Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
- Start date
Congratulations, but excuse me.
Where is the review?
Are you talking about these words?
“What you can’t ignore is the fact that this music server sounds like music without a hint of digital artifact and does so better than any other digital source I have ever heard. The Taiko Extreme got me closer to what was recorded and the venue it was recorded in then any source but the best analog rigs I have been exposed to. It is expensive, but this is a supreme case of “you get what you pay for.”
Where is the review?
Are you talking about these words?
“What you can’t ignore is the fact that this music server sounds like music without a hint of digital artifact and does so better than any other digital source I have ever heard. The Taiko Extreme got me closer to what was recorded and the venue it was recorded in then any source but the best analog rigs I have been exposed to. It is expensive, but this is a supreme case of “you get what you pay for.”
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Dr. M. Clott who did the Extreme review, agrees in the review that TAS (XDMS was not available at the time of the review) sounded better than Roon, although he was so satisfied listening with Roon that he primarily used Roon during the time he spent with the Extreme. He loves the Roon interface, who's to blame him?
Subsequently Dr. Clott purchased the Extreme and to my knowledge he still listens primarily with Roon, as many other Extreme users do.
Subsequently Dr. Clott purchased the Extreme and to my knowledge he still listens primarily with Roon, as many other Extreme users do.
I just emailed him. This review is nearly a year old. He should plan to revise it, this time running XDMS.
I would not recommend to submit alpha sw for a review. In the future when XDMS is a released product then for sure.
XDMS alpha over Roon any day. If the point is sound quality, the current version of XDMS destroys Roon; so the public should know about it.
I understand that and use XDMS every day, but you don't submit alpha sw products for review to major magazines.
When a review is done every factor will be investigated, including user interface, rock-solidness, etc as well as SQ. Reviewers don't do reviews on just SQ and by-pass all other attributes of a product.
It would be much more interesting to me to have a full review of the EXTREME (which will occur), when the network and battery additives are released and XDMS is a fully release product.
Taiko mini review from TAS.
www.theabsolutesound.com
2022 Golden Ear: Taiko Audio Extreme Music Server - The Absolute Sound
2022 Golden Ear: Taiko Audio Extreme Music Server - The Taiko Extreme got me closer to what was recorded and the venue it was recorded in then any source but the best analog rigs I have been exposed to.
www.theabsolutesound.com
There are different strategies for submitting a tech product for review. With my company, if the software is core to our mission (in the case of the Extreme: sound quality), then I would absolutely submit the best software we have that furthers that mission (with the caveat that it’s still in beta, etc.). Anyway, we are debating a moot point since neither of us run Taiko
I arranged the review with Dr. Clott for Taiko and delivered the Extreme and set it up with Dr. Clott for the review.There are different strategies for submitting a tech product for review. With my company, if the software is core to our mission (in the case of the Extreme: sound quality), then I would absolutely submit the best software we have that furthers that mission (with the caveat that it’s still in beta, etc.). Anyway, we are debating a moot point since neither of us run Taiko
I would only offer to arrange a review, as I have said, with released SW and HW products.
I have been arranging technical reviews for the last 40+ years. As a former marketing director at Intel Corp I have vast experience in this area. I have also over the last 20 years arranged probably 20+ audio reviews for companies that I have represented.
Although nothing wrong with your opinion on the subject, I respect everyone's opinion. I just have my opinions based on my experiences, nothing more than that.
Difference of opinion is what makes life interesting! If I hadn’t had considerable business success, specifically with launching tech products that integrate HW and SW, I wouldn’t have such a strong opinion. Had I waited until my SW was “perfect”, before showcasing a product, the company would have never succeeded. Anyway, this review is a year old, so well before XDMS. TAS and Roon were quite close in performance, at least in my system.
On another note, the new Shunyata Altaira Signal ground hub arrives tomorrow. Curious if there will be a difference…
On another note, the new Shunyata Altaira Signal ground hub arrives tomorrow. Curious if there will be a difference…
I didn't say wait until XDMS was perfect, I said wait until it was not in alpha or beta stages.
If you think that it makes so much sense to send XDMS to a reviewer (TAS, Stereophile etc) NOW, while it is in the alpha stage and being updated weekly, then why don't you approach Emile/Ed and Co. and see what they say about sending XDMS with an Extreme for review now.
As I also said, imho it would make much more sense to wait a bit and send the Extreme/network/battery/XDMS (when in release stage) for review.
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
IMHO sonically XDMS is perfect. It’s the platform that is evolving and stabilizing daily. I haven’t used Roon in 3 years. I preferred TAS to Roon and XDMS to my ears is a no brainer as it bests both
The Battery power supply turns the Extreme into a different product. From what I understand, it will cost as much if not more than the Extreme. It also makes the elaborate - and costly! - internal power supply in the Extreme obsolete. Not to mention that most Extreme owners already have elaborate power filtering/grounding systems in place, which undoubtedly diminishes the benefits of the battery supply.
I have no doubt the Battery supply will sound better, as Emile wouldn’t release something that doesn’t; but the price-value ratio is a murky one for me.
To conclude, care needs to be taken with product reviews that include the Battery supply: you don’t want potential buyers to think this is a ~$50-70K music server as it “must” be equipped with the Battery.
I have no doubt the Battery supply will sound better, as Emile wouldn’t release something that doesn’t; but the price-value ratio is a murky one for me.
To conclude, care needs to be taken with product reviews that include the Battery supply: you don’t want potential buyers to think this is a ~$50-70K music server as it “must” be equipped with the Battery.
