES input with the USB input that I have been using now. Unfortunately I understand that the dual AES format is not standardized at present. For example the dCS format is different from Esoteric format. So I don't have any idea what format the Terminator dual AES is ? Hope that can be solved
Second thing is I really hope that one day I can try the HQplayer on the extreme. It seems that at present noone has tried HQplayer on extreme yet. Maybe the CPU is not powerful enough for the newer modulators. Hopefully some day that can be solved too.
I am all ears to advise from all the experienced audiophiles here in WBF. And Bravo to Emile!!
Welcome to WBF!
hols is my mentor and the "golden ear" of our small but very active HK audiophile gang!
Concerning the Denafrips Terminator, let me share with you and other WBF members a good news :
There will be a Terminator Plus soon.
It contains many improvement, including ocxo internal clock modules and also an input for external audiophile clock.
I shall keep everybody updated. Pls stay tuned.
Last edited:
FYI - this particular USB DDC (with quad SC-CUT OCXO) seemed to have dual AES that might / might not be compatible with Terminator, maybe check with the owner of this company if you're interested?
http://www.nctodolbs.com/dp-505-pro/
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=573161673153
http://www.headphoneclub.com/thread-732206-1-1.html
http://www.nctodolbs.com/dp-505-pro/
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=573161673153
http://www.headphoneclub.com/thread-732206-1-1.html
I have just this week fitted my system with Stage III Gorgon XLR IC's and the Xphynx Statement USB cable. The USB cable was fitted first and took at lest 1,000 hours to fully break in so I expect more of the same with the Gorgon XLR's. These cables are HEAVY and incredibly well isolated against RFI etc. However they need supporting. The bass foundation is extraordinary as are the Micro details.
More importantly they hook me into the music. previous cables were all Shunyata Sigma and the difference in performance was not nearly as much as the price difference between the Stage III cables and the Shunyata loom. Having said that the Shunyata's had 2,000 plus hours on them so the Stage III XLR IC's will no doubt widen the gap once fully broken in.
I received the full order of SR Orange fuses this week all at the manufacturers ratings, no less no more. I have not heard the Blue however I do have the Black SR fuses, these Orange fuses offer a tangible effect with seemingly no negatives. Burn in time is around the 300 hour mark. I do not turn off my system unless there is a component swap and that's rare now. Emile also told me that the Extreme once fully powered with power cable removed take a full 3 days for the Extreme to return to its magical form.
I have also put the SR Orange fuses into the MSB dual power supplies for the Select II DAC, and its performance has been lifted again (if that's possible!).
My Internet enters the house via Coax into the ISP's modem which has a single Ethernet connection to the switch, a full loom of Shunyata Sigma Ethernet cables run from the Modem to the Switch and then onto the Extreme.
I will make the effort and try the Fibre connection with the components that Emile recommends and report on the outcome. I still cannot get my head around how using a Fibre connection can improve the Extreme's sound when using locally stored music..?
If some one can enlighten me as to how this occurs I would be most grateful.
Otherwise I have never had it so good, I look forward to anytime I can spend listening and exploring new music via Roon. This must be the Golden era of Digital music coming of age surely?
More importantly they hook me into the music. previous cables were all Shunyata Sigma and the difference in performance was not nearly as much as the price difference between the Stage III cables and the Shunyata loom. Having said that the Shunyata's had 2,000 plus hours on them so the Stage III XLR IC's will no doubt widen the gap once fully broken in.
I received the full order of SR Orange fuses this week all at the manufacturers ratings, no less no more. I have not heard the Blue however I do have the Black SR fuses, these Orange fuses offer a tangible effect with seemingly no negatives. Burn in time is around the 300 hour mark. I do not turn off my system unless there is a component swap and that's rare now. Emile also told me that the Extreme once fully powered with power cable removed take a full 3 days for the Extreme to return to its magical form.
I have also put the SR Orange fuses into the MSB dual power supplies for the Select II DAC, and its performance has been lifted again (if that's possible!).
My Internet enters the house via Coax into the ISP's modem which has a single Ethernet connection to the switch, a full loom of Shunyata Sigma Ethernet cables run from the Modem to the Switch and then onto the Extreme.
I will make the effort and try the Fibre connection with the components that Emile recommends and report on the outcome. I still cannot get my head around how using a Fibre connection can improve the Extreme's sound when using locally stored music..?
If some one can enlighten me as to how this occurs I would be most grateful.
Otherwise I have never had it so good, I look forward to anytime I can spend listening and exploring new music via Roon. This must be the Golden era of Digital music coming of age surely?
