That is a dangerous statement -- "someone who knows what he is talking about. . ."
Steve Z
Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
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Steve Z
Thanks for that careful walk through! I had done precisely as you described, I thought, but I'm guessing at the last step to save I hit "Enter" on my keyboard, rather than clicking on the Save icon. This time I clicked on the icon, and there's my list, saved for posterity. Thanks, again!
over the last 2 days i've been listening to redbook only packaged playlists; very familiar territory and not sure what clicked in but i'm a bit stunned at the continual remarkable realism and live sort of presentation. i had a power outage Saturday night so needed to reload. i'm in new territory of digital enjoyment. these are files. not tried streaming. maybe the re-boot caught an update that i had previously missed?
not sure what i did exactly. or maybe it's just me and nothing has changed. i almost don't want to think about it too much. just ride the wave.
we will see how it sounds in a week or so. just thinking out loud in case others have been here too.
not sure what i did exactly. or maybe it's just me and nothing has changed. i almost don't want to think about it too much. just ride the wave.
we will see how it sounds in a week or so. just thinking out loud in case others have been here too.
Hi Mike,
We have found that a lot of digital gear benefits from a periodic reboot after power off for several hours
As always YMMV, our evidence is anecdotal. We do have some plausible explanations about how a reboot can help SQ ;-)
Mike and Edward,
A trusted dealer friend has always recommended running equipment through on and off cycles to enhance/accelerate break-in. The positive effect of turning on the equipment afterward has always been noticeable even after break-in.
Would like to hear Edward’s “plausible explanations”. Me thinks it has to do with removing electronic cobwebs
We are currently going through extended power blackout cycles in Texas due to a severe statewide cold front. I turned off my system early morning yesterday. Probably won’t be able to turn it back on for 48 hours. My fingers are crossed!
Keep riding the wave Mike! Most interested in hearing your thoughts on how your current digital experience compares to its recent past. And perhaps after you’ve had a little more time to digest the new digital wave, your revised assessment of how it compares to your SOTA vinyl.
Beside all the usual explanations, there is an effect to which there is no direct explanation. There are a lot of products on the market attempting to address this, or working with the phenomenon, perhaps attempting to curb this into an advantage. These are the so called "grounding tweaks". Fact is I regularly get confronted by people observing a degradation in system clarity over time and I have had several system setups "suffering from this condition" myself. Often it can be remedied by powering off a single system component after a certain time duration. The component is variable, the time duration is variable. It can set in after a few hours, but it can also take weeks. The more complex the system, as in the more boxes, the higher the risk of running into this. I have had this for a while with my Totaldac, consisting of 8 boxes, that would benefit from a once a week power down over night. But it's not the Totaldac as in another setup I had the same thing going on with my Stern/Heisenberg pre/power amplifiers, which I could leave powered on for 2-3 days tops before a reduction of clarity started setting in.
For entertainment value I will share an experiment I ran around a year ago. For those familiar with our Daiza platforms, it's footers utilize a round copper disc which have no electrical conductive path to the equipment placed on top, nor does it have a path to "ground" as it's situated in between non conductive Panzerholz on both sides. If you ground these copper discs, it is very noticable, in fact it is as noticable, and similar in effect, as connecting an additional groundlead going to a grounding device or safety earth from your equipment chassis ground. Do note, again, this is just a copper disc, without any electrical connection to your system. If I connect these discs to safety earth, it has an initial positive effect, but it does turn negative after a variable amount of time, typically over a period of 4-5 hours, which can be remedied by disconnecting the groundlead for 30 minutes or so. Interesting to note here is that in this case it does not seem to matter much which type of equipment is situated on top of the Daiza. If I lowpass this groundlead with a choke, the positive effect only lasts for 20-30 minutes after which it turns negative. Connecting a "groundbox" to it lasts longer, between 1 and 2 weeks. This is simply hard to explain but it indicates there is something like perhaps a static charge build up phenomenon caused by mechanical friction, I am playing with this from time to time but I have not come up with a clear explanation nor remedy. It's an X-file!
Hi Emile,
Are these static charge buildup removal effects similar to what the “Irrational Bur Efficacious” test CD by Ayre does by playing a glide tone? The CD is recommended for enhancing system burn-in and for periodic maintenance.
No it's really a loss of total system transparency, and it's not subtle at all. I currently do not suffer from it in the tube system, but I power that off every night as I suspect most tube gear owners would do which only leaves the Extreme running, which does no imply that may not benefit from an occasional "refresh".
