Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[Mike Lavigne]

How long of a gap between tracks are we talking about? Is it variable depending on track length?

I'm guessing they'll come up with a solution, but, personally, I'd thankfully trade a few seconds of silence between tracks for better sq any day!

5-7 seconds, maybe 10 seconds max as i recall. i'll time it tonight when i listen.

 

[dminches]

5-7 seconds, maybe 10 seconds max as i recall. i'll time it tonight when i listen.

That's an eternity if there isn't supposed to be a gap.

I am sure they will come up with a solution.

 

[cat6man]

How long of a gap between tracks are we talking about? Is it variable depending on track length?

I'm guessing they'll come up with a solution, but, personally, I'd thankfully trade a few seconds of silence between tracks for better sq any day!

if there has to be a tradeoff, it should be selectable as an option from the remote.
hopefully that won't be necessary, but gapless is a deal breaker for me.
a (short!) extra delay between tracks that already have silence between them is probably not a big issue, but for live concerts or Abbey Road, even a short interruption most certainly is, IMHO

don't forget, we're talking about an alpha release, not even a beta, so let's not get carried away and give Emile et son equipe some time to work this all out.

 

[Taiko Audio]

if there has to be a tradeoff, it should be selectable as an option from the remote.
hopefully that won't be necessary, but gapless is a deal breaker for me.
a (short!) extra delay between tracks that already have silence between them is probably not a big issue, but for live concerts or Abbey Road, even a short interruption most certainly is, IMHO

don't forget, we're talking about an alpha release, not even a beta, so let's not get carried away and give Emile et son equipe some time to work this all out.

Yes you can disable it. We could also consider preloading / treating an entire Album. Or preload the next track an X amount of time before the current track stops. The largest file I tried was a 4Gb file which took 32 seconds, equivalent to 6 or 7 16/44.1 CD's or a complete DSD256 album. That was from local storage, from Qobuz the internet download speed would be a factor.

 

[EuroDriver]

How long of a gap between tracks are we talking about? Is it variable depending on track length?

I'm guessing they'll come up with a solution, but, personally, I'd thankfully trade a few seconds of silence between tracks for better sq any day!

The pause is proportional to track length and sample rate.

It’s like with cooking, good things can’t be rushed

It’s a bit like an old master waiter making zabaione at your table, too fast and too hot a flame, it collapses . . .

 

[onlychild]

I have been running a optimized wired network to my Extreme using my MacBook Pro to control Roon. Since TAS can only be controlled through an IPAD, what are other Extreme owners using to transmit a wifi signal.

My current network is ATT Fiber --> ONT --> EdgeX --> M12 --> Extreme.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

my first impressions on the 'pause' is that it results in a relaxed and positive listening experience. i found that i anticipated the music starting, i had time to complete the enjoyment and afterglow of the previous track, and it made the experience overall more satisfying.

ask me in a week or two and we will see if i still feel that way. i think you have to get to a relaxed listening place to see how it works for you.

if that is the 'gotcha' for TAS then sign me up.

 

[steve williams]

5-7 seconds, maybe 10 seconds max as i recall. i'll time it tonight when i listen.

In some cases I found the lag to be even longer. Personally it is the single biggest distraction for me

 

[Taiko Audio]

In some cases I found the lag to be even longer. Personally it is the single biggest distraction for me

Was that a Qobuz or local file? And if local a high res file?

 

[steve williams]

Was that a Qobuz or local file? And if local a high res file?

It’s like you said, the bigger the file the longer the delay.

 

[nenon]

We could also consider preloading / treating an entire Album. Or preload the next track an X amount of time before the current track stops.

I think that's a good way to go. Load the entire album or playlist. The Extreme has a lot more RAM than any other music server I have seen. I don't know if streaming services like Tidal/Qobuz allow that. Hopefully they do.

Building a player that is designed to work with the specific hardware is absolutely the best way to go in terms of sound quality. Congrats to Taiko for that decision and more importantly for making that happen and the first alpha release.

Creating software that satisfy everyone is a challenge. There would be nearly as many opinions as the people using it. And that is evident from the posts in the last 48 hours above. I see people who only care about SQ and that's all that matters to them. And there are those who prefer full functionality. And some in in between.

Here is how I see this.
- Roon is hard to beat in terms of functionality. It seems like it's lacking one function mentioned by a member above, but that is a rare exception. As far as I understand it, Roon would always be an option for Extreme users and will serve very well the people who have that as their priority.
- The problem with Roon is that they are not focused on sound quality. In fact I dare to say they don't care about sound quality (at all).
- And this is where the new player from Taiko takes over.
- It seems like TAS (or some parts of it) was designed with one main goal in mind - to achieve sound quality that is better than Roon and other players.
- It also seems like the Taiko team is convinced that they have accomplished that. And the next logical step was to share the software with a closed group of people to verify that is indeed the case in a wider range of systems. It's much easier to work with a small group of people in that stage.
- Taiko would iron out any wrinkles and release a beta version.
- This would be a constant work in progress - initially to improve the sound quality over other players, and then followed by adding more functionality until the gap with Roon gets much smaller.

If you are in one of the extremities, the solution is easy. If you care only about sound quality you switch to TAS and deal with the functionality issues (i.e. no gapless playback support, wait between songs, etc.). If you are on the other end end of the spectrum and prefer to have the functionality support, the solution is also easy - switch to Roon and enjoy it.
If you are somewhere in between, then you would need some extra patience.

Here is how I manage this: If I want to do a critical listening session, I shutdown Roon, start HQplayer, load my local files, disconnect the network and enjoy my playlist played with best SQ. If I listen music in the background or try to discover some new music on Qobuz, I use Roon.

