Agreeing with the other comments in general about the Finisar SFPs, which I've had in a few days now. But what I was really hoping for (in addition to sound quality) was for some slight cooling of the Ether Regen, since it runs so blasted hot. It took a couple of days, but I believe it is now running noticeably less hot--NOT cool or just warm, but definitely a step down in running temperature. So I'm pleased on that front as well.
Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
- Start date
Thank you Esotar
Did you also test USB cables with Taiko extreme and Totaldac ?
Are you able to give us more info over next few days ?
Many of us would love to know your opinion.
Thank you
Sorry, I don't have TotalDAC now.
My 7 customers use FOUR d1-Twelve MK II with Live Power and Three d1-Seven with Reclocker.
They tested Synergistic Research Galileo UEF, GIGAFILTER, Vertere HB, Audioquest Diamond, AIM UA-1 and Wire World Platinum.
I also participated in the test.
All cables has different charming points.
I think GIGAFILTER was the best in case of TotalDAC.
GIGAFILTER that was made by Vincent makes TotalDAC be more perfect.
But unfortunately GIGAFILTER is not compatible to SGM Extreme. Very very sad.
There are a few USB cables that are not compatible to SGM Extreme.
As I know, Entreq all USB, Skogrand Stravinsky, AQ Diamond (not stable), etc.
TotalDAC's the best USB is GIGAFILTER I think.
The best possible customer experience has always been an essential part of the Taiko mission, so I am delighted to announce that Taiko Audio has a multi year agreement with Wilson D’Cruz of Tekwilogy based in Toronto Canada to provide Warranty Service, Repairs and future onsite upgrades to Extreme Owners.
This means that any North American Extreme Owner who needs to return his unit for warranty work or repairs only needs to have it shipped to Toronto, Canada, and not to Hengelo, Holland.
As and when an upgrade becomes available, the plan is that Wilson will make a tour to upgrade the Extremes in place, making the upgrade process for North American Extreme owners as quick and as non-disruptive as possible.
Wilson has a career of more than 25 years in IT, with expertise in database synchronization over maritime satellite links, remote system virtualization, remote customer support, and applications development in multiple languages and environments.
This means that any North American Extreme Owner who needs to return his unit for warranty work or repairs only needs to have it shipped to Toronto, Canada, and not to Hengelo, Holland.
As and when an upgrade becomes available, the plan is that Wilson will make a tour to upgrade the Extremes in place, making the upgrade process for North American Extreme owners as quick and as non-disruptive as possible.
Wilson has a career of more than 25 years in IT, with expertise in database synchronization over maritime satellite links, remote system virtualization, remote customer support, and applications development in multiple languages and environments.
Thumbs up Emile for the effort. Hopefully Asian region customer can have similar extension of service in the near future 
Thumbs up Emile for the effort. Hopefully Asian region customer can have similar extension of service in the near future
We already have Volent in Hong Kong and Nirvana in Australia, but we will explore more options and we have somebody in mind for Singapore. TBC.
Hello @kyoya78,
Welcome to the forum.
We use Intel drives for various reasons.
1) To ensure compatibility with Intel Volume Management Device (Intel VMD) technology which is integrated into Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Each Xeon processor supports 12 NVMe drives.
2) They come with a reassuring 5 year factory warranty.
3) They support certain specific control parameters we use.
Thank you.
I would like to make a reference.
It would be nice if we could experience Extreme in Japan.
Hi Kyoya,
Taiko is about to make a push into the Japanese High End community
The new Taiko website will have a couple of pages in Japanese
One skill we have picked up recently is having interactive chat sessions over Telegram and other messaging platforms where the chat text is automatically translated into the users native language
This ability makes us confident about giving full realtime support to Extreme customers in their native languages
PM me if you want to try out the native language chat functionality in Telegram
Taiko is about to make a push into the Japanese High End community
The new Taiko website will have a couple of pages in Japanese
One skill we have picked up recently is having interactive chat sessions over Telegram and other messaging platforms where the chat text is automatically translated into the users native language
This ability makes us confident about giving full realtime support to Extreme customers in their native languages
PM me if you want to try out the native language chat functionality in Telegram
Hi Esotar,
Can you please tell me what you have plugged into the top Ethernet Port and the USB port to the right (the two thin round black wires) on the Extreme in the 2nd pic? Are those Setchi boxes? What improvements did you notice from whatever it is you have connected there?
Thank you.
Hello, onlychild,
You're right. They are Setchi D-3 USB & RJ45.
I'm world no. 1 Entreq products collector.
After I work with Taiko Audio, I stopped collecting Entreq Grounding items.
Instead of them, I use much more reasonable and efficient ACTIVE grounding boxes [Setchi D-3].
I tested Nordost Quantum grounding sets, Synergistic Research Active grounding set, and etc.
