Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
it’s the best customer service I’ve ever experienced in all my years in this hobby.
Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
- Start date
it’s the best customer service I’ve ever experienced in all my years in this hobby.
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
CK. It’s good to know I wasn’t the only one. Emile did his wonders after the 2nd to last update but it was this last update that did me in. I lost interest and had short listening sessions with no interest. I knew it wasn’t my system
To say the Taiko Audio Server (TAS) is better than Roon is an understatement. It’s easy to navigate and does have some swagger to it. I say that because of the seductive nature of Roon. Once you get used to finding your way around it’s very easy to use. I’m betting that once we can download the remote app it will be even easier. With the switch to go from Roon to TAS you can get your meta data from Roon and then. play on TAS. My bet though is that Emile is going to try his best to create a metadata repository every bit as good as Roon. I bet he’ll pull it off
whats paramount for me is not so much having great metadata but rather the best SQ. Having listened now all afternoon I can tell you that I’m stunned that not only did Emiled do it but so also how quickly he did it and have sound better than Roon
To say the Taiko Audio Server (TAS) is better than Roon is an understatement. It’s easy to navigate and does have some swagger to it. I say that because of the seductive nature of Roon. Once you get used to finding your way around it’s very easy to use. I’m betting that once we can download the remote app it will be even easier. With the switch to go from Roon to TAS you can get your meta data from Roon and then. play on TAS. My bet though is that Emile is going to try his best to create a metadata repository every bit as good as Roon. I bet he’ll pull it off
whats paramount for me is not so much having great metadata but rather the best SQ. Having listened now all afternoon I can tell you that I’m stunned that not only did Emiled do it but so also how quickly he did it and have sound better than Roon
This is great news. Emile keeps outdoing himself.
Sound quality is by far the most important thing to me, but I hope the Roon- like experience will not be permanently lost. I particularly like the Roon Radio algorithm for discovering new music.
Sound quality is by far the most important thing to me, but I hope the Roon- like experience will not be permanently lost. I particularly like the Roon Radio algorithm for discovering new music.
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Both Roon and TAS will be in the Extreme so with a switch of a button we can go from TAS to Roon. I agree about the Roon experience and would like to have it available but I've discussed with Emile how he is going to collect his metadata. Much to my amazement there are several on line services that do the same job and some are said to be as good or better than Roon in Metadata.
the TAS I gather will grow it's own library because whatever is played on TAS will go into the TAS library. This plus the help of online apps which collect metadata make for a good start for Emile
The question for me (and most of the other Extreme users is "what will become of our life membership to Roon)? For me it's al about following the best sound quality
I wonder if given more time that Emile might figure out a way to combine the two. Maybe with Roon handing off the file to TAS and then TAS playing it - similar to how Roon can hand files off to HQPlayer. But if Roon has to be turned off to achieve this level of sound quality, then this would obviously be a non-starter.
Innuos finally released an update to their "experimental mode". In this mode, Roon streams to their own internal player that is based on Squeezelite. It is a big step up in sound quality - and now much more stable.
I am able to turn off Roon as well and just use their internal player. Sound quality was a bit better but I was left using a primitive control app (iPeng). After a week or so I ran back to Roon/experimental mode. The gain in sound quality of having Roon turned off wasn't enough to justify giving up Roon's wonderful user experience.
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
it all depends on priorities. Foir me it is sound quality. I don’t like to fuhtz or compare etc. I just want the best sound
as to the Roon experience I cannot deny it. I love it but the music sucks. No better way for me to describe it.
As to the interface Emile is using it isn’t Roon but TBH it’s very easy to navigate and does a very good job. Again this is a beta version and who knows how many revisions it will undergo before it goes live
you have nothing to lose by trying it. Frankly I was somewhat astonished that he could create something as good as this so quickly Emile is also one who cherishes SQ so I sense that this version one is centered on giving Extreme users the best sound. All the rest he said is easy to do and will slowly evolve. If prior posts in this thread come to ring true that Roon doesn’t care about SQ and with each update become increasingly top heavy in code which will continue to decrease SQ.
