Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[Esotar]

Hi Esotar,

I could hear the difference over my laptop's tiny speakers, but when I plugged in a Chord Mojo and a pair of decent but hardly top-end headphones -- Wow!

The TAS was very clear, articulate and much more reminiscent of what you would hear in a concert hall. The Roon version was like having a heavy, wet wool blanket thrown over your head.

Very stark comparison.

Thanks for sharing this.

Steve Z

This is not end, Steve~!

Rhapsody Audio will make Roon vs TAS comparison videoes with the Alsyvox Botticelli X can

catch the differences and make the most honest sounds,

My customer uses Botticelli X and I heard these speakers many times.

Very shocked.

Their sound has the most Sound Infos in the world~!!!!

Goebel Divin Speakers can also catch all sound infos, but all changes very very beautiful.

Bad signals ---> Beautiful

Good signals ---> Too Beautiful

Goebel Divin series makes all Korean audiophiles stick on them so much,

but they are not proper speakers are used by Ultimate quality and waste quality comparison videoes.

Stay tuned~!!!

 

[Blackmorec]

Mark, Barry tells me his Virgin router cannot be upgraded to anything fancy, or any specialist add on router to just serve the audio. Maybe this is a UK issue, Bob seems to be able to run a dedicated router.

The Virgin Superhub3 is anything but super. It has the Intel Puma chipset which has a lot of defects and is extremely poorly suited to high-end audio applications. But all you need to do to is to switch the Superhub to modem-only mode then use a good quality ethernet cable between WAN sockets to connect the router of your choice, which should as a minimum use the Broadcom chip set. If you ever need support, Virgin will ask you to reset the Superhub to router mode but other than that there’s no down-side and its a major sonic upgrade.

In terms of Wi-Fi, I use a dedicated 5GHz channel sending audio-only signal to a dedicated ethernet access point, which converts wi-fi input to a wired output. The 2.4GHz band is switched off entirely, as is 5GHz polling and all LEDs. The unit is wall mounted (to preserve antennae orientation) on an anti-vibration platform that only touches the wall through a single spike and is supplied through a Sean Jacobs DC3/4 hybrid PS With Mundorf Silver/Gold JSSG360 DC cable and internal wiring.

 

[Ackcheng]

Roon 1.8 is out. I wonder if Emile or someone in the team have tried and if that affect the sound quality? Very eager to try but would like to ask before pulling the trigger

 

[matthias]

The Virgin Superhub3 is anything but super. It has the Intel Puma chipset which has a lot of defects and is extremely poorly suited to high-end audio applications. But all you need to do to is to switch the Superhub to modem-only mode then use a good quality ethernet cable between WAN sockets to connect the router of your choice, which should as a minimum use the Broadcom chip set. If you ever need support, Virgin will ask you to reset the Superhub to router mode but other than that there’s no down-side and its a major sonic upgrade.

In terms of Wi-Fi, I use a dedicated 5GHz channel sending audio-only signal to a dedicated ethernet access point, which converts wi-fi input to a wired output. The 2.4GHz band is switched off entirely, as is 5GHz polling and all LEDs. The unit is wall mounted (to preserve antennae orientation) on an anti-vibration platform that only touches the wall through a single spike and is supplied through a Sean Jacobs DC3/4 hybrid PS With Mundorf Silver/Gold JSSG360 DC cable and internal wiring.

AFAIK, the mentioned not recommended Intel Puma chipset is providing the modem functionality so it would not make much sense to switch the Superhub to modem-only mode.

BTW, Emile recommended in this thread to use the 2,4GHz only and turn off the 5GHz for best SQ.

Matt

 

[Taiko Audio]

Roon 1.8 is out. I wonder if Emile or someone in the team have tried and if that affect the sound quality? Very eager to try but would like to ask before pulling the trigger

We have not received many reports yet, unfortunately we have still not managed to setup our systems after the move to our new facility and the subsequent beta rollout, we are near 100 beta deployments now and it has kept all of us quite busy. What we have distilled so far is that the general consensus is a minimal impact bar a certain time period directly following the upgrade. In this window there is a significant increase in network activity which is likely caused by updating the Roon database with metadata. The time duration appears to depend on your internet connection speed and database size. Please do share your experiences. You will be forced to update anyway as Roon does not want to maintain older releases. If there is a significant negative impact we will free up time to develop a fix and delay the development on some enhancements we are working on for the TAS Beta.

 

[Taiko Audio]

AFAIK, the mentioned not recommended Intel Puma chipset is providing the modem functionality so it would not make much sense to switch the Superhub to modem-only mode.

BTW, Emile recommended in this thread to use the 2,4GHz only and turn off the 5GHz for best SQ.

Matt

Hi Matt,

Yes I did, but in the context of spacing the wireless access point as far away from the system as possible. Using the 2.4GHz band allowed a larger distance of 100-150ft. Do note that in a regular home environment there are limited options to apply this spacing strategy which could make it irrelevant for normal use cases.

 

[matthias]

Hi Matt,

Yes I did, but in the context of spacing the wireless access point as far away from the system as possible. Using the 2.4GHz band allowed a larger distance of 100-150ft. Do note that in a regular home environment there are limited options to apply this spacing strategy which could make it irrelevant for normal use cases.

Hi Emile,

thanks, so you would say besides this aspect there is no SQ advantage to go for the 2,4GHz band only?

