Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[LR319]

I can vouch unequivocally with Emile's supposition as I have gone down each of those paths

I have a Pacific sans ethernet but initially with the Amanero board.I loved it with Roon

Then I became a prealpha and then an alpha user of TAS.

Amanero with TAS was very good but limited and this is when Emile enlightened me about the amanero restrictions and the need for a USB board which is based on XMOS.

Like everyone else I was not going to send mine back to Poland nor did I even want to part with it by sending it to a USA Lampi tech based on the east coast. So I starting doing my due diligence and found a very capable technician only a 10 minute drive from me. All he does is exchange and repair boards on a daily basis.

After bringing the Pacific to him with the schematic I received as to which wire goes where on the new JL Sounds board which I bought he said it was apiece of cake and with the help of the east coast tech via telephone to my tech, the entire process took well under 2 hours.

Upon initial use with Roon there was some increase in sound quality. However the increase using TAS was much improved with just the JL Sounds driver. It was too late at night for Emile who said he would install the TAS driver the next morning, so I had 12 hours of listening to TAS with the JL Sounds driver. It was very good until Emile installed the Taiko TAS Driver the next morning and I was mesmerized that the SQ of "my"system for digital was so much better than anything I have ever heard. I have stated that IMO it is the TAS Driver that is the secret sauce for making the SQ so unbelievably good. For me Roon is simply a thing of the past

The SQ is so good that it is my understanding that Emile is now uncertain whether there would be any further benefit from the use of a proprietary switch. So if the TAS driver is the secret sauce then we have to say that the pending release of Emile's proprietary USB board will be the "icing on th cake"

I can say with 100% certainty that the switch to the JL USB Sound board from Amanero if you are an Extreme user IMO is absolutely mandatory as it is only then that you will have the full effect of TAS. Amanero is very very good but once you hear TAS with theJL Sounds Board and Taiko USB driver your sonic choices will forever be irrevocably changed.....there is that much uptick in SQ

If there are users here in Southern California I would be happy to provide my Tech's info. I stood over his shoulders watching him do it. As stated it took under 2 hours

Thanks for sharing, I agree the sound board swap is mandatory, OTOH many Pac owner may not find a qualified Tech easily, even they do will it jeopardize product warranty ?

 

[Taiko Audio]

I can verify that -- I've looked at what is being output from the Extreme to my Vivaldi Upsampler with dCS' Mosaic app, and it shows the proper high-resolution bit-rates are being output from the Extreme. The TAS beta app currently does not report them correctly.

Steve Z

You can also see the source file resolution by clicking a track, select "more" , and then select "more info".

 

[MarkusBarkus]

Shipping finally found Rochester (it's on all the maps) and the Extreme arrived safely today. I'm going to let it get to roomT and plug her in tomorrow.

BTW: I'm calling this baby Gina, after Gina Lollobrigida. I suppose "La Lolla" would be more fun and period correct, but Gina it is. I wouldn't dream of leaving her unnamed. Seems rude.

And Pete's (TWL) Obsession PC is here. That cable is awesome looking; let's see how it rips.

 

[MRIguy]

Hi MRIguy,

Just curios, do you own the Tambaqui dac/streamer/Roon end point?

I am wondering if you or someone that has the Tambaqui which is a dac/streamer/REP would be considering by-passing the network/streamer function of the Tambaqui? It seems like the beauty of the Tambaqui is it's all-in-one capability.

Only asking as I don't remember seeing anyone using an all-in-one dac streamer Roon end point device with an outboard server. Just curious of your experience with it all...thx

Hi Rhapsody.... sorry for the delay in getting back to your question. I do in fact own it. It is truly wonderfull. I have tried it with both with USB and via Network as a Roon Endpoint. I felt it sounded better via USB, though Network mode was still very good. Also of perhaps some note, the Ethernet cable I used for the test was just a junk piece of Ethernet... so not the exactly the world's best test, for what that's worth.

 

[Rhapsody]

Hi Rhapsody.... sorry for the delay in getting back to your question. I do in fact own it. It is truly wonderfull. I have tried it with both with USB and via Network as a Roon Endpoint. I felt it sounded better via USB, though Network mode was still very good.

Hi Mriguy,

No problem, then for sure if Emile/team can get the Dac on their list it would be a great thing especially if in fact the usb sounded good with the generic usb driver.

Good luck with it!

Bob

 

[EuroDriver]

Hi Rhapsody.... sorry for the delay in getting back to your question. I do in fact own it. It is truly wonderfull. I have tried it with both with USB and via Network as a Roon Endpoint. I felt it sounded better via USB, though Network mode was still very good. Also of perhaps some note, the Ethernet cable I used for the test was just a junk piece of Ethernet... so not the exactly the world's best test, for what that's worth.

Hi MRIguy,

The Mola-Mola has the XMOS USB receiver, and the Taiko 5.0 driver will work with it. You just need to get the USB descriptor using the Thesycon dump descriptor tool

Click for Thesyscon dump descriptor tool

Email the descriptor text to contact@taikoaudio.com

 

[Steve Williams]

Shipping finally found Rochester (it's on all the maps) and the Extreme arrived safely today. I'm going to let it get to roomT and plug her in tomorrow.

BTW: I'm calling this baby Gina, after Gina Lollobrigida. I suppose "La Lolla" would be more fun and period correct, but Gina it is. I wouldn't dream of leaving her unnamed. Seems rude.

