Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[dminches]

The vast majority runs Roon.

I stand corrected. Very interesting.

Last night I went back to Roon for the first time in a while. I played a couple tracks and then switched back to TAS. The difference was not subtle. TAS eliminates all the "edginess" that is present in Roon. The sound is much more pleasing and engaging in TAS.

 

[bryans]

I don't think there's anybody in the ~200 participant BETA test group who does not feel TAS to sound better then Roon.

Now if you would have said ~200 participants prefer Roon I would have really been worried. I'm sure TAS is going to be top notch.

 

[Taiko Audio]

I stand corrected. Very interesting.

Last night I went back to Roon for the first time in a while. I played a couple tracks and then switched back to TAS. The difference was not subtle. TAS eliminates all the "edginess" that is present in Roon. The sound is much more pleasing and engaging in TAS.

It's the interface / functionality limitations swaying the preference towards Roon, even for a significant part of the BETA tester group. Working on it!

 

[steve williams]

It's the interface / functionality limitations swaying the preference towards Roon, even for a significant part of the BETA tester group. Working on it!

IMO Roon is a seductive piece of software but no longer state of the art when it comes to Sound Quality. TAS truly destroys Roon and with Emiles promise to further improve the SQ of TAS along with a new player will for me be the icing on the cake. I was a participant when TAS was in the alpha version and as rudimentary and basic as it was, listening proved to me that he was on to something. I last opened Roon the end of September 2020 and have only used TAS ever since. For me it is the SQ that I pursue and I could care less about all of the Roon misgivings. TAS in the end will be the obvious way for all Extreme users as soon as parts availability become a non issue and Emile presents us with the final pieces to his puzzle.

So yes, Emile from the very start said that TAS was all about better Sound Quality. Roon used to be good but not any more to my ears. Sure TAS now has limitations BUT Emile has always said that from day 1 his team is working to control the signal from the time it hits the Extreme until it exits the Extreme and that improved SQ will be the result. I said yesterday that you Extreme/Roon users are missing out on some excellent sonics by overlooking TAS.

 

[cat6man]

IMO Roon is a seductive piece of software but no longer state of the art when it comes to Sound Quality. TAS truly destroys Roon and with Emiles promise to further improve the SQ of TAS along with a new player will for me be the icing on the cake. I was a participant when TAS was in the alpha version and as rudimentary and basic as it was, listening proved to me that he was on to something. I last opened Roon the end of September 2020 and have only used TAS ever since. For me it is the SQ that I pursue and I could care less about all of the Roon misgivings. TAS in the end will be the obvious way for all Extreme users as soon as parts availability become a non issue and Emile presents us with the final pieces to his puzzle.

So yes, Emile from the very start said that TAS was all about better Sound Quality. Roon used to be good but not any more to my ears. Sure TAS now has limitations BUT Emile has always said that from day 1 his team is working to control the signal from the time it hits the Extreme until it exits the Extreme and that improved SQ will be the result. I said yesterday that you Extreme/Roon users are missing out on some excellent sonics by overlooking TAS.

I totally agree with all of your points, but as someone who listens to live music recordings a lot, the gap of silence between tracks is a major buzzkill. That said, I'll slog through until taiko replaces TAS.

 

[Kris]

I have MTU at 9216
Jumboframes disabled
Flowcontrol disabled (both RX & TX)
802.1x disabled
Keepalive disabled on all ports
Spanning tree at RSTP with priority at 32768
Vlan enabled, set to untagged
Switch port modes routing disabled, switching enabled, security disabled
IPv6 disabled
I do have thread detection partially enabled

This may not give you the best results since this is a busy network. However a high rate video stream does not impact SQ.

thank you Emile.
I must say we Have to have better Routers .
example
maximum value of MTU in edgerouterX is 2008, defult value is 1500.
Emile has MTU at 9216 !
I found this as one of the most important values in network .
Values lower than 1000 are very thin sounding , values at 2000 much better balanced,
I wish I had MTU at 9216 , but the edgerouter X is not supporting the values higher than 2008.

it is the same story like with the low power servers. They play but are far from ideal.
Router is no difference. It needs a lot of calculating power, especially with firewall and vlan !
vlan can lower the real speeds to 4 times less !

interesting is that the security is didabled at Emile router, I understand Firewall is active ?
will try to test some things during the weekend days .