Matt

 

[Taiko Audio]

Hi Emile,

thanks, so you would say besides this aspect there is no SQ advantage to go for the 2,4GHz band only?

Matt

Things have changed, especially with the launch of the TAS Beta. I will need to reinvestigate.

 

[adyc]

Roon 1.8 is out. I wonder if Emile or someone in the team have tried and if that affect the sound quality? Very eager to try but would like to ask before pulling the trigger

Don’t upgrade. Sound quality is worse in my system even I do not have Extreme.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Don’t upgrade. Sound quality is worse in my system even I do not have Extreme.

How much time has passed since you upgraded?

 

[adyc]

How much time has passed since you upgraded?

12 hours. I just come back from work. Compare to Jriver, Roon 1.8 is much worse.

 

[Taiko Audio]

12 hours. I just come back from work. Compare to Jriver, Roon 1.8 is much worse.

Are you able to check your network and disk activity?

 

[Blackmorec]

AFAIK, the mentioned not recommended Intel Puma chipset is providing the modem functionality so it would not make much sense to switch the Superhub to modem-only mode.

BTW, Emile recommended in this thread to use the 2,4GHz only and turn off the 5GHz for best SQ.

Matt

Hiya Matt,
Virgin pushed out a firmware patch which fixed the latency problem by offloading some routing work from the CPU, but unfortunately this caused some corresponding wi-fi issues. The recommended workaround to that (not by Virgin obviously) is to switch the Superhub to modem mode and offload the routing to a separate router, thereby solving the entire problem. A separate router with Broadcom sounds better than any Puma-based router.

As to 5GHz vs. 2.4GHz, there are several reasons why 5GHz may be the more practical, beneficial and preferable, even though on an apples to apples comparison, the ‘less switching intensive’ 2.4GHz may sound better. The problem with networking is; its rarely if ever apples to apples.
1. You can buy tri-band routers with 1x 2.4GHz band and 2 x 5GHz bands, so its easy to dedicate a 5GHz band exclusively to audio
2. 5GHz is a lot faster, so the actual amount of activity on a time basis is a lot less
3. All household appliances and all your neighbours‘ appliances use the 2.4GHz band, so the 2,4GHz band activity is more or less constant, whereas a dedicated 5GHz band with a single audio client comprises occasional millisecond bursts of audio packets.
So, as I said, when all parameters are equal, 2.4GHz probably does sound better than 5GHz. But in real World wi-fi applications, where there are lots of SQ influences in play, its a lot easier IME to get superior SQ from a dedicated 5GHz band than from a potentially overloaded, non-dedicated 2.4GHz band.

 

[adyc]

Are you able to check your network and disk activity?

No. But I have Jriver and Roon open at the same time. So whatever disk and net activity should affect both servers. It is not even close. Roon is very muddy. Roon 1.7 does not sound like that. I think there is something serious wrong with 1.8.

 

[matthias]

Virgin pushed out a firmware patch which fixed the latency problem by offloading some routing work from the CPU, but unfortunately this caused some corresponding wi-fi issues. The recommended workaround to that (not by Virgin obviously) is to switch the Superhub to modem mode and offload the routing to a separate router, thereby solving the entire problem. A separate router with Broadcom sounds better than any Puma-based router.

Hi Blackmorec,

it might be that Virgin tried to fix the issue in the best possible way. However, if the modem is Puma based, the best is to change the modem to a Broadcom based one. The router can not solve this problem entirely.

Matt

 

[matthias]

So, as I said, when all parameters are equal, 2.4GHz probably does sound better than 5GHz. But in real World wi-fi applications, where there are lots of SQ influences in play, its a lot easier IME to get superior SQ from a dedicated 5GHz band than from a potentially overloaded, non-dedicated 2.4GHz band.

The best is to try the variants in a certain environment and go for the better one.

Matt

 

[Blackmorec]

The best is to try the variants in a certain environment and go for the better one.

Matt

Hey Matt,
I follow your reasoning, but there’s a hitch. Virgin will not allow anyone to connect anything other than a Virgin Superhub to their network, based on their fear that any uncontrolled modem may inject noise which they’d find extremely difficult to troubleshoot/locate. So they solve that issue by controlling exactly what can be connected to their Network. For anyone with Virgin broadband, a Superhub in modem mode plus a Broadcom-based router is both compliant and offers exceptional SQ when fully optimized.

 

[Rhapsody]

This is not end, Steve~!

Rhapsody Audio will make Roon vs TAS comparison videoes with the Alsyvox Botticelli X can

catch the differences and make the most honest sounds,

My customer uses Botticelli X and I heard these speakers many times.

Very shocked.

Their sound has the most Sound Infos in the world~!!!!

Goebel Divin Speakers can also catch all sound infos, but all changes very very beautiful.

Bad signals ---> Beautiful

Good signals ---> Too Beautiful

Goebel Divin series makes all Korean audiophiles stick on them so much,

but they are not proper speakers are used by Ultimate quality and waste quality comparison videoes.

Stay tuned

Per Esotar's request I did Extreme/Roon and Extreme/TAS on the Botticelli X. I also did the same Duke Ellington Track on the Diesis Roma Triode with Extreme/Roon and Extreme/TAS. Videos on the next two posts.

 

[Rhapsody]

Extreme/Roon - The Duke "Moondog"

Extreme/TAS - same track

 

[Rhapsody]

Extreme/Roon - The Duke "Moondog"

Extreme/TAS - same track