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Great first post and welcome to WBF
I agree with you 100 % in what you said about the Extreme and building the system around the Extreme rather than building it around the DAC. I also agree that there is zero need to get great SQ with an Uber expensive DAC as the Extreme does for me exactly what it does for you
Professional version of HQPlayer 4 (close to US$3,000) could provide offline upsampling but those upsampled DSD files are huge
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55165-hqplayer-pro/?tab=comments#comment-912934
Though M.2 drives are going all the way up to 4TB already, therefore each PCIe slot could theoretically provide 16TB if the heat were no issues
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Rocket-Internal-Performance-SB-ROCKET-4TB/dp/B07ZQSDQDB
Alternatively, I don't think this is recommended (or even supported?) by Emile to begin with
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...-hqplayer/page/4/?tab=comments#comment-703489
https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-C621E-Sage-Workstation-Motherboard/dp/B07BHWCGDD
Assuming that CUDA offload for HQPlayer 4 could actually work over Thunderbolt 3, simply get that Thunderbolt EX3 card and then add another (fanless) eGPU enclosure for installing one of these guys listed below
https://www.amazon.com/Palit-GeForce-KalmX-Express-Graphics/dp/B01N3CC5DU
https://www.fullysilentpcs.com/product-category/pcie-expansion-cards/graphics-cards-heatsink/
Maybe get in touch with Jussi Laako and find out what he's gonna suggest?
Roon is a very busy app and it is checking via the LAN the status of various devices on the LAN so the LAN switch is busy. Roon is also phoning home via the Internet. This adds address resolution activities to the RF landscape
Is it worth going going to an optical ring fenced network ?
From a cost benefit point of view yes, but from a musical enjoyment versus the effort that’s a question each one of us can decide.
Steve has reached his audio Nirvana and stepped off the upgrade tread mill.
From 50,000 feet one could say he is the smartest one of all of us and I envy him
My personal journey continues to be the relentless pursuit of increasing realism and thereby increasing listening enjoyment for some fellow travelers.
Steve does not need to travel further, he is there !
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
A Termina
A Terminator PLUS coming !? I hope there will be an "upgrade" possibility for actual Terminator owners like me ;-)Welcome to WBF!
hols is my mentor and the "golden ear" of our small but very active HK audiophile gang!
Concerning the Denafrips Terminator, let me share with you and other WBF members a good news :
There will be a Terminator Plus soon.
It contains many improvement, including ocxo internal clock modules and also an input for external audiophile clock.
I shall keep everybody updated. Pls stay tuned.
Hello iSquirrel,
May I know the spec of the two SR Orange Fuses you used on the Select DAC Mono-Powerbases?
Thanks!
Welcome to the forum hols.
I would agree to "commercial" NAS file playback sound quality starting to increasingly falling behind local file playback and has even fallen behind Tidal/Qobuz playback quality in our office here.
I do have a Terminator here, I will add testing dual AES to my unfortunately very long todo list. We can split sampling rate (double speed mode like DCS) or replicate the signal, neither of which works with Esoteric btw which probably is some kind of proprietary protocol.
We have tested HQPlayer version 3.x with the Extreme, DSD upsampling using the most taxing filter back then, polysinc-xtr (non -2s), it can run on 1 CPU up to DSD256, for DSD512 you need both CPUs, at which point it draws about 330 watts from the wall. The EC modulators in HPlayer 4 use even more resources, this is really beyond reasonable assuming using a linear powered server. HQPlayer 4 does do better with higher individual core clock speeds and large caches, the current AMD offerings which we are also testing can do a better job here (at least for value), though not for bit perfect playback as there is some inconsistency between CPUs and even between cores on the same CPU, which we may be able to solve though. The bottom line is we have not given up on HQPlayer.
Thank you, much appreciated!
I have not tested these yet, I'm expecting more 4TB and maybe even 8TB M.2 offerings to launch this year at more reasonable (consumer level) prices. The Samsung NF1 8TB is still at around 2500-3000 for example right now.
This is interesting. Do you know why NAS file playback would be worse than Tidal/Qobuz playback?
A likely explanation is the NAS with its own OS and file serving program running is generating more activity on the LAN than Roon accessing Qobuz or TIDAL servers over the Internet
I don’t see why that would be significant especially if there is some Ethernet isolation. Plus, the path that Qobuz files traveling (and what can happen along the way) would seem significantly greater than playing a file on your NAS.
Also, doesn’t the fact that the data gets buffered locally help to minimize the effects of all this?
It may help to consider your whole network as part of your system, I don't believe there's such a thing as total isolation.
I agree completely. However, files that stream from Qobuz/Tidal are subject to the whole network as well which is why I don't see why they would be immune to the issues that NAS files are.