The other thing as well is that with the remote app which will be soon downloadable at your App Store it will make for more personal tweaking of the sound to your system. Personally I like the default position
Finally the silver lining for Emile will be little if any need for Team Viewer. That will certainly allow him more of a normal life. His customer service is second to none.
Hi Steve,
Agree with you again : I just want the best sound!
Agree with you again : I just want the best sound!
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I commented to Emile about delay time to begin play. It was just slightly slower but only by a fraction of a second.
Turns out there is a reason for what I experienced. There is actually an intentional delay, as the track loads into memory before playing
hence it does not use the disk or network while playing.
All good I’d say
Turns out there is a reason for what I experienced. There is actually an intentional delay, as the track loads into memory before playing
hence it does not use the disk or network while playing.
All good I’d say
Sound quality. End of story for me. No network while streaming? That would be fantastic!
There is nothing special about the Roon metadata-- it's just lifted from the internet (Allmusic, I believe). When they have a pdf, it's a nice bonus. But it's simple enough to get much deeper information than Roon provides about whatever you're listening to from a google search.
I do like the visual interface in Roon-- and the Radio and Queue history. But like Steve, said much of that stuff should be child's play next to getting the sound quality improved.
There is nothing special about the Roon metadata-- it's just lifted from the internet (Allmusic, I believe). When they have a pdf, it's a nice bonus. But it's simple enough to get much deeper information than Roon provides about whatever you're listening to from a google search.
I do like the visual interface in Roon-- and the Radio and Queue history. But like Steve, said much of that stuff should be child's play next to getting the sound quality improved.
What justified me shelling out the bucks for Roon lifetime wasn’t the visual interface. It was Roon Radio. Allowing it to take me on a journey through music in my library exposed me to music that had otherwise languished for many years on my NAS. It got even better after Roon expanded Roon Radio to tracks on Tidal and Qobuz. I’ve been exposed to more unfamiliar music and artists since then than any other time in my life.
It’s like holding the album cover in your hands
I have debated whether I should post this or not. It's not relevant for most Extreme users. But a few of my audio friends from another forum with whom we used to tweak DIY servers together, now bought Extreme servers. They are the ones who will probably try to push their Extreme to its limits. So that post may give them something to think about. I also considered emailing Emile, but I don't think Emile leaves any stones unturned, and I doubt I can tell him anything he does not already know.
Having said that, I would not recommend Extreme owners to do anything on their own unless they absolutely know what they are doing. Installing software on the Extreme can ruin the carefully tweaked system and have pretty bad outcome. Okay, now that the disclaimer is out, if you are into that 1% of people left who like to explore and know exactly what you are doing, please read below.
I have been playing around with my DIY dual Xeon, which has similar hardware like the Extreme. It's also running Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC, and I configure CPU affinities, priorities, etc. with process lasso in probably a similar way like the Extreme. There has been a lot of tweaking on this DIY build - some things worked well, some made it worse, but I wanted to share one of the biggest improvements in sound quality that I believe would also apply to Extreme users.
This test was triggered by my last conversation with @romaz about networking tweaks. At that time (and I know Roy changes things quickly), Roy had tried to use HQPlayer while completely unplugging the Extreme from the network. I was not interested in that type of configuration for multiple reasons, but most importantly:
1. Roon sounded better than ever with this DIY server, and I was thrilled to be able to use Roon again (stopped using it a while ago in favor of Euphony/Stylus).
2. I could not accept the level of inconvenience - getting up to unplug/plug the network cable every time I wanted to change a track. I would rather play my vinyl records in that case.
3. I am using a NOS R2R DAC which does not benefit from upsampling. Actually upsampling with my DAC may cause some weird effects. Using HQplayer just did not sound like the right approach.
But I could not stop thinking WHAT IF, WHAT IF...
