Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[Bobofei86]

Hi Taiko team,

I have done a few tests and remove the following items and add them one by one to test how much the network gadgets or cables impacted the sound quality of Extreme with the new USB card:

1. Linger audio G router - when compare with a generic dlink router, this heavily modded router (OXCO, shielding and grounding) further lower the noise floor and enhance the texture of the music, the delta is quite significant espeically during streaming, but even local file playback have benefits as well

2. Telos Marco G grounding box - i plugged it into the usb port in the modded router which further enchance the texture and lower the noise floor, and give a bit "sweet" to the tone, not as significant as the change in router but also easy to differentiate

3. Ansuz D2 switch - it was a killer when i was using the aurender which significantly upgrade the sounds and removed a lot of harshness, most importantly, it makes the overall picture becames fuller and filled those "space" which usually is empty in generic CAS systems, it still doing it's job with the extreme but again it's not that significant, D2 switch still give more texture and enhance the "flow" or "Groove" of the music, but i may not spent those 5k to buy it if i have the extreme in day 1

4&5 Dalby meda lan cable and Skogrand USB cable - still quite significant enhancement when compare with those 2-300 bucks acoustic revive lan cable and furutech usb cable, the tone signature of the cable becomes even outstanding in extreme when compare with aurender

In my system these gadgets still improve the sound quality, but same as i expected the difference is not that big when compare with the aurender, since I use Qobuz streaming >95% of time, i will keep everything instead of selling them to get the best result, then stay tuned to wait for the Taiko switch to compare with my Ansuz D2

Both extreme and usb card run for another 100 hours already and that usb port disabled issue only happened once, it's not that annoying now and hopefully wont happend again

Thx
Joe

 

[Taiko Audio]

Hi Joe,

If you use TAS, what happens if you start playing a track and then unplug the network cable?

 

[Bobofei86]

Hi Joe,

If you use TAS, what happens if you start playing a track and then unplug the network cable?

Sure and let me try it tomorrow, but i have tried to unplugged the USB or shut down the Lampi while playing in TAC, the TAS still playing the files, however, that usb issue will happen and i need to totally shut down the extreme to reconnect the DAC

 

[AMR / iFi audio]

...listening without Scotch? Are we savages? Cheers...

Indeed... Luckily enough, we do have proper culture guides who are always vigilant! Long live the WBF!

 

[kennyb123]

Thanks Emile, that is a very easy workaround. For some odd reason some of my PGGB .wav files do not have embedded album art.

There is a size limit for WAV files. It’s been my impression that the WAV file won’t include the embedded art if adding it to the music would exceed the file limit.

 

[EuroDriver]

@EuroDriver - too bad I did not get to meet you, but I am curious what you will think of the Chord DAVE now. Let us know next time you drop by and have a listen.
BTW, 16fs / 24bit PGGB upsampled files sounded amazing on the DAVE after the power supply upgrade.

In about a months time, I will be back in Oldenzaal.

I am very much looking forward to hearing the upgraded PS and the PGGB files

 

[cat6man]

We listened to the new prototype of the Taiko switch, and I can confirm it was as good as described here or even better.

@Taiko Audio
This sounds great and we are waiting with baited breath. Do you use subnets in your setup and how does your switch sound with and without subnets?

 

[cat6man]

Hi @cat6man,

Thank you for sharing your experiences. There are a few negative reports on using the sotm dx-usbHD too, I tried finding them but the forum search function does not return any results and I don't remember which DACs were used.

Yes indeed, and why I added YMMV, and as we all know, EFTM.

I've heard this improvement with two different TotalDAC, a d1-dual (my first) and the reclocker/d1-direct combo (my current). In both cases, I would qualitatively describe the improvements as very similar.

Other factors may include battery operation of the dx-usbHD as well as the upgrade to "superclock" which was a somewhat custom upgrade.

I look forward to the rest of this Taiko journey.

Best (and stay safe everyone)

Mr. Jones

 

[LR319]

Hi Team Taiko,
Coming to a year, I have been extremely happy with my extreme except some minor glitches , hope someone can share their experience here. Its about TAS, when I rip some CDs or downloaded some music files from sources like HighDefinitionTapeTransfer, some files just refuse to show up in the TAS library. I have taken advise from Ed, to carefully remove all non-alphabetical characters , run a re-scan, but no luck. I recently bought 4 albums from HDTT, only 2 show up in TAS. With Roon I see them all. Any special trick I have been missing ? Thanks.

 

[LR319]

Another issue I have is, with Quboz I usually create a playlist for a singer/group, then I will put a few albums under this playlist, for continuous play I can only play from the first song of the first album, if I pick any other song, it will just play that particular song, it doesn't continue from there. What should I do in order to play continuously anywhere within the playlist ?

 

[Taiko Audio]

Hi Team Taiko,
Coming to a year, I have been extremely happy with my extreme except some minor glitches , hope someone can share their experience here. Its about TAS, when I rip some CDs or downloaded some music files from sources like HighDefinitionTapeTransfer, some files just refuse to show up in the TAS library. I have taken advise from Ed, to carefully remove all non-alphabetical characters , run a re-scan, but no luck. I recently bought 4 albums from HDTT, only 2 show up in TAS. With Roon I see them all. Any special trick I have been missing ? Thanks.

Hi LR319,

HDTT does indeed use some characters in several albums which are not supported by LMS, I can connect remotely and show you if you'd like.

