Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[MarkusBarkus]

tube rolling session scheduled for the remainder of this afternoon

...what?! No footie! Good Luck to your boys, but I'm pulling for our guys today. If we win, please don't take it out on US Extreme owner fans! Thank you for switch info, BTW!

 

[Malcng]

...what?! No footie! Good Luck to your boys, but I'm pulling for our guys today. If we win, please don't take it out on US Extreme owner fans! Thank you for switch info, BTW!

Had I seen this earlier, I would have made a very disparaging comment about your chances! But fair do’s, good result for you.

 

[Rhapsody]

For anyone that is using XDMS but NOT on the discord channel -

The latest updates, ESPECIALLY the back-end updates takes XDMS to another sonic level. IT IS NOT SUBTLE.

Of course everyone's system/network is different and results vary, BUT if you do not have the latest back-end updates please send and email to support@taikoaudio.com and get scheduled to get the latest back-end updates.

After you are updated please report back what you are hearing.

My personal experience, with my system, room, network, ears etc is that the latest updates have made more of a jump in sonics than when I switched from Roon to TAS (long time ago) and then even from TAS to XDMS.

There is concurrence on the Discord channel about the latest updates, but curious to hear other XDMS user's opinions.

Edit- The most noticeable attributes of the latest back-end updates in my system, where the speakers are 2.5M from the back wall is 3D-HOLIGRAPHIC DIMENSIONALITY. Secondly BASS. If your system is not set up to present a 3D holographic soundstage, you might not get the effects that I am experiencing. There is also MORE RESOLUTION AND TRANSAPRENCY.

Of course YMMV depending on your system/set up.

 

[John T]

So our recommendation (if you want the lowest possible noise) is:

-RJ45 from router to switch as it still uses less power then dual fiber SFP modules (for which you need a SFP RJ45 module (which we intend to supply with the package)
-SFP DAC twinax copper cable from switch to Extreme (which we intend to supply with the package)

Now I understand when I asked you about ethernet cables you didn't provide your typical clear and concise response. Now I get it! Thank You, this sheds a lot of light...

 

[wil]

10K is not a fair price for a switch, even 5K is pushing it in my book. We did however spend serious amounts on R&D in this case as we developed multiple switches only to discover that just designing a “lower noise” device does not solve that much beyond sounding a bit better in one area or another. We also don’t expect all Extreme owners to purchase one which would make it easier to calculate a break even point.

I think I recall a previous post where Emile said the Router will be available to the audio market as a whole, not to only Extreme users, and so would allow Taiko to keep the per unit price down. Is that still the plan?

 

[Taiko Audio]

...what?! No footie! Good Luck to your boys, but I'm pulling for our guys today. If we win, please don't take it out on US Extreme owner fans! Thank you for switch info, BTW!

Tube rolling - footie 1 - 0 , scored some magical sounding WW2 era 6SN7s !

 

[Steve Williams]

Wow, another great morning read along with espresso and breakfast. I thought Emile's description in layman's language was absolutely perfect for even me to understand. I know that my network is different from most others as I stream via wifi from my router on the first floor to my satellite in my sound system upstairs. I have never used a switch and said that the only time I would is if it were designed by Taiko. Well that moment is coming quickly and discussing my network with Emile which he knows very well, he states that I will have no problem using the router and switch in my network

As for Bob's comments about the latest back end builds, the SQ has indeed taken a big jump. I need to do more listening today as yesterday I spent a few hours trying to figure out what happened to Build 17 but once I was operational the sonic improvements were far from subtle

 

[John T]

Tube rolling - footie 1 - 0 , scored some magical sounding WW2 era 6SN7s !

Tung Sol VT-231GT? They Are Killer!!

 

[dminches]

Wow, another great morning read along with espresso and breakfast. I thought Emile's description in layman's language was absolutely perfect for even me to understand. I know that my network is different from most others as I stream via wifi from my router on the first floor to my satellite in my sound system upstairs.

When you say “satellite” do you mean an access point?

 

[Taiko Audio]

I think I recall a previous post where Emile said the Router will be available to the audio market as a whole, not to only Extreme users, and so would allow Taiko to keep the per unit price down. Is that still the plan

Probably yes, however we have to look at when, we had a lot of development projects running part of which we intended to release spread out over 2022. The supply chain problems however delayed all of them and now we have a lot of new releases coming up at a pretty fast pace, 2 in January, 2 in March, 1 in May and 2 in July/August. So I reckon we’ll have a few pretty busy months ahead of us.

 

[Steve Williams]

When you say “satellite” do you mean an access point?

It's an Obi satellite with a LPS . The satellite has 3 ethernet ports. I take an ethernet cable out from the satellite to the Extreme and I have never had an issue. I do believe Emile however that his pending updates will take the network to a whole new level so I'm all in thanks to Emile

 

[Taiko Audio]

Tung Sol VT-231GT? They Are Killer!!

1943 Sylvania VT-231GT and Brimar CV1988

 

[dminches]

Probably yes, however we have to look at when, we had a lot of development projects running part of which we intended to release spread out over 2022. The supply chain problems however delayed all of them and now we have a lot of new releases coming up at a pretty fast pace, 2 in January, 2 in March, 1 in May and 2 in July/August. So I reckon we’ll have a few pretty busy months ahead of us.

Are you able to list all those releases? I assume January’s are the switch and ethernet card.

 

[Steve Williams]

Probably yes, however we have to look at when, we had a lot of development projects running part of which we intended to release spread out over 2022. The supply chain problems however delayed all of them and now we have a lot of new releases coming up at a pretty fast pace, 2 in January, 2 in March, 1 in May and 2 in July/August. So I reckon we’ll have a few pretty busy months ahead of us.