 

[marty]

It's the interface / functionality limitations swaying the preference towards Roon, even for a significant part of the BETA tester group. Working on it!

Of course you are working on it!! I knew you would be.
Thanks for your efforts in advance!

 

[MarkusBarkus]

@Kris don't we have to ping our address to find the best size for our particular service?

Not at all my area, and I really should check my router specs, but I thought it was possible to have too large a value, as well as too small. I *think* we're looking for the frag value, aren't we, to set the best value for the particular network? Help!

 

[oldmustang]

@Kris don't we have to ping our address to find the best size for our particular service?

Not at all my area, and I really should check my router specs, but I thought it was possible to have too large a value, as well as too small. I *think* we're looking for the frag value, aren't we, to set the best value for the particular network? Help!

For folks like me -- self-taught via trial and (many) errors -- a primer or guide to LAN/modem/router/switch best practices would be very useful. I've figured out the way to assign static IP addresses to various clients (Extreme, dCS Upsampler and DAC, etc), and I know enough to only implement one firewall as far upstream as possible (in my case, at my modem/router combo), but I have no clue when it comes to things like MTU and the rest of the alphabet soup of modem, router and switch settings.

Steve Z

 

[ctydwn]

OMG me neither. I remember tapping into the settings of the Edge router when I first installed. Took me a week to make that little devil work w the help from a few on this thread. LOL.

I would be absolutely motivated to follow Emile's suggestion for a router/settings in a home environment, but perhaps there are just too many variables to have a one size fits all recommendation. Could it possibly be the switch and forthcoming Taiko releases will limit the effects of those variables and raise us all to more or less the same network SQ baseline and noise elimination? Do I have that right or just wishful thinking?

Thanks everyone for all the experimentation and documentation on network, TAS/Roon etc. FWIW, I am in the TAS only camp since introduced and fully onboard with the SQ improvement of the Extreme plugged directly into its own dedicated outlet (versus a power strip/conditioner). Been experimenting with pcs as well and have found the Odin 1 pc preferable on the Extreme (vs an Odin 2 pc) and an Odin 2 pc preferable on the Lampizator Pacific (versus an Odin 1). Replacing the Hailey 2.2 with the Sonja 2.2i shortly which I am excited about. Hopefully that system in the pictures sounded good last week with the 2.3i.

Also, noticed some large circular damping plates on the Extreme in those photos Emile sent last week. Anyone heard improvements from damping the top plate? My understanding was the Extreme chassis was already pretty bomb proof to external chassis noise....

Hope the Taiko team is taking a moment(s) to soak in all they have achieved so far. Ground breaking and should be in the history books someday. I can only imagine the pressure they may be putting on themselves though. We are a patient group!

 

[steve williams]

For folks like me -- self-taught via trial and (many) errors -- a primer or guide to LAN/modem/router/switch best practices would be very useful. I've figured out the way to assign static IP addresses to various clients (Extreme, dCS Upsampler and DAC, etc), and I know enough to only implement one firewall as far upstream as possible (in my case, at my modem/router combo), but I have no clue when it comes to things like MTU and the rest of the alphabet soup of modem, router and switch settings.

Steve Z

steve

all of you are so far beyond anything I can comprehend. I think the fact that I don’t understand any of it has saved me a lot of money For my ears and to complete my journey, I’m betting that everything Emile is soon to release will be for me all that I need to carry me over the finish line.

 

[kennyb123]

Do note we have a relatively busy network environment compared to your usual home network:

I guess my home environment doesn't count as usual. Heh.

I never understood why client device types was shown on the main dashboard as all my clients are shown as "other". Really cool to see the breakout on your dashboard. I'm on the beta channel so it's likely something ran amok there. It likely explains the issue with the bottom graph too.

