Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
- Start date
Let me know once you get it running.
Does anyone else have this issue? My non-Latin alphabet songs (korean, Japanese, Chinese) are not showing up in TAS. asking cos you’re also listening to korean...
@Taiko team, Wow. I commend you. I had my serious reservations that my ears were good enough to discern differences in sound quality by using a different app, but this was a change where I didn’t even have to A/B... I just knew, right off the bat, things were simply “right.”
My system has come so very far in the past several months - so much more than the prior 10 years of relentless pursuit of perfection, where I just knew things were never quite there. And as good as it has become in recent months, there were still very small artifacts that annoyed me - I truly thought they were the recordings.
In the last few hours, I’ve so enjoyed what TAS has brought to the table. Thank you, once again, Ed, for the time to dial things in today. I found myself immersed in my music all evening. TAS removed yet more veils... Going back to ROON, ROON sounds veiled, muddy, blended, and truncated in detail.
TAS sounds “right,“ natural, realistic, with enhanced clarity, and the detail is so delicate with finely feathered sustain and decay. There’s so much ambience and space/air around each instrument and vocal, and the layering and depth is so nice.
Dare I say that I can’t really imagine the sound quality any better? And I admit, my standards are exceedingly high. I love what I’m hearing. It’s quite special. Thanks for the incredible detail.
My system has come so very far in the past several months - so much more than the prior 10 years of relentless pursuit of perfection, where I just knew things were never quite there. And as good as it has become in recent months, there were still very small artifacts that annoyed me - I truly thought they were the recordings.
In the last few hours, I’ve so enjoyed what TAS has brought to the table. Thank you, once again, Ed, for the time to dial things in today. I found myself immersed in my music all evening. TAS removed yet more veils... Going back to ROON, ROON sounds veiled, muddy, blended, and truncated in detail.
TAS sounds “right,“ natural, realistic, with enhanced clarity, and the detail is so delicate with finely feathered sustain and decay. There’s so much ambience and space/air around each instrument and vocal, and the layering and depth is so nice.
Dare I say that I can’t really imagine the sound quality any better? And I admit, my standards are exceedingly high. I love what I’m hearing. It’s quite special. Thanks for the incredible detail.
If you tap on the three vertical dots on the upper right side of the app and then select Server Settings, the first item under Basic settings is language. The bottom two items in the language list might be helpful. Then again, you might not be able to see your english titles.
Steve Z
Anyone using TAS beta with HQP notice an issue with switching tracks in a play queue from different albums with different sampling rates (eg. 44.1kHz to 192kHz)?
The track progress bar advances but there is no sound output.
However, clicking on the next track in the new album will play as usual.
It is almost as if TAS/HQP doesn't sense the initial sampling rate change.
Sound quality is however magnificent as others have reported.
The track progress bar advances but there is no sound output.
However, clicking on the next track in the new album will play as usual.
It is almost as if TAS/HQP doesn't sense the initial sampling rate change.
Sound quality is however magnificent as others have reported.
Hi all,
My turn to share my still very recent experience with TAS. Setup two days ago and listened only with headphones for the time being. ( with my speakers from tomorrow )
And ouch , despite having huge expectations following all the reading here , the improvement is just HUGE : sense of space, detail retrieval ( even easier to spot with headphones), quietness, dynamics etc... Kudos to the all team !
Excellent timing as my yearly subscription to Roon is about to expire in a couple of days , well it won’t be renewed!
The famous sentence “ “ source” first” ( source being the synergy between the software and the hardware) is making even more sense now !
One hiccup on my side ( shared though the app), I can’t get any sound with high Rez files but no big deal I am sure it will be solved soon !
Alex
My turn to share my still very recent experience with TAS. Setup two days ago and listened only with headphones for the time being. ( with my speakers from tomorrow )
And ouch , despite having huge expectations following all the reading here , the improvement is just HUGE : sense of space, detail retrieval ( even easier to spot with headphones), quietness, dynamics etc... Kudos to the all team !
Excellent timing as my yearly subscription to Roon is about to expire in a couple of days , well it won’t be renewed!
The famous sentence “ “ source” first” ( source being the synergy between the software and the hardware) is making even more sense now !
One hiccup on my side ( shared though the app), I can’t get any sound with high Rez files but no big deal I am sure it will be solved soon !
Alex
I remember Emile and team saying they spent a good amount of effort on making sure TAS was immune (relatively) to network infrastructure/noise and that is proving to be very true.