You rock on my friend. Your mind is an endless pot of gold when it comes to Sound quality. Anyone who bets against Emile and Taiko are going to be big losers IMHO

 

[Taiko Audio]

Are you able to list all those releases? I assume January’s are the switch and ethernet card.

January - switch and ethernet card
March - router and to be announced soon
May - Battery Power Supply
July and August both to be announced

Sorry for the mystery part.

 

[John T]

1943 Sylvania VT-231GT and Brimar CV1988

I have not played with the Brimar, however those Sylvania in my system are excellent too. I have 2 pair, same circa...

 

[dminches]

January - switch and ethernet card
March - router and to be announced soon
May - Battery Power Supply
July and August both to be announced

Sorry for the mystery part.

I am interested to see what the options will be for the BPS for current Extreme owners and if adding the BPS can be done by the owner or if it will require the Extreme to be shipped somewhere.

 

[Rhapsody]

I am interested to see what the options will be for the BPS for current Extreme owners and if adding the BPS can be done by the owner or if it will require the Extreme to be shipped somewhere.

I heard it will have to be shipped to the Space Station and back

 

[Tubeman66]

Why did we end up designing both a switch and a router?

I'm attempting to write this in as non technical language as I can but please let me know if it still reads like total gibberish (as in understandable, not gibberish as in you don't believe any of this has anything to do with sound quality).

First off all, after years of trying and experimenting we have not found a single solution leading to full immunization to the influence of networking on sound quality. This network is an active components in your home. A perhaps shocking discovery is that your home network can even influence your analogue playback chain. Every component of your network exerts a degree of influence, ranging from very minor to mayor. What this simply means is that when you introduce any type of streaming digital source into your system (and even when you don't) and you care about sound quality, you should absolutely look at the whole picture, including every single component and piece of wire, not identical to but similar as to how you look at for example your power utility setup, where the utility breaker box, fuses and all bits of wire make a difference.

A router is like the airport / main distribution center of your network, it performs customs clearance on international packages, checks for illegal content, sorts and transports all packages to where they should arrive in a timely and organised fashion. It should have plenty of capacity to ensure everything runs smooth and in a timely fashion, good management and quality control departments.

A switch is like your local post office / distribution center, it needs a well maintained road system and a fleet of delivery trucks with good suspension so packages arrive undamaged at their final destination even when encountering a few bumps in the road and last but not least well mannered delivery guys.

In audiophile language, using the earlier mentioned power utility setup analogy your house mains utility distribution box would be the router, your in-wall wiring would be the ethernet cable running from the router, your local system power strip or power conditioner would be the switch and your power cord would be your ethernet cable. Perhaps unsurprisingly their respective degrees of influence on sound quality are very similar. The router being the mains utility distribution box in this example can furthermore be enhanced with things like power regeneration, cleaning, stabilization etc.

From this point on it's going to get unavoidably more technical as I'm now going to share a photo of a 3D print of the switch PCB which will reveal that the switch employs 2 SFP ports exclusively. Small form-factor pluggable, or SFP, devices enable the switch to connect to fiber and Ethernet cables of different types and speeds by using SFP modules which are available in both copper, RJ45 and fiber versions.

View attachment 101140

For clarity / comparative reasons a repost of the router PCB photo:

View attachment 101141

And a photo of a fiber and a copper SFP module:

View attachment 101142

Excellent build

 

[seatrope]

@Taiko Audio Ah that makes perfect sense. Yes, I use DACs for all of my 10/40G connections within 5m of the main L3 switch. Any significant difference between brands for DAC cables? passive better over active i assume?

I'm now anticipating all the audiophile cable makers working on their premium DAC cables lol...

Why did we end up going for the SFP interface in stead of the usual RJ45?

The ethernet cabling system we use in our homes is designed to transport large amounts of data at high speeds over an as economical as possible cabling system. For this to work it uses block coding and error correction to enable data to pass through a cheap (economical) cable and connector system without error. The block encoding requires reading the data block into the transmitter, running a mathematical function on the data, and sending the encoded data over the link. The opposite happens at the receiving end and error correction is applied.

A graphical display of error correction:
View attachment 101143

To give you an indication of the processing overhead, this is standardized to take 2.6 microseconds where the actual data transfer latency is 0.1 microseconds for fiber and 0.3 microseconds for copper (or times 8.6 for copper and times 26 for fiber). But more important is the increase in power consumption which is between 5 and 25 times higher for RJ45 over SFP (for EACH port).

At a first glance SFP fiber appears to be the ideal solution, unfortunately it is not as straight forward as that as a SFP fiber module, which converts an electrical into an optical signal, uses a substantial amount of power. A single fiber SFP module consumes more power then our entire final switch design, the additional noise this generates is multiple times higher then that of the switch itself.

So our soup of today consists of an accumulation of several types of noise:
-Processing noise
-Noise generated by power consumption (and associated heat)
-Interface noise

We have managed to achieve the absolute lowest possible noise by minimizing these 3 by designing a network card and switch for producing the lowest possible noise, consuming the lowest possible power, with the least possible processing overhead around using a so called DAC SFP cable between Network card and Switch, which looks like this:

View attachment 101148

View attachment 101149


Now we already had a SFP card fitted in the Extreme in that position, however that was not a design with the lowest possible noise in mind and it does not support the not yet mentioned software enhancements which is a story for another day as I have a nice Lampizator Horizon tube rolling session scheduled for the remainder of this afternoon