Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[Esotar]

Interesting

Taiko USB Card and Oaudio good USB card are looked similar each other.

I don't know about the way to make Taiko USB card at all.

All Korean SGM Extreme users bought Taiko USB card.

Emile and Edward became the most established engineers in Korea.

They are giving very poor Korean audiophiles sacrificed services.

All worldwide SGM Extreme users will order Taiko USB card.

We trust Taiko Audio very strongly. The card quality is next reason.

I knew existence of Oaudio.

If Oaudio supported Taiko Audio, I think you support Taiko Audio continually.

The thing I realized is legendary masterpieces never be made by technology.

Of cause technology is very important. But this is no. 2 priority.

I'll sell all Taiko Audio products, but I never import Oaudio products and I'll monitor Oaudio development.

I hope Oaudio becomes very good brand in the world.

 

[iain]

Is there any evidence that Oaudio are trying to pass their card off as a Taiko, product? They have responded on here that they can supply proof of development time and that their card uses a different approach to Taiko.

I can't see any Taiko customers mistakenly buying the wrong card for their Extreme.

 

[OAudio]

A quick response to questions asked.

Hello @OAudio ,

Thank you for chiming in.



Where can we see these other music server components, do you have a website?

Thank you Emil, and good to say hello.

We don't have a web presence yet, but there will be a site going up in due course providing details about what our offerings are.

@Koegz @MarkusBarkus We are incorporated as OAudio Limited in the UK. The web site will be at OAudio.co.uk when it goes live. We are not linked to the Norwegian company ØAudio.

@Esotar I can allay your concerns, there is no possibility of Taiko customers purchasing an OAudio RealStream USB card. Our intention currently is that the card will be available exclusively to OAudio music server customers. So no danger of mix ups.

Regards,

OAudio.

 

[Taiko Audio]

A quick response to questions asked.



Thank you Emil, and good to say hello.

We don't have a web presence yet, but there will be a site going up in due course providing details about what our offerings are.

@Koegz @MarkusBarkus We are incorporated as OAudio Limited in the UK. The web site will be at OAudio.co.uk when it goes live. We are not linked to the Norwegian company ØAudio.

@Esotar I can allay your concerns, there is no possibility of Taiko customers purchasing an OAudio RealStream USB card. Our intention currently is that the card will be available exclusively to OAudio music server customers. So no danger of mix ups.

Regards,

OAudio.

Hi Nick,

I wish you the best of luck with your new venture, looking forward to seeing what you came up with.

 

[Taiko Audio]

General update:

TAS:

We have rolled out the first TAS BETA to around 125 Extremes so far and have received tons of valuable feedback. We are now working on the second BETA release. We have several new iterations of our "Extreme Direct Player" we are testing right now. We also have a new server backend/database and a new interface operational already which will replace LMS. Currently this only has file folder browsing capabilities but the infrastructure is there. It has a web browser interface next to the IOS and Android app so you will be able to operate this from virtually any device. It will probably not make it to the second BETA which will then mainly sport functional and stability improvements, a more intuitive navigation and a build in update facility so you can apply future updates yourself from the remote. Naturally we'll also add another round of advances in the Sound Quality department.

To expedite this process we are alleviating Wilson of BETA support duties as much as we can. We have opened a new e-mail account for general support, support@taikoaudio.com which is monitored by Edward, me and Wout.

USB:

The USB card shipped to a large amount of our customers, the feedback has been 100% positive till now. The only issue we ran into so far is it does not work with Totaldacs due to an initial inrush current our card does not support, Vincent of Totaldac has provided a virtually instant solution to address this issue, this requires an update to the USB interface to convert it to being self powered. Further to this Vincent also has an update available to enhance the performance of his reclocker/USB interface which is probably interesting to get:

New reclocker​

The d1-digital-mk2, the mk2 version of the reclocker is ready. The upgrade makes it sound even better than the original version, rejecting even better the incoming jitter of the source.