Setchi D-3 is no. 1 cost effective model. Emile can make all type connectors.
As my experience, Setchi D-3 Lan Type is the best.
Now I use 4 Setchi D-3 Lan Type at SGM Extreme, Dual Switches, and Router.
I used 3 Entreq Atlantis Eartha cable and Poseidon gounding box for network devices.
After I tested Setchi D-3 Lan, I didn't collect more Entreq Grounding sets no more.
Highly recommended~!!
"Very interesting," says Detective Columbo. "Just one more thing . . ."
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@Ron Resnick, I took the liberty to quote the full post so your snippet is not taken out of context.
This can probably go in the network thread too, but since it directly relates to the Extreme, I thought I would put some of my findings here.
For someone who listens to only locally stored music through Roon, I wasn’t really sure how much of an improvement networks tweaks would have in my system.
I am an odd ball out when it comes to Extreme owners in that I only use headphones and I have an extremely high aversion to glare/hardness, possibly because the “drivers” are mere inches from my ears.
Like Bob, I had a pretty heavily congested home network with multiple access points, managed switch, control4, etc using Comcast Xfinity copper. The Comcast copper was fed to the basement server room, which then had a very cheap 50-75feet of copper ethernet to my office. From my office, the ethernet fed a Startech FMC powered by a LPS 1.2 which sent fiber to another FMC/LPS that then used a Sablon ethernet cord to the Extreme. I also tried FMC to fiber direct to Extreme, but preferred the sound of the Sablon to the Extreme.
Yesterday, I had ATT add a new internet fiber line direct to my office. Currently, this new internet line is only feeding the Extreme and my work MacBook and nothing else. The ONT is powered by a LPS 1.2 with a supra 50ft ethernet cord to the ATT Modem which is powered by a Pilot Pro battery. Wifi is turned off on the modem. The modem feeds the Extreme with the Sablon ethernet and another cheap ethernet to the MacBook. This is a temp setup until my M12 arrives and I swap out the ATT modem for the EdgeRouter.
I spent most of yesterday and all night listening and I am completely amazed by the sheer improvements in all aspects of the sound. Not only am I hearing more details, but the sound is also calmer, smoother, more dynamic and more vivid. Transients are also sharper without any fatigue. I am also hearing more depth and a fuller/weightier sound. Simply amazing how much the Extreme and Chord Dave have scaled with this network change, and still only with locally stored music from Roon. (These improvements were noticed without the Dave and HQP changes I will describe below, which brought even more improvements)
This new calmness and reduction of glare/hardness have allowed me to do two things that I found very fatiguing before and frankly unlistenable, but was a compromise I had to live with:
1. I can now leave the HF (Hifi) filter off on the DAVE without any fatigue. This no longer rolls off the upper frequencies and transients and imaging are improved.
2. Since I am using HQP from Extreme to Dave, there is a setting for adjusting buffer and bits in HQP (also mentioned in RayDudes incredible Extreme review). I have been playing/testing different configs of this setting for the past 10 days. What I found was that when you increased the buffer (at same time you have to lower the bits some), the sound gained density and weight, and previously for me, reduced glare and hardness. The downside to increasing the buffer is that you lose speed and detail, but decreasing the buffer thins out the music, always a compromise.
Previously I was using 100ms and 28bits because 50ms and 29 bits (as recommended by Emile and Romaz) was too fatiguing for me. With the network improvement from yesterday, I am now using 50ms and 29 bits. I have gained back the speed and detail that was lost without any sign of hardness or glare, but the sound also has more weight and density due to the new ATT fiber line and proper LPS’s on all network equipment in the path to feeding the extreme.
Now just waiting on my M12 and I am genuinely excited to hear the improvements it will bring, because in all honesty, I thought network improvements would barely make a change for playing locally stored files. I could not have imagined that it would be this big of a change, but I am sure it also depends on where you are starting from. My previous network setup was pretty horrible.
Quote of the day: The more my system improves, the less compromises I have to make.
For someone who listens to only locally stored music through Roon, I wasn’t really sure how much of an improvement networks tweaks would have in my system.
I am an odd ball out when it comes to Extreme owners in that I only use headphones and I have an extremely high aversion to glare/hardness, possibly because the “drivers” are mere inches from my ears.
Like Bob, I had a pretty heavily congested home network with multiple access points, managed switch, control4, etc using Comcast Xfinity copper. The Comcast copper was fed to the basement server room, which then had a very cheap 50-75feet of copper ethernet to my office. From my office, the ethernet fed a Startech FMC powered by a LPS 1.2 which sent fiber to another FMC/LPS that then used a Sablon ethernet cord to the Extreme. I also tried FMC to fiber direct to Extreme, but preferred the sound of the Sablon to the Extreme.