Not trying to answer this for Mike, but I don't think vinyl and digital will ever "sound" the same. For me personally it's irrelevant as the music I enjoy listening to most sounds better to me on a digital playback system, I just prefer how digital "soundstages" and how it renders the frequency extremes. I have heard a few of those special analogue cuts which have this midrange translucency you will only get from those. To have that on digital something will need to change in the transfer / recording / mastering process, and that will then probably remain limited to a select few cuts, if it ever happens. Unless we can remediate prior "errors" made, never say never.
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I agree digital and vinyl are never going to sound exactly the same, just like tape and vinyl don't sound exactly the same.
Although, as I have recently said, until TAS and now the usb driver additions there was a different listening sensation that I did encounter when I listened to vinyl that was never present when listening to digital. I REALLY enjoyed the digital presentation but there was something about vinyl that just was not there when listening to digital.
Now, with the TAS/usb driver, vinyl and digital presentations don't sound the same but there IS a similar type of "sensation" that I experience when listening to the digital performances that was absent prior. It's a good thing
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I use this anti-static gun on my cables, Tripoint grounding box, and general area of my equipment before critical listening. Helps in the cold and dry Chicago winters.
Funny that Miguel from Tripoint and Rick from High Fidelity Cables both separately recommended this for their products. I know vinyl guys have been using it on their LP’s for a while but works great on cables
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thanks. it seems that right now there is a degree of realism not previously ever experienced with digital, a depth and the music actually living in space. i suspect that it's related to subtle improvements in phase and timing somehow. that flat-ish type digital sound where all the boxes are objectively checked but something is lost in the translation; at the moment the sound has broken free from that feeling. certainly this is a matter of climbing up the scale of things and at particular points new things are revealed. not an all or nothing proposition.
does that make sense? like i said above, i really don't want to analyze it, just enjoy it.
OTOH let's not drag vinyl into it. i've recently pushed my vinyl higher too......as i optimize each of my turntables there are musical secrets i'm hearing for the first time (as i'm sure others have heard, and more). digital is not playing in this same realm. yes, it's also different.....but it's more than just different. on Sunday i was flying high with the digital, then did vinyl for a couple of hours. it was a different level. but i was still delighted to return to the digital later. i loved all of it.
First chance Boris allows me, I'll be down to Blue58 to hear his TAS'd Extreme, now w USB driver. I think that I, as a lifelong vinylphile and late-in-the-day enthusiastic player of CDs, have less biases (anti) going to him, than him as a dyed in the wool vinyl skeptic visiting me.
For me, I've gotten past the frankly tedious 100% pro analog or 100% pro digital mindsets, I can identify exactly where digital has the jump on vinyl, and those areas where vinyl sounds uniquely superior to all digital I've heard. If Barry's optimised Extreme starts to walk in that territory where digital I've listened to before has failed outright, or just not quite scaled the heights, I'll recognise it straight away, and will be hugely impressed.
For me, I've gotten past the frankly tedious 100% pro analog or 100% pro digital mindsets, I can identify exactly where digital has the jump on vinyl, and those areas where vinyl sounds uniquely superior to all digital I've heard. If Barry's optimised Extreme starts to walk in that territory where digital I've listened to before has failed outright, or just not quite scaled the heights, I'll recognise it straight away, and will be hugely impressed.
I stopped the analog vs. digital comparison a while back. In the end it is self-defeating and, frankly, I don’t want them to sound the same. I just need both formats to be engaging for me. Plus, when I go to the ice cream store I want to be able to choose from multiple flavors.
Hi Emile,
I’m stepping out on the proverbial limb here, where my normally nontechnical understanding is now firmly in pure speculation territory, but here we go nevertheless:
My limited view has been that vinyl has inherent playback noise that was part of the enjoyable experience - a noise (and I don’t mean hiss and pops) whose characteristics are naturally pleasant to us because they are compatible with our evolutionary perception of sound.
Whereas digital noise characteristics, commonly referred to in a disparaging way as “digititus”, are for whatever reason, not pleasant to us.
In fact, I remember reading that some recording engineers that work in the digital domain, purposely introduce analog generated noise into their recordings to overcome, or hide, the dryness of digital recordings to make them more “pleasant/natural”. And that this “hybrid” resulted in recordings that were to their ears at least, preferred to vinyl or digital alone in the studio.