For example, I think my network is pretty good with a dedicated ATT Fiber line for music, to ONT to EdgeX to M12, all powered by the same LPS. From my EdgeX SFP, I have fiber going to an Optical Module that connects to my MacBook that I use to control music (so not in the direct signal path). That OM is powered by a pilot pro battery. Anytime I have forgotten to unplug the cheap SMPS that charges the battery, I have immediately noticed that something was off and the sound was harsher and noiser than usual. Unplugging the charger from the pilot pro battery immediately fixes the issue. I have been running this network setup for about 8 months and each and every time I have noticed when the SMPS was charging the battery. Crazy to think that I would still hear this noise from behind a fiber line to something that was not even in the direct signal path, but its there and its obvious.
This morning, listening to TAS for about an hour before I noticed my Pilot Pro battery was still being charged by the SMPS but the music still sounded great. No harshness or artifacts that I heard before TAS. I unplugged the charger and the sound did not change!! Repeated the test a few more times and it's safe to say that TAS is doing an incredible job in minimizing network noise for playing back locally stored music, something not even HQP direct (without Roon) was able to do. Still haven’t tested streaming yet so I can’t comment on that.
For example, I think my network is pretty good with a dedicated ATT Fiber line for music, to ONT to EdgeX to M12, all powered by the same LPS. From my EdgeX SFP, I have fiber going to an Optical Module that connects to my MacBook that I use to control music (so not in the direct signal path). That OM is powered by a pilot pro battery. Anytime I have forgotten to unplug the cheap SMPS that charges the battery, I have immediately noticed that something was off and the sound was harsher and noiser than usual. Unplugging the charger from the pilot pro battery immediately fixes the issue. I have been running this network setup for about 8 months and each and every time I have noticed when the SMPS was charging the battery. Crazy to think that I would still hear this noise from behind a fiber line to something that was not even in the direct signal path, but its there and its obvious.
This morning, listening to TAS for about an hour before I noticed my Pilot Pro battery was still being charged by the SMPS but the music still sounded great. No harshness or artifacts that I heard before TAS. I unplugged the charger and the sound did not change!! Repeated the test a few more times and it's safe to say that TAS is doing an incredible job in minimizing network noise for playing back locally stored music, something not even HQP direct (without Roon) was able to do. Still haven’t tested streaming yet so I can’t comment on that.
Many Thanks for the detailed report of your careful test
it’s quite a data point for us,
Hebrog;
Guessing here... but worth a try.
I suspect you may not have the Taiko driver installed, but instead, that of the Chord, which may not accommodate a 4,096 buffer size for low Rez/Redbook files. The buffer is probably set to 4,096, so assuming your input is correctly set, as suggested as I suspect you hear the 192K files, then manually change the buffer to 2,048. That’s not the optimum setting for high Rez, but it works for both, so it’s the lowest common denominator if you don’t want to be switching between tracks. Alternatively, you could regroup the files so they aren’t mixed, for a more contiguous experience. I suspect Taiko is working on a driver for Chord as well (?), which would likely resolve the issue.
Attached is the process.
Press and hold the applicable green tab in use (e.g. Serial Play), then if the blue PCM Buffer is set at 4,096, drag it left, to 2,048. Drag it back to 4,096 for high Rez. See if that works.
Attachments
Wow! I’m incredibly impressed with TAS vs. Roon!
I am a new Extreme owner that has been living with my Extreme for over two months now, and it has been burned in for over 1,000 hours at this point (24/7 on + feeding music to a DAC steadily). It feeds a Lampizator Pacific SE, via a Final Touch Audio Callisto USB cable.
I was listening with Roon all this while, and I certainly heard improvements beyond the Antipodes DX II that preceded this server, and pretty appealing ones, at that. But there was always a certain “glaze” of distortion that I heard riding subtly on the sounds, with some notable frequency bands that seemed to suffer the most (upper mids – lower treble). And this subtle aspect did draw attention at times more to “sounds” than to music. But the whole presentation was just so much more informative, and definitely musical in many aspects…
This morning Emile loaded TAS onto my Extreme, and I have been non-stop indulging in music exploration the entire time since. I think my wife and daughter might be wondering if I will ever come up for air (thank goodness my wife has an intense editing project just now, or she might really not like this turn of events!). The music is just so absorbing, better fleshed out harmonically, wonderfully integrated in timing, more 3D and palpable, just so WHOLE. And there is no distortion “glaze” remaining that I’m hearing. Given onlychild’s observations and explorations detailed above, I am now thinking that my streaming network is probably pretty noisy, and that the TAS move has neutralized this factor.
I just keep jumping onto the next musical enthusiasm and then listening to the whole album, just propelled by the momentum of the experience. You hear distinctly more deeply into the mix, and the music just “feels” MORE - - the whole reason we get excited about music in the first place, and why we prize excellent reproduction.
This is magical - - simply stunningly good improvement in musical enjoyment! I cannot wait to replace the Amanero board in my Pacific with the JL Sounds XMOS, so I can also benefit from the TAS driver. Steve Williams assures me that that move will be rather major in impact, too. Mindboggling.
