Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[Sablon Audio]

The ever genial Eurodriver has just installed my TAS beta and my first impressions are highly positive.

I fired up Rene Aubry - Invites sur la Terre as my first test track and was greeted with clear improvements in sound quality. The overriding impressions are of a reduction in hash/grain, which makes the music project better with greater solidity, and a deeper evolved tonality.

Next up was the somewhat overproduced Brian Wilson - Imagination and this sounds more mellifluous than before. Harmonics are more layered.

I’ll need to spend to some more time later to better calibrate my thoughts but this promising start is purely TAS related, since the Taiko usb driver software won’t be installed until tomorro.

A quick word on the user interface - is much better than I expected. Not as slick as Roon, that would be an unfair expectation, but still quite attractive and easy to navigate.

Congrats to Wilson, Emile and Ed, not only for what they have achieved, but also for the manner in which they restlessly push the boundaries and also too for their outstanding customer support!

 

[ack]

Having wrote this and reading it back it reads like a sales pitch, but the intention here is to highlight a mayor difference between the 2 approaches to streaming audio. I am not claiming sound quality superiority for either approach!

Yeah no worries, you gave me exactly the information I was looking for, so thanks. Indeed, a computer-based solution ought to be superior to an FPGA approach

As to the 980pro drive, the PCIE 4 interface does support double data rates. However let me highlight the significance of that assuming application in the Extreme. In the extreme the music drive active time is defined by access latency + read time + power down time (as it powers down after a file read). The time it takes these drives to read a redbook music file is ~0.016 seconds. A full redbook album (or a single high res file) takes about 0.1 seconds. This is 1/3rd of the drive active time as in total the whole operation, drive on to drive off, will take about 0.3 seconds. If we double the read performance this will be reduced to about 0.25 seconds (assuming the same power on time / access latency). In exchange for that the PCIE4 interface and connected devices draw significant more power. For the drive where the operating system and music playback software resides, transfer speed is rather unimportant, the transfers to/from this drive are generally very small in size, the access latency dominates the drive active time and the transfer speed is almost negligible. There is currently no lower access latency drive then the Intel Optane AFAIK.

So the suggestion for the 980Pro is not really with respect to PCI4 and more bandwidth/faster transfer rates, but the build quality and longevity of the drive. Which Optane SSD are you using? Are you still using PCIE 3.x?

 

[steve williams]

The ever genial Eurodriver has just installed my TAS beta and my first impressions are highly positive.

I fired up Rene Aubry - Invites sur la Terre as my first test track and was greeted with clear improvements in sound quality. The overriding impressions are of a reduction in hash/grain, which makes the music project better with greater solidity, and a deeper evolved tonality.

Next up was the somewhat overproduced Brian Wilson - Imagination and this sounds more mellifluous than before. Harmonics are more layered.

I’ll need to spend to some more time later to better calibrate my thoughts but this promising start is purely TAS related, since the Taiko usb driver software won’t be installed until tomorro.

A quick word on the user interface - is much better than I expected. Not as slick as Roon, that would be an unfair expectation, but still quite attractive and easy to navigate.

Congrats to Wilson, Emile and Ed, not only for what they have achieved, but also for the manner in which they restlessly push the boundaries and also too for their outstanding customer support!

Emile installed the beta plus TAS driver last week in my system I’m told I lack a few small things still in the Beta version BUT it’s now all about TAS driver. I was also running mine for a day with JL Sounds driver before Emile installed the TAS driver. Huge impact on my sonic quality. The dynamics, clarity 3D sound stage is extraordinarily good and the sound floor is so low that the clarity is like nothing I’ve ever heard. The sound is fast , clean and sounds better than I’ve ever heard my system sound. I’m looking forward to getting the final package. But TAS driver is paramount IMHO

 

[CKKeung]

I went to Volent HK, the Extreme dealer on Hong Kong yesterday for an audition.



Their demo Extreme has just got the TAS alpha2 onboard.




Wow. What a big sonic improvement!

My salute to Emile and Edward and their team!

Very very eagerly waiting for the official launch of TAS, and of course the usb card & lan card!

 

[Taiko Audio]

Yeah no worries, you gave me exactly the information I was looking for, so thanks. Indeed, a computer-based solution ought to be superior to an FPGA approach


So the suggestion for the 980Pro is not really with respect to PCI4 and more bandwidth/faster transfer rates, but the build quality and longevity of the drive. Which Optane SSD are you using? Are you still using PCIE 3.x?

We are indeed using PCIE 3.0. The OS drive is the Optane 900p PCIE HHHL (CEM3.0).

Endurance for the Intel 900p is 10 DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day).
Endurance for the Samsung 980 Pro is 0.3 DWPD.
Endurance for the Intel 660p is 0.1 DWPD.

For music drives 0.1 DWPD means you would have to delete and then copy your entire music collection, about every week to wear out the drive inside of the 5 year factory warranty Intel provides. I cannot think of any scenario where anybody would be doing that, but if you do, we'll send you a new one A more typical usage is copying it just one time. So I do not consider this to be a concern at all.

It would be a different story if you were to use a 660P as the OS drive, I would actually not even use the Samsung 980Pro for that particular application in the Extreme, nor any other TLC or QLC SSD (Triple Level Cell or Quad Level Cell).