I would be 100% content right now with XDMS's sonics if it never improved for where it is now. I personally am fine with the XDMS interface as it stands right now, ESPECIALLY now that Qobuz has last in added search function on favorites. That's all that I needed.
BUT, I still do not think it makes sense right now to send an Extreme/XDMS for a major review, when we are SO CLOSE to the network set up and battery power and XDMS getting closer and closer daily to be a fully released product.
If a review was done including the battery supply of course the reviewer would explain the price performance that was available with and without the battery supply. Right now you get crazy performance for the exiting cost. Only then if you want upticks in performance you can add the upcoming network set up and if you want "the best of the best" you would be able to add the battery supply". Lot's of choices at many price points.
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Interesting how every generation views a product as “perfect” only for that opinion to change as time goes by. Early phonograph records were considered perfect and better than live music. Folks with long memories may recall when compact discs were first introduced in the early to mid 1980s, they were advertised as “perfect sound forever”. For many years, each CD had some boilerplate text at the back claiming that CDs were best sound one could obtain etc. Now of course everyone thinks Roon streaming or some variants are perfect.
I’m holding out hope for a better recording technology in the decade to come. To me PCM is fundamentally flawed and no amount of skullduggery with transports or DACs will fix the inherent flaws of PCM technology. Unlike analog, in PCM, distortion greatly rises as the volume reduces, so that quiet passages — say a single oboe playing in an orchestra — are rendered with very poor fidelity. Unlike analog noise, which is largely uncorrelated with with signal, digital PCM noise is correlated with signal intensity.
Human hearing is inherently nonlinear and highly adaptive to signal level. A much better technology than PCM would adaptively allocate bits to where human hearing is acutely sensitive — the midrange and in particular quiet to normal volumes — and not waste it in regions where we are mostly deaf or in having dynamic range beyond what any listening room can possibly support (e.g., above 20 kHz and below 30 Hz, and dynamic range above 80-90 dB).
There have been a lot of theoretical advances in signal processing since the age old Nyquist theorem that underlies PCM technology (i.e., Nyquist theorem mandates sampling at least twice the rate of the highest frequency, so CD technology used 44.1 kHz as the original baseline). Some of these advances like compressed sensing have transformed other areas, but not yet been applied to music, which continues to be based on largely obsolete math. But that will change in the coming decades, and PCM will become a quaint historical artifact.
The real revolution will occur when quantum computing takes over and we can reliably transport qubits using quantum entanglement (which won this year’s Nobel prize in physics). That will make today’s internet look like chiseling on a stone tablet, like the Babylonians did 5000 years ago. Qubit encoded music should be able to provide far higher fidelity than any PCM encoding can achieve.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 was awarded jointly to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science"
www.nobelprize.org
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Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
IMO it's a very normal phenomenon. Im sure you would agree. As for XDMS being perfect , it is for my ears yet Emile has promised he has a few tricks up his sleeve which will even make it better. I see nothing unusual about a constant improvement of a platform. The reality is that time almost always brings new advances and new improvements.
The real revolution is here, today. It’s called the Taiko Extreme with XDMS. You should try to listen to one!Interesting how every generation views a product as “perfect” only for that opinion to change as time goes by. Early phonograph records were considered perfect and better than live music. Folks with long memories may recall when compact discs were first introduced in the early to mid 1980s, they were advertised as “perfect sound forever”. For many years, each CD had some boilerplate text at the back claiming that CDs were best sound one could obtain etc. Now of course everyone thinks Roon streaming or some variants are perfect.
I’m holding out hope for a better recording technology in the decade to come. To me PCM is fundamentally flawed and no amount of skullduggery with transports or DACs will fix the inherent flaws of PCM technology. Unlike analog, in PCM, distortion greatly rises as the volume reduces, so that quiet passages — say a single oboe playing in an orchestra — are rendered with very poor fidelity. Unlike analog noise, which is largely uncorrelated with with signal, digital PCM noise is correlated with signal intensity.
Human hearing is inherently nonlinear and highly adaptive to signal level. A much better technology than PCM would adaptively allocate bits to where human hearing is acutely sensitive — the midrange and in particular quiet to normal volumes — and not waste it in regions where we are mostly deaf or in having dynamic range beyond what any listening room can possibly support (e.g., above 20 kHz and below 30 Hz, and dynamic range above 80-90 dB).
There have been a lot of theoretical advances in signal processing since the age old Nyquist theorem that underlies PCM technology (i.e., Nyquist theorem mandates sampling at least twice the rate of the highest frequency, so CD technology used 44.1 kHz as the original baseline). Some of these advances like compressed sensing have transformed other areas, but not yet been applied to music, which continues to be based on largely obsolete math. But that will change in the coming decades, and PCM will become a quaint historical artifact.
The real revolution will occur when quantum computing takes over and we can reliably transport qubits using quantum entanglement (which won this year’s Nobel prize in physics). That will make today’s internet look like chiseling on a stone tablet, like the Babylonians did 5000 years ago. Qubit encoded music should be able to provide far higher fidelity than any PCM encoding can achieve.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 was awarded jointly to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science"
I don’t know enough to know if your comments about PCM apply to DSD. I often listen at low volumes and don’t notice increasing distortion, (with PCM or DSD). The human auditory system also perceives lower volume as not as detailed or “good” as higher volume, so I don’t think the bottleneck is PCM tech, but rather our brains, in this regard.
All kinds of compression algorithms do what you are proposing. The challenge is that audible perception is subjective, which is why these techniques often don’t work.