Well, I had been reservedly happy with my Extreme purchase. Now I’m ecstatically happy with it! Bravo, Emile and team!
Right now I’m listening to Anonymous 4’s album “Secret Voices”. Check out Track 5: “Conductus-Motet: O Maria virgo”. The ensemble sings within the cathedral space’s sound so beautifully, and the voice delineation dances with the interplay of lines almost hypnotically. I wonder how late I’ll be up tonight………
I am a new Extreme owner that has been living with my Extreme for over two months now, and it has been burned in for over 1,000 hours at this point (24/7 on + feeding music to a DAC steadily). It feeds a Lampizator Pacific SE, via a Final Touch Audio Callisto USB cable.
I was listening with Roon all this while, and I certainly heard improvements beyond the Antipodes DX II that preceded this server, and pretty appealing ones, at that. But there was always a certain “glaze” of distortion that I heard riding subtly on the sounds, with some notable frequency bands that seemed to suffer the most (upper mids – lower treble). And this subtle aspect did draw attention at times more to “sounds” than to music. But the whole presentation was just so much more informative, and definitely musical in many aspects…
This morning Emile loaded TAS onto my Extreme, and I have been non-stop indulging in music exploration the entire time since. I think my wife and daughter might be wondering if I will ever come up for air (thank goodness my wife has an intense editing project just now, or she might really not like this turn of events!). The music is just so absorbing, better fleshed out harmonically, wonderfully integrated in timing, more 3D and palpable, just so WHOLE. And there is no distortion “glaze” remaining that I’m hearing. Given onlychild’s observations and explorations detailed above, I am now thinking that my streaming network is probably pretty noisy, and that the TAS move has neutralized this factor.
I just keep jumping onto the next musical enthusiasm and then listening to the whole album, just propelled by the momentum of the experience. You hear distinctly more deeply into the mix, and the music just “feels” MORE - - the whole reason we get excited about music in the first place, and why we prize excellent reproduction.
This is magical - - simply stunningly good improvement in musical enjoyment! I cannot wait to replace the Amanero board in my Pacific with the JL Sounds XMOS, so I can also benefit from the TAS driver. Steve Williams assures me that that move will be rather major in impact, too. Mindboggling.
Well, I had been reservedly happy with my Extreme purchase. Now I’m ecstatically happy with it! Bravo, Emile and team!
Right now I’m listening to Anonymous 4’s album “Secret Voices”. Check out Track 5: “Conductus-Motet: O Maria virgo”. The ensemble sings within the cathedral space’s sound so beautifully, and the voice delineation dances with the interplay of lines almost hypnotically. I wonder how late I’ll be up tonight………
A feature question: is there a means to pause Play in TAS? I only see Stop, and then you must start the track all over again.
And how about FF or Rev? That doesn't seem to be there, either. I've never seen these features missing in a player before.
And how about FF or Rev? That doesn't seem to be there, either. I've never seen these features missing in a player before.
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
At least now there is a functioning play bar. Never used to move. Now it does. So be patient as stop and fast forward not there yet . There is advance to next track. I’m betting the final release will have these issues resolved.
The team would certainly like to have a pause feature, but doing it without SQ deterioration is actually not so simple.
There is still some low hanging fruit (rather we think it’s low hanging fruit) to raise SQ, so being the relentless audiophiles we are, these explorations have a higher priority.
Usually when developing software, its functionality first.
With TAS it’s SQ first ;-)
@heebrog what @V-Squared suggested above is indeed your solution. The Amanero USB controller of the Dave does not support buffer sizes over 2048. Thank you V2!
The buffer of 4,096 has a high latency of 92.88 ms (1000/44100*4096) with Red Book. At 2,048 it is half: 46.44 ms (1000/44100 * 2048).
Hi-Res with 192kHz only has a low latency of 10.67 ms (1000/19200*2048) with the proposed 2,048 buffer. This is a good choice.
In my opinion, low latencies have a positive effect on the sound. I personally prefer a latency of 1.18 ms. This is the maximum possible setting in the T + A USB driver (I'm not a Taiko Extreme user).
Hi StreamFidelity
Thanks for sharing your sonic observations and latency preferences
What's interesting is how varying latency has different effects on different computing platforms
For many years going for low latency was a tried and proven strategy for better PC audio. However as the RF noise floor of the computing environment goes down, the advantages of low latency diminishes and other factors come into play.
As you have calculated, long latencies which would be nonsensical on normal PC's become some thing special on the Extreme with TAS
As an example when I run TAS on my office PC, I am running a buffer size of 256.
The Extreme's RF environment allows running with large buffers and sounding special