 

[marty]

What we have in the alpha is unlikely to be in the final release.

We currently have the following options:
1) Auto, which follows vendor supplied DAC driver defaults, this is a "safe" mode which will work reliably on all types of installations, all types of computers running all kinds of Windows OS versions, and all kinds of playback software.
2) Adaptive, which is our own algorithm adjusted to what we feel sounds best for each sample rate on the Extreme, you can consider this optimised for the specific OS and hardware we run, so far this seems to be the preferred option amongst the alpha testers.
3) Manual, where you can specify your own, this is really just there to verify operation of the Adaptive mode and test what a wider range of DAC (drivers) can support.

This will likely go in one of the following directions:
1) A choice between Auto (DAC vendor default), or Adaptive (optimised for our hardware/software).
2) An optimised profile for the DAC used, for example, MSB, DCS, Lampizator, Totaldac etc, where you select the DAC you use and it will load the optimal settings for that.
OR 3) As we are developing our own generic driver which can support a very wide range of DACs we may just end up with an optimum for that driver with no need to change anything.

Basically we know what the Extreme can handle, which is any size, we're now gathering data on what the vendor supplied DAC drivers can support, and if the optimum depends on the driver(software) or the DAC hardware/firmware.
The Alpha and Beta rounds will give us the feedback we need to nail this down.

Thanks Emile.I have no doubt you will figure out what's best and most user friendly as TAS is refined.

 

[steve williams]

I think that's a good way to go. Load the entire album or playlist. The Extreme has a lot more RAM than any other music server I have seen. I don't know if streaming services like Tidal/Qobuz allow that. Hopefully they do.

Building a player that is designed to work with the specific hardware is absolutely the best way to go in terms of sound quality. Congrats to Taiko for that decision and more importantly for making that happen and the first alpha release.

Creating software that satisfy everyone is a challenge. There would be nearly as many opinions as the people using it. And that is evident from the posts in the last 48 hours above. I see people who only care about SQ and that's all that matters to them. And there are those who prefer full functionality. And some in in between.

Here is how I see this.
- Roon is hard to beat in terms of functionality. It seems like it's lacking one function mentioned by a member above, but that is a rare exception. As far as I understand it, Roon would always be an option for Extreme users and will serve very well the people who have that as their priority.
- The problem with Roon is that they are not focused on sound quality. In fact I dare to say they don't care about sound quality (at all).
- And this is where the new player from Taiko takes over.
- It seems like TAS (or some parts of it) was designed with one main goal in mind - to achieve sound quality that is better than Roon and other players.
- It also seems like the Taiko team is convinced that they have accomplished that. And the next logical step was to share the software with a closed group of people to verify that is indeed the case in a wider range of systems. It's much easier to work with a small group of people in that stage.
- Taiko would iron out any wrinkles and release a beta version.
- This would be a constant work in progress - initially to improve the sound quality over other players, and then followed by adding more functionality until the gap with Roon gets much smaller.

If you are in one of the extremities, the solution is easy. If you care only about sound quality you switch to TAS and deal with the functionality issues (i.e. no gapless playback support, wait between songs, etc.). If you are on the other end end of the spectrum and prefer to have the functionality support, the solution is also easy - switch to Roon and enjoy it.
If you are somewhere in between, then you would need some extra patience.

Here is how I manage this: If I want to do a critical listening session, I shutdown Roon, start HQplayer, load my local files, disconnect the network and enjoy my playlist played with best SQ. If I listen music in the background or try to discover some new music on Qobuz, I use Roon.

As far as functionality I believe it is fair to say that we all prefer the Roon interface. What is important to understand is that the interface is an open code that will continue to be updated. There is no doubt in my mind that Emile will ultimately produce a product whose sound quality betters Roon and an interface that is as good or better than Roon

one thing I really miss that is on Roon is being able to show the format and resolution of the album or track. It makes life so much easier. Format and resolution is available in TAS but you have to already be playing the track to know what the resolution is

 

[steve williams]

I don’t think any of us need to be concerned about the interface. It was the SQ which was the main factor in developing TAS but the interface will be made to have everything we want

 

[wil]

if there has to be a tradeoff, it should be selectable as an option from the remote.
hopefully that won't be necessary, but gapless is a deal breaker for me.
a (short!) extra delay between tracks that already have silence between them is probably not a big issue, but for live concerts or Abbey Road, even a short interruption most certainly is, IMHO

don't forget, we're talking about an alpha release, not even a beta, so let's not get carried away and give Emile et son equipe some time to work this all out.

If an entire album can be buffered before starting, this should not be an issue at all.

 

[microstrip]

If an entire album can be buffered before starting, this should not be an issue at all.

Can we legally buffer an entire album before playing?

 

[cat6man]

Can we legally buffer an entire album before playing?

euphony has that option, pre-loads playlist into ram

 

[dminches]

Can we legally buffer an entire album before playing?

Why would it be illegal if you owned the music?

 

[cat6man]

As far as functionality I believe it is fair to say that we all prefer the Roon interface. What is important to understand is that the interface is an open code that will continue to be updated. There is no doubt in my mind that Emile will ultimately produce a product whose sound quality betters Roon and an interface that is as good or better than Roon

one thing I really miss that is on Roon is being able to show the format and resolution of the album or track. It makes life so much easier. Format and resolution is available in TAS but you have to already be playing the track to know what the resolution is

+1 on everything except Roon. i find Roon completely unusable do to its inability to navigate folders.
i understand that i'm in a minority on that issue.

i assume that the Roon powers-that-be view folder navigation with the same respect they have for SQ

 

[microstrip]

Why would it be illegal if you owned the music?

I was addressing streaming.