 

[EuroDriver]

A nice new feature is the ability to see Artist information, Album review and song lyrics when these are available from the streaming service

 

[EuroDriver]

 

[Taiko Audio]

Emile installed the beta plus TAS driver last week in my system I’m told I lack a few small things still in the Beta version BUT it’s now all about TAS driver. I was also running mine for a day with JL Sounds driver before Emile installed the TAS driver. Huge impact on my sonic quality. The dynamics, clarity 3D sound stage is extraordinarily good and the sound floor is so low that the clarity is like nothing I’ve ever heard. The sound is fast , clean and sounds better than I’ve ever heard my system sound. I’m looking forward to getting the final package. But TAS driver is paramount IMHO

We're looking for volunteers to extract the necessary USB descriptor information from their DACs to add support in our USB driver. This involves a team viewer session to your Extreme, running this utility: Thesycon - USB Descriptor Dumper Tool and unplug - replug your USB cable.

We have added official support for the following interfaces:
-MSB Pro USB firmware 2.0
-DCS Vivaldi Upsampler
-DCS Vivaldi DAC
-Lampizator DACs with the Jlsounds USB interface

Already pending are:
-Totaldac
-Aqua Formula
-Ypsilon DAC 1000
-Bricasti MDxx
-Davinci Dac MKII

We will attempt to collect more DAC information while rolling out the Beta, but if your DAC is not listed here and you would not mind going to this procedure with us please drop us an e-mail at contact@taikoaudio.com or backoffice@taikoaudio.com.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Wow. What a big sonic improvement!

My salute to Emile and Edward and their team!

Very very eagerly waiting for the official launch of TAS, and of course the usb card & lan card!

Very happy you like it!

 

[adyc]

We're looking for volunteers to extract the necessary USB descriptor information from their DACs to add support in our USB driver. This involves a team viewer session to your Extreme, running this utility: Thesycon - USB Descriptor Dumper Tool and unplug - replug your USB cable.

We have added official support for the following interfaces:
-MSB Pro USB firmware 2.0
-DCS Vivaldi Upsampler
-DCS Vivaldi DAC
-Lampizator DACs with the Jlsounds USB interface

Already pending are:
-Totaldac
-Aqua Formula
-Ypsilon DAC 1000
-Bricasti MDxx
-Davinci Dac MKII

We will attempt to collect more DAC information while rolling out the Beta, but if your DAC is not listed here and you would not mind going to this procedure with us please drop us an e-mail at contact@taikoaudio.com or backoffice@taikoaudio.com.

no Chord DAVE?

 

[Taiko Audio]

no Chord DAVE?

The Chord Dave uses a proprietary Amanero based USB interface we cannot do much with (we did try). It simply performs best when being fed a 32 bit data stream. Which is why, afaik, all of our customers use it with HQPlayer and upsample to 32/768. When using TAS you would therefor select the HQPlayer output which bypasses all our bit-perfect player optimizations but the files do still go through our noise mitigation process.

 

[matthias]

The Chord Dave uses a proprietary Amanero based USB interface we cannot do much with (we did try).

What about other DACs which use a proprietary USB interface like Schiit Unison (and afaik Denafrips)?
Thanks

Matt

 

[Taiko Audio]

What about other DACs which use a proprietary USB interface like Schiit Unison (and afaik Denafrips)?
Thanks

Matt

We can support all XMOS based DACs, which covers the majority, that includes the new Denafrips DACs. If there's a proprietary interface we will have to investigate, but most of the time this is a cost saving measure as XMOS comes with a yearly, not unsubstantial, license fee for each individual DAC sold. We are not exempt from that and are paying those fees for each Extreme using our USB driver. The driver is therefor hardware locked to an Extreme.

 

[matthias]

We can support all XMOS based DACs, which covers the majority, that includes the new Denafrips DACs. If there's a proprietary interface we will have to investigate, but most of the time this is a cost saving measure as XMOS comes with a yearly, not unsubstantial, license fee for each individual DAC sold. We are not exempt from that and are paying those fees for each Extreme using our USB driver. The driver is therefor hardware locked to an Extreme.

So the ultimate solution might be a proprietary Taiko USB receiver board or even a Taiko DAC (board)?
My dream: Analog out from the Extreme
Thanks

Matt

 

[rocco1113]

Any plan to support Esoteric K1x DAC ?

 

[Taiko Audio]

Any plan to support Esoteric K1x DAC ?

Do think that is XMOS based, so yes.

 

[steve williams]

How do we get the remote upgrade as well as the beta TAS

 

[Taiko Audio]

So the ultimate solution might be a proprietary Taiko USB receiver board or even a Taiko DAC (board)?
My dream: Analog out from the Extreme
Thanks

Matt

Not planned but never say never..

 

[Kris]

Not planned but never say never..

You can always consider to modify the current top USB receiver with your own softwere / driver

 

[EuroDriver]

How do we get the remote upgrade as well as the beta TAS

Hi Steve,

In extended testing at 7am this morning, we discovered a functionality bug. We had to wait a few hours for Wilson to wake up in Toronto, and he is now on the case.

With 17 years of experience under his belt, Wilson knows that he should not rush, but carefully modify and test. He has already held me back from pushing out newer versions of some libraries that the software uses, because he wisely knows that stability and having as few bugs as possible is key to a good customer experience.

The SQ of the build that you have is SOTA !