Yesterday, I had ATT add a new internet fiber line direct to my office. Currently, this new internet line is only feeding the Extreme and my work MacBook and nothing else. The ONT is powered by a LPS 1.2 with a supra 50ft ethernet cord to the ATT Modem which is powered by a Pilot Pro battery. Wifi is turned off on the modem. The modem feeds the Extreme with the Sablon ethernet and another cheap ethernet to the MacBook. This is a temp setup until my M12 arrives and I swap out the ATT modem for the EdgeRouter.
I spent most of yesterday and all night listening and I am completely amazed by the sheer improvements in all aspects of the sound. Not only am I hearing more details, but the sound is also calmer, smoother, more dynamic and more vivid. Transients are also sharper without any fatigue. I am also hearing more depth and a fuller/weightier sound. Simply amazing how much the Extreme and Chord Dave have scaled with this network change, and still only with locally stored music from Roon. (These improvements were noticed without the Dave and HQP changes I will describe below, which brought even more improvements)
This new calmness and reduction of glare/hardness have allowed me to do two things that I found very fatiguing before and frankly unlistenable, but was a compromise I had to live with:
1. I can now leave the HF (Hifi) filter off on the DAVE without any fatigue. This no longer rolls off the upper frequencies and transients and imaging are improved.
2. Since I am using HQP from Extreme to Dave, there is a setting for adjusting buffer and bits in HQP (also mentioned in RayDudes incredible Extreme review). I have been playing/testing different configs of this setting for the past 10 days. What I found was that when you increased the buffer (at same time you have to lower the bits some), the sound gained density and weight, and previously for me, reduced glare and hardness. The downside to increasing the buffer is that you lose speed and detail, but decreasing the buffer thins out the music, always a compromise.
Previously I was using 100ms and 28bits because 50ms and 29 bits (as recommended by Emile and Romaz) was too fatiguing for me. With the network improvement from yesterday, I am now using 50ms and 29 bits. I have gained back the speed and detail that was lost without any sign of hardness or glare, but the sound also has more weight and density due to the new ATT fiber line and proper LPS’s on all network equipment in the path to feeding the extreme.
Now just waiting on my M12 and I am genuinely excited to hear the improvements it will bring, because in all honesty, I thought network improvements would barely make a change for playing locally stored files. I could not have imagined that it would be this big of a change, but I am sure it also depends on where you are starting from. My previous network setup was pretty horrible.
Quote of the day: The more my system improves, the less compromises I have to make.
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Thanks onlychild for sharing. It would be interesting how you set the edgerouter as a router and disable the ATT one. It looks like the edgerouter does not bring much improvements when you have high quality switches on the chain. I will also try to remove the edgerouter, as Bob did, to check.
I'm still learning as I'm going along with all this network stuff. With some help from others that have done this already, the plan is to replace the ATT modem completely with the EdgeRouter. Has to do with buying ATT security certs and using them on the Edgerouter to trick the ONT into thinking its an ATT modem. It does get a little involving as you have to run Unix line commands.
If I can not replace the ATT modem, I do not plan on using the Edgerouter in the chain. Just ATT modem to M12 to Extreme.
If I can replace the ATT modem with the Edgerouter, I get two benefits. The low noise produced by the Edgerouter when compared to the ATT modem, and having a SFP port built into the Edgerouter. That SFP port would be used to send fiber to a FMC to my MacBook. This way I would isolate the MacBook noise from the Extreme. Unfortunately since we can not control Roon from outside the network, I do not know of any other way besides having at least one computer on the ATT fiber network with the Extreme and while trying to keep all wifi turned off.
Honestly, I wasn't planning on getting this far into the Network game foolishly thinking that I would get minimal improvements playing locally stored files.
Lucky for me, Comcast has been sucking lately, charge an arm and a leg, and give 1/3 the speed of ATT fiber at 3x the cost. The original plan was to replace Comcast with ATT fiber for the entire house, but now I think I might have to keep both, and use ATT Fiber only for the Extreme/music.
The improvements I've heard are too much to give up now and I don't know how much of that is attributed to keeping all other house internet traffic off of the ATT fiber line. I will test adding the house network to the ATT fiber line to see how much it degrades the sound once the Edgerouter is setup and I use the SFP port to feed the rest of the house.
Lucky for me, Comcast has been sucking lately, charge an arm and a leg, and give 1/3 the speed of ATT fiber at 3x the cost. The original plan was to replace Comcast with ATT fiber for the entire house, but now I think I might have to keep both, and use ATT Fiber only for the Extreme/music.
The improvements I've heard are too much to give up now and I don't know how much of that is attributed to keeping all other house internet traffic off of the ATT fiber line. I will test adding the house network to the ATT fiber line to see how much it degrades the sound once the Edgerouter is setup and I use the SFP port to feed the rest of the house.
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