Among upgrades are:
-FPGA upgrade, with a lower jitter implementation. The volume control and the optional DSD to pcm conversion had to be removed to allow this new reclocker implementation, but the volume can still be controlled in the DAC, and the DAC will decode the DSD.
-an optimisation in the clock system
-a new custom RF shield to reject even more the jitter from the source
-the live-power to reject even more the noise from the mains network

Our reclocker has been upgraded last week and is due to arrive today or tomorrow, we'll report our findings soon.

As you have noticed we have been adding support for a sizeable amount of DACs to our USB driver. It now supports around 50 DAC models. Not only reduces this the occurrence of needing to install a vendor supplied ASIO driver for a specific DAC, it also significantly boosts Sound Quality.

We have now initiated a project to enable support for non XMOS based DACs like for example the Chord Dave, or the Tidal Camira so those can also receive the full benefits from the advances we have made with the TAS and USB driver projects.

NETWORKING:

We did an inventory on past communications with all of our customers, and it turns out less then 10% is interested in the effects of networking on sound. As you may have noticed a question in this thread yielded even less response only giving us feedback from 10 users of which 3 reported benefits. Nonetheless we have identified what appears to be causing these differences, it's not what we thought it was, and we are now investigating how to rid ourselves from it once and for all. Due to the lack of interest in this topic the priority is somewhat lower then the projects listed above.

NEW TEAM MEMBERS:

Jelle (Jay) officially joined our team, here's his introduction:

Hello everyone!

My real name is Jelle, but all my American/English friends call me Jay. Somehow my Dutch name keeps – unintentionally - being pronounced as Jelly or Yellow.

So, hello everyone, I am Jay!

For a - relatively short – while I’ve been working closely with Emile, Edward, Ton, Ted and Wout at Taiko audio. We’ve recently moved from our old, shared facility in Hengelo to our own new headquarters in Oldenzaal. Our new location and set-up will allow us to do a lot more development and testing.

To manage the ever-increasing complexity of our operation, Emile has asked me to work with him as General Manager for Taiko Audio. In the coming months we will try to streamline our production and logistics process to expedite the time between order placements and actual shipping. This will enable us to fulfil orders faster and faster in the coming months.

Another new addition with a typical Dutch name is Johannes in the capacity of machine operator. He will be operating the current CNC machines and the new HAAS VF3SS which is expected to arrive in the next few weeks. This will allow for much faster prototyping, time to market and reduce our lead times as we are working towards moving all parts production to in house.

 

[dminches]

Emile, thanks for the updates.

Can you comment on the status of true gapless playback? Do you have a sense for when that could make its way into TAS?

 

[Taiko Audio]

Emile, thanks for the updates.

Can you comment on the status of true gapless playback? Do you have a sense for when that could make its way into TAS?

I am just testing a version responding differently to start/stop/previous/next track/etc commands as we are ramping up (SQ neutral) command integration. True gapless will be there, I cannot say with 100% certainty right now if it will make it to the next BETA.

 

[dminches]

I am just testing a version responding differently to start/stop/previous/next track/etc commands as we are ramping up (SQ neutral) command integration. True gapless will be there, I cannot say with 100% certainty right now if it will make it to the next BETA.

Great!

When I first got my Extreme I was using the Batch player. I quickly moved over to the Serial Player and that's all I use. For regular albums I will continue to use that but for anything that requires gapless play I will use whatever you guys come up with.

 

[Kingsrule]

An observation on freeing up slot 5 for the Taiko USB card:

My Extreme was delivered with 24TB of storage, 8TB each in slots 1, 5 and 7 so initially I had to use slot 4 for the usb card. Emile said slot 4 will work but 5 is better. Better? I need better! So I ordered 2 8TB drives and a new Hyper Card adapter for 16TB in that adapter (with 2 empty drive spaces for future expansion) and with Emiles guidence and help transferred all my files over to the new adapter card and one of the original adaptor cards. Now I still have 24TB of storage, 16TB in slot 7 and 8TB in slot 1.
So what does this all mean sonically? The Taiko USB card in slot 5 kills the same card in slot 4....it's not even a close comparison. I HIGHLY recommend those of u that have the same original storage scheme as I had get with Emile and rearrange your storage to free up slot 5.....