So the basic observation was that vinyl noise was good, digital noise was bad. And that digital noise had to be reduced or hidden in order to make it more palatable.
What Taiko has done is lowered the digital source noise introduced during playback below a threshold where the playback now approaches the engagement of live music - a not insignificant achievement.
And a threshold level that we can expect, based on the Taiko team’s continuing efforts, to decrease even more, and to potentially get us closer to experience the visceral emotions associated with being at a live music event.
And as Emile points out, the next frontier will be in addressing the “mistakes” in the digital recording/mastering steps prior to playback.
My question to Mike L, whose analog system is legendary, and who is one of a few individuals who have the ability to properly compare it to the Extreme playback, was to provide his personal insights on the differences. I am looking forward to his response. Especially as the development of the Extreme continues.
Emile and Bob have thoughtfully added their own perceptions of the differences. Yes, vinyl and digital sound differently. And they probably always will. I say vive la différence! Porsche vs Ferrari. Gibson vs Fender. Blondes vs brunettes. They all make the world a better place. And we all gain by understanding their differences.
I for one am very pleased with the significant progress made by the Taiko team in getting us closer to experiencing the feelings of live music through digital, and what additional progress to that end the future will bring.
Now hopefully we are getting closer where we don’t have to choose. We can thoroughly enjoy both.
For me dragging vinyl into my the conversation is very relevant. Not in the context of which sounds better. I think we all agree they always did and always will sound different. Different people will always have different opinions on this topic.
BUT for me personally when I listened to vinyl up until experiencing the Extreme/TAS/usb driver combo there was something with digital that never allowed me to listen to music and feel as relaxed and content as I now do with the digital. I somehow did get that relaxed and content feeling when listening to good vinyl. Tape as well.
I am not referring to analog vs digital debate. To me that is senseless.
This is about listening to music and enjoying the experience in which vinyl used to allow me to do because of a certain set of intrinsic characteristics. Now the Extreme/TAS/usb driver allows me to listen and enjoy music in a very similar relaxed manner and it has nothing to do with digital vs vinyl. ymmv
@Mike Lavigne , which reminds me you don’t have the latest yet, drop me an e-mail with tv codes? And @oldmustang .
Bob, I've listened to Extreme twice now. In a system that previously ran the SGM for 4 years, a really nicely optimised tubes/horns setup, with a superlative dac.
And that 4 years made as good an advertisement for streaming as I was likely to come across, even w material that had variable mastering quality, like a lot of 70s and 80s prog and fusion.
So I've now heard the Extreme twice, and it was instantly recognisable as a very different transducer from the SGM. Way more deeply resolving, frankly scary good dynamics, and seemingly a fathomless noise floor (better than the already-excellent SGM).
But, boy oh boy, was it trying with a couple of random mid-70s albums that I know for a fact despite not being stellar on LP or CD (original master) are very listenable indeed.
It kinda reminded me of highly-strung analog using potentially unforgiving (of poor setup) cart, and tt/arm optimisation.
Because after a lot of attention to detail (incl fibre optic, and crossover changes in the spkrs), the Extreme was way more appetising second time around. But still with this tendency for forensicness on poorer masters (where SGM sailed along more serenely).
It's gonna be this I'll listen out for as an area of improvement, plus all the good stuff sounding even better, when I next hear Extreme, now w TAS and USB driver.
And that 4 years made as good an advertisement for streaming as I was likely to come across, even w material that had variable mastering quality, like a lot of 70s and 80s prog and fusion.
So I've now heard the Extreme twice, and it was instantly recognisable as a very different transducer from the SGM. Way more deeply resolving, frankly scary good dynamics, and seemingly a fathomless noise floor (better than the already-excellent SGM).
But, boy oh boy, was it trying with a couple of random mid-70s albums that I know for a fact despite not being stellar on LP or CD (original master) are very listenable indeed.
It kinda reminded me of highly-strung analog using potentially unforgiving (of poor setup) cart, and tt/arm optimisation.
Because after a lot of attention to detail (incl fibre optic, and crossover changes in the spkrs), the Extreme was way more appetising second time around. But still with this tendency for forensicness on poorer masters (where SGM sailed along more serenely).
It's gonna be this I'll listen out for as an area of improvement, plus all the good stuff sounding even better, when I next hear Extreme, now w TAS and USB driver.
Until you hear the Extreme with TAS and with the new usb driver you have not heard what is possible from Taiko audio from a sonic perspective. As well as much more to come. For me it's a paradigm shift.
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