And Pete's (TWL) Obsession PC is here. That cable is awesome looking; let's see how it rips.

you should also be using Pete’s Ethernet Cable

 

[MarkusBarkus]

Who sez I'm not? I think TWL and PI Audio Group (Pete G. and Dave Elledge) are waaay under-rated. The UberBuss is excellent and their collaboration on cables is excellent.

Actually, I have another UberBuss with a DigiBuss++ filter on order for the Taiko. Those things will do 40 amps until the end of time (or planetary intervention).

Two dedicated lines: Extreme and the rest. Network stuff on a third dedicated line, other phase. So, actually three lines total. And both Pete and Dave are excellent guys to work with.

 

[MRIguy]

Who sez I'm not? I think TWL and PI Audio Group (Pete G. and Dave Elledge) are waaay under-rated. The UberBuss is excellent and their collaboration on cables is excellent.

Actually, I have another UberBuss with a DigiBuss++ filter on order for the Taiko. Those things will do 40 amps until the end of time (or planetary intervention).

Two dedicated lines: Extreme and the rest. Network stuff on a third dedicated line, other phase. So, actually three lines total. And both Pete and Dave are excellent guys to work with.

This is 100% correct! They are great individually and greater than their sum when together.

 

[cmarin]

System was out for a week due to weather/power issues in Texas. And then after getting power back, was unable to listen from having to catch up with lost work time.

I finally got to sit down for a listen after about ten days.. well It’s sounding even more “mahvellous” now after the hiatus!

It does appear that completely turning the system off does get rid of accumulated cobwebs.

But what is also now clear, after experiencing the Extreme (with TAS software and TAS driver) for numerous extended listening sessions, is that it’s no longer about how well the system can reproduce the recorded sonics. That’s a given.

It’s now more about being able to reproduce the emotional energy/spirit of the musician/artist ...the kind of unmistakable emotional raw energy you experience from a great artist in an intimate setting/great music hall.

The Extreme is truly a transformative component that elevates the rest of the audio chain to another level completely.

.

 

[alwayslearning]

I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this. I have used TAS to manually reproduce a few of the playlists I created in Roon over the years. This takes quite a while as I need to search for individual tunes in my library, Qobuz, and Tidal and some of the playlists are quite lengthy. When I've found all the tunes for a given playlist, I'll use the "save the play queue" function in Queue and give the playlist a name. I can then find that playlist in My Music under Playlists. So far so good, although I would love the Taiko team to come up with a way to automate the recreation of Roon playlists in TAS.

Unfortunately, I've lost those painstakingly assembled playlists twice now and I'm pretty sure it happens when I use the Rescan Media Library function. I still have all of the Tidal and Qobuz playlists that have come pre-assembled from these streaming services, but my own playlists are nowhere to be found. Is this a bug in TAS or am I missing something?

 

[Steve Williams]

I wonder if any one else has done the update to the TAS plugins. I noticed a green light at the player settings today. It showed which plugins are up to date and which need update.
The update was very quick but you get disconnected and will have to start the app and to tell it which player you want playing.
I found the user interface has much improved with a lot of new helpful features which are now working

Kudos as always to Emile and his team

Aesthetically a huge step up and a few new things seen in each screen

its like watching. the pieces fill in this jig saw puzzle.

As always the sound IMHO is the best digital I’ve heard in my system

 

[seatrope]

Steve, are you referring to the LMS plug-ins that indicate newer versions? Or are you referring to an update to the TAS software itself?
I’ve done the plug-in updates yesterday but have not listened critically yet to see if there are subtle changes. I think the plug-ins don’t have anything directly to do with SQ?

 

[cat6man]

Steve, are you referring to the LMS plug-ins that indicate newer versions? Or are you referring to an update to the TAS software itself?
I’ve done the plug-in updates yesterday but have not listened critically yet to see if there are subtle changes. I think the plug-ins don’t have anything directly to do with SQ?

ummmm...........what lms plug-ins that indicate new version?

 

[cat6man]

I wonder if any one else has done the update to the TAS plugins. I noticed a green light at the player settings today. It showed which plugins are up to date and which need update.

is this a TAS update in the apple app store?

 

[Steve Williams]

Looks like it is LMS. When I opened the app today I saw a green light where server and player settings are seen. When I clicked in it it said updates available so I’m assuming LMS

 

[Billygxx]

How do we get on a list for the upgraded USB driver and TAS?

 

[kswanson27]

You can also see the source file resolution by clicking a track, select "more" , and then select "more info".

A Beta point. When playing a work like Pictures at an Exhibition with TAS much of the time there is no smooth transition to the next track--the music stops abruptly, sometimes before the passage is over, then the next track starts a few seconds later. Roon flows into the next track smoothly. It's a bit annoying but not as much as the SQ difference when switching to Roon! Can this be fixed?

 

[Rhapsody]

How do we get on a list for the upgraded USB driver and TAS?

Emile

contact@taikoaudio.com

https://taiko-audio.appointlet.com/s/tas-beta-deployment/emile

 

[Rhapsody]

A Beta point. When playing a work like Pictures at an Exhibition with TAS much of the time there is no smooth transition to the next track--the music stops abruptly, sometimes before the passage is over, then the next track starts a few seconds later. Roon flows into the next track smoothly. It's a bit annoying but not as much as the SQ difference when switching to Roon! Can this be fixed?

Hi Ken, There is a link to submit fix requests on the FlightPlan app on the iPad.