Thanks for posting your screenshot.

 

[Taiko Audio]

OMG me neither. I remember tapping into the settings of the Edge router when I first installed. Took me a week to make that little devil work w the help from a few on this thread. LOL.

That is definitively something to consider from a support POV.

I would be absolutely motivated to follow Emile's suggestion for a router/settings in a home environment, but perhaps there are just too many variables to have a one size fits all recommendation. Could it possibly be the switch and forthcoming Taiko releases will limit the effects of those variables and raise us all to more or less the same network SQ baseline and noise elimination? Do I have that right or just wishful thinking?

It would appear there are indeed too many variables right now. Our upcoming updates should address a significant part of that. If we end up having to include a router down the line to achieve full repeatability of results it's surely something we'd consider doing.

Also, noticed some large circular damping plates on the Extreme in those photos Emile sent last week. Anyone heard improvements from damping the top plate? My understanding was the Extreme chassis was already pretty bomb proof to external chassis noise....

Everything has an effect. We have developed the Daiza platform to address chassis resonance. The Artesania racks follow a different philosophy, it would not surprise me at all if those damper plates would work well in conjunction with their racks.

Hope the Taiko team is taking a moment(s) to soak in all they have achieved so far. Ground breaking and should be in the history books someday. I can only imagine the pressure they may be putting on themselves though. We are a patient group!

Thank you for that very nice compliment, much appreciated!

 

[Taiko Audio]

@Kris don't we have to ping our address to find the best size for our particular service?

Not at all my area, and I really should check my router specs, but I thought it was possible to have too large a value, as well as too small. I *think* we're looking for the frag value, aren't we, to set the best value for the particular network? Help!

I don't expect the settings we use to work best universally. Again, if we need to design a router to acquire worldwide repeatable results, we will. I did some preliminary investigating already but routers do contain parts which are currently seriously backordered. We actually had to partially redesign the switch for that same reason, it would've been over a year out otherwise. These shortages sure are putting the brakes on a lot of things like time to market and freedom in selection of parts for design purposes.

 

[Muni]

Regarding the switch....I guess no need to get a switch not using the network unless Roon or Streaming is the aim - have I misunderstood something here...
Just to increase the network traffic in order to have a more or less constant flow of data then using the Taiko Switch to even better the sound quality as never before - even compared to no network...
Would be crazy but if it would lead to a better SQ I would go for it...
Just ideas of a network unfit....

 

[Taiko Audio]

Regarding the switch....I guess no need to get a switch not using the network unless Roon or Streaming is the aim - have I misunderstood something here...
Just to increase the network traffic in order to have a more or less constant flow of data then using the Taiko Switch to even better the sound quality as never before - even compared to no network...
Would be crazy but if it would lead to a better SQ I would go for it...
Just ideas of a network unfit....

The feedback is variable right now, it ranges from no impact at all, including from pulling the network cable during playback, to significant reported changes. The willingness to experiment is low in our customer base, as it should be as a one stop solution. From the feedback we do receive a ~75% majority reports a minimal to no impact from the network, but again, the sample size is too limited to draw definite conclusions. Either way, the aim is to get this number up to 100%.

 

[Muni]

anyway - whatever will elevate the SQ I will go for it - like Steve is always going to die for and hammering it into our hearts - lovingly of course - I admire this going relentlessly for what Taiko is delivering - one of the reasons why I have ordered an Extreme....

 

[Muni]

Can anyone recommend a well built Rack with two platforms for the Extreme and an AMP - available in Europe - Emile told me I should get a stable one cause the Extreme is very sensitive to vibrations - I don't find an adequate solution - I have recently a basso continuo Cymbalion 2.0 Rack....would want to put a Rack before it - hope this doesn't ruin the thread...

 

[bryans]

I own an Artesania Audio rack and love it. Yes it is expensive but I consider it a component.

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artesaniaaudio.com

 

[steve williams]

like Steve is always going to die for and hammering it into our hearts

I guess you're right.......but for me , my only end point is the best SQ