Another issue I have is, with Quboz I usually create a playlist for a singer/group, then I will put a few albums under this playlist, for continuous play I can only play from the first song of the first album, if I pick any other song, it will just play that particular song, it doesn't continue from there. What should I do in order to play continuously anywhere within the playlist ?

If you add multiple tracks to the playlist queue you can then play the whole queue.

 

[Taiko Audio]

@Taiko Audio
This sounds great and we are waiting with baited breath. Do you use subnets in your setup and how does your switch sound with and without subnets?

I don't use subnets, network packet reduction on a network is more noticable with Fiber then with copper, I don't use Fiber. I should add that a long copper ethernet cable to the building main switch, you hardly hear a difference here with that cable connected or disconnected.

 

[Bobofei86]

Hi Joe,

If you use TAS, what happens if you start playing a track and then unplug the network cable?

Hi Taiko team

Tried a few tunes and unplug the lan cable while playing in TAS

Confirmed my extreme sounds much better with the Lan cable plugged in, it's more airy, open up the sound stage, more details and 3 dimensional, the difference is very significant,

Thx,

Joe

 

[Taiko Audio]

Hi Taiko team

Tried a few tunes and unplug the lan cable while playing in TAS

Confirmed my extreme sounds much better with the Lan cable plugged in, it's more airy, open up the sound stage, more details and 3 dimensional, the difference is very significant,

Thx,

Joe

That is interesting, it would be helpful if other Extreme owners share their experiences with the difference in SQ with the network cable plugged in or not.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Update of the DACs supported by our USB driver:


Currently supported:

-Analog Domain DAC1

-APL DSD-MR

-Anthem STR

-Aries Cerat

-Aqua Formula xHD V2.0

-B&O Beolab 50

-Boulder 2120

-Bricasti MDxx

-Brinkmann Nyquist

-CH Precision

-DCS Rossini

-DCS Vivaldi

-DCS Vivaldi Up-sampler

-DCS Vivaldi One

-Denafrips Gaia

-Denafrips Terminator Plus

-EMM Labs DAC2V2

-EMM Labs DAC2X

-Esoteric Grandioso D1X

-Esoteric K-01X

-Esoteric K-03

-Gustard X26 Pro

-Holo Audio May

-Ideon Absolute

-Lampizator (with jlsounds interface)

-LH Davinci MKII

-Meitner XDS1 V3

-MSB Pro USB

-MSB V / Quad

-Nagra HD-X

-Nagra Tube Dac

-Pilium Elektra

-Resolution Audio Cantata 3.0

-Sennheiser HE-1

-Singxer SU-6

-SoTM dx-usbHD

-Soulution 760

-T+A 3100 series

-Thrax Maximinus

-Totaldac

-Trinity 1st gen model

-Trinity Reference

-Vitus

-Weiss DAC-501

-Ypsilon 1000


Pending:

-


To have your DAC added contact us at contact@taikoaudio.com or run the Thesycon USB Descriptor Dumper utility downloadable here: https://thesycon.de/eng/usb_descriptordumper.shtml and e-mail us the output (use the save as file option).

 

[wil]

Hi Taiko team

Tried a few tunes and unplug the lan cable while playing in TAS

Confirmed my extreme sounds much better with the Lan cable plugged in, it's more airy, open up the sound stage, more details and 3 dimensional, the difference is very significant,

Thx,

Joe

@Bobofeil, Are you streaming or playing local files when you unplug? And are you using copper or fiber?

I've never heard a report of sq going down after disconnecting the lan cable. ??

 

[Taiko Audio]

@Bobofeil, Are you streaming or playing local files when you unplug? And are you using copper or fiber?

I've never heard a report of sq going down after disconnecting the lan cable. ??

That is going on here aswell.

With a long UNshielded CAT5 cable directly to the main building switch there is virtually no difference when unplugging it.

The switch we developed enhances sound quality, unplugging it degrades sound quality.

It would be good to collect more data from more users.

 

[Bobofei86]

@Bobofeil, Are you streaming or playing local files when you unplug? And are you using copper or fiber?

I've never heard a report of sq going down after disconnecting the lan cable. ??

Hi Wil,

I played local files and i think those network gagdet somehow upgarded the sound in a particular way which i dont know how does it work...and the difference is very significant even my Mum can easily hear and tell the difference

Im going to test a few preamp soon and i will find some friends to join the AB test again, but the difference is very significant which similar as what i heard the difference between the new usb card and the on board usb port in Volent showroom in HK

I used those gadgets for a while already which upgarded my aurender to another level, i may try to record the comparison when i do the pre amp test and share with you guys, but I need to think about how to setup the mic and sound interface to get the best result

Thx
Joe

 

[Bobofei86]

That is going on here aswell.

With a long UNshielded CAT5 cable directly to the main building switch there is virtually no difference when unplugging it.

The switch we developed enhances sound quality, unplugging it degrades sound quality.

It would be good to collect more data from more users.

Hi Taiko team

i may do the test again which use Dlink routers, remove the Ansuz D2 and use a generic cat6 cable to test the difference before plug/unplugged, maybe those gadgets add some "favor" or "noise" into my system chain but very pleased to our ears.

today i have try different grounding cable to the router which also affect the sound quality, sounds like the quality of the upstream still affecting the sound quality

Thx
Joe

 

[kswanson27]

That is going on here aswell.

With a long UNshielded CAT5 cable directly to the main building switch there is virtually no difference when unplugging it.

The switch we developed enhances sound quality, unplugging it degrades sound quality.

It would be good to collect more data from more users.

Any reason you're using CAT5 rather than CAT6?