What if I try HQPlayer with no upsampling? Okay, that's an easy test. Downloaded and installed HQPlayer. Configured it not to upsample. Configured Roon to output to HQplayer. Improvement? Hard to say... the sound changed somewhat, but it definitely was not a significant improvement.
What if I try HQPlayer with no upsampling but get rid of Roon? That's fine, but unlike the Extreme servers I did not have VNC server installed on my computer. Remote Desktop is removed as part of stripping down my Windows. My best option to connect to the server was via KVM.
I probably should not assume that everyone here knows what KVM is, so let me explain.
Servers that are installed in data centers and managed remotely sometimes need to be power cycled remotely, or they may need their BIOS changed, or even the Operating systems to be reinstalled. Imagine your Extreme fails to boot Windows (knock on wood!) - you would not be able to connect via VNC or TeamViewer, because the Operating system has not loaded. Your only option is to connect a keyboard and monitor to see what happens. Well, that's not really an acceptable option for remotely managed servers. That's why most servers provide out of band management interface. Think of it as an option to use keyboard, video, and mouse remotely from a web-browser. It's a low-level hardware device that does not need an operating system to operate.
My Asus SAGE motherboard came with this little BMC card that provides KVM access:
From my previous experiments with DIY servers I know that network traffic impacts performance. Euphony / Stylus was loading everything in RAM and trying to do as little I/O (input/output) activity as possible. Roon developers prioritize convenience over sound quality, and Roon generates a lot of network traffic that can potentially impact the sound quality. That's why Roy discovered that unplugging the network completely sounds so good. And BTW, no server is immune to the negative effect of I/O. So this is not a negative for the Extreme. The Extreme, with its dual CPUs, is going above and beyond any other server I have seen to minimize this impact, but as we have discovered, network tweaks are beneficial even to Extreme owners.
What if I disable all network cards in Windows, so the OS cannot perform any network activity? And what if I use HQplayer with no oversampling and connect via KVM to control the software. Well, this my friends was one of the biggest improvements on my DIY server. If Extreme owners get even half of the improvement I got, it would still be a huge improvement. I need to do a few more experiments, but they would have to wait until next weekend.
My conclusion so far is two folded.
1. Roon sounds incredible with this hardware, and I am sure it sounds even better on the Extreme. It's the best quality Roon I have ever heard. But there are still other players out there that sound better than Roon. Maybe one day Emile will write his own "Extreme" player.
2. No matter what you do, network activity has impact on the server performance. No network is the best network.
If the 0.1% remaining users (Is that even 1
And hopefully Emile does not get upset with my post. By all means, feel free to delete if not relevant.
Cheers,
Nenon
Absolutely agree on this. I'm using an DIY server and NOS R2R DAC as well.
1. I didn't like HQplayer from Day 1 even it is not up-sampled, the sound somewhat like getting polished, is not real and natural enough.
2. The best network is no network, agree. By unplugging network u can easily gain 20% more SQ, which is so relaxed, natural and fluent.
The less devices in your network chain, the less tonal change. For example, disconnecting the router connecting to server switch from the Internet (Fiber Modem already) make big improvement.
I always use this as the baseline to evaluate new switches/network gadgets added to my system. So far the M12 switch gold gives me the most natural feeling among the other hifi switches compared to network unplugged.
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On the other hand, congratulate Emile for his tremendous effort. Getting a Server even in Beta in such a short time is impressive. I had Roon for a year to compare its sound with Minimserver, I didn't renew. I have to say that also, I thought that Roon were somewhat arrogant, I did not like their attitude.
I hope that we can get completely rid of Roon with TAS.
Roon does not use Qobuz API and you get new albums always later than with Audirvana for example.
Matt
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If the current Roon update sounds so sub-par thru Extreme, surely that must be audible thru other streamers too?
You mean Extreme just too good for Nu Roon, will not be able to not highlight it's deficiencies? Other streamers, poorer SQ "slips" thru, unnoticed?