BTW after all the above I moved the usb card back to slot 4 just to check......that lasted all of an hour or so. Back to slot 5......and I told Emile he understated the differences between slot 4 and 5.....I think he looked west and gave me a wink! LOL

 

[Johnny Moondog]

We have now initiated a project to enable support for non XMOS based DACs like for example the Chord Dave ...

Looking forward to this development!

 

[nuway]

An observation on freeing up slot 5 for the Taiko USB card:

My Extreme was delivered with 24TB of storage, 8TB each in slots 1, 5 and 7 so initially I had to use slot 4 for the usb card. Emile said slot 4 will work but 5 is better. Better? I need better! So I ordered 2 8TB drives and a new Hyper Card adapter for 16TB in that adapter (with 2 empty drive spaces for future expansion) and with Emiles guidence and help transferred all my files over to the new adapter card and one of the original adaptor cards. Now I still have 24TB of storage, 16TB in slot 7 and 8TB in slot 1.
So what does this all mean sonically? The Taiko USB card in slot 5 kills the same card in slot 4....it's not even a close comparison. I HIGHLY recommend those of u that have the same original storage scheme as I had get with Emile and rearrange your storage to free up slot 5.....

BTW after all the above I moved the usb card back to slot 4 just to check......that lasted all of an hour or so. Back to slot 5......and I told Emile he understated the differences between slot 4 and 5.....I think he looked west and gave me a wink! LOL

Thanks for sharing, Could you please post which 8TB and the Hyper Card you used? I am also interested in your new SQ, playing from your new internal storage Cards? I am in the same situation as yours.

 

[totaldac]

A user received today a Totaldac d1-digital-mk2 reclocker with the self powered USB option.
It works with the Taiko USB card!

Here is a new video of the mk2 reclocker for the occasion

 

[dminches]

My digital playback chain is complete until Emile and Co. comes up with the next enhancement.

I just added a @Sablon Audio interconnect which runs between my Pacific and preamp. It replaces an Audioquest Earth. Needless to say it is a great addition and it isn’t really broken in.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Thanks for sharing, Could you please post which 8TB and the Hyper Card you used? I am also interested in your new SQ, playing from your new internal storage Cards? I am in the same situation as yours.

Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB, you can fit 4 of those on each Hyper m.2 x16 card. So using 2 cards with 8 drives placed in slots 1 & 7 gives you 64TB of internal storage.

 

[Kingsrule]

Thanks for sharing, Could you please post which 8TB and the Hyper Card you used? I am also interested in your new SQ, playing from your new internal storage Cards? I am in the same situation as yours.

Since I was always using internal storage my sound quality remains the same

 

[nuway]

Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB, you can fit 4 of those on each Hyper m.2 x16 card. So using 2 cards with 8 drives placed in slots 1 & 7 gives you 64TB of internal storage.

Thank You Emile. I thought that We may need a different Hyper Card then the one came with the Extreme.

 

[nuway]

View attachment 77180View attachment 77182

Since I was always using internal storage my sound quality remains the same

Thank You Kingsrule. Noticed that we can use the same HYper card that came with Extreme.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Thank You Emile. I thought that We may need a different Hyper Card then the one came with the Extreme.

Do not hesitate to reach out for further details, advice and/or assistance.

 

[dminches]

I have 8 TBs of storage which is fine for now. Does that mean I have 4 x 2 TB m.2s in my Hyper Card or 2 x 4TB?

 

[Taiko Audio]

I have 8 TBs of storage which is fine for now. Does that mean I have 4 x 2 TB m.2s in my Hyper Card or 2 x 4TB?

4 x 2 TB. One thing to consider is that larger capacity drives are 30-50% more expensive / TB.