Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

I just got a strange text addressed from my audio system. It said please be informed that the musicians are moving into your listening room.
I suggest you lock your liquor cabinet. Good luck collecting rent.
 
Hi Emile, will the switch and the router have a chassis ground binding post?

Yes.

Hi Emile, if I plan to stay in Roon and with the Ip coming switch and network card. Should I update to roon 2.0? I am still running at roon 1.8

Roon has been sounding virtually the same in all the 1.8 and 2.0 builds over the past few months using the final iteration of the switch and network card.
 
Will it still be better to have a separate ISP fibre and modem like now to fully isolate traffic and NOT
overload the Taiko router with home internet traffic ?
I think it makes a great sense to do not force Taiko Router to do the other things than plaing music.

I know we can have few totally separate networks assigned in Taiko router but if we have additional trafic in that router it will still use same processor and memory and drown more current that generates more noise.
 
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 :)
2 meter length?
 
Will it still be better to have a separate ISP fibre and modem like now to fully isolate traffic and NOT
overload the Taiko router with home internet traffic ?
I think it makes a great sense to do not force Taiko Router to do the other things than plaing music.

I know we can have few totally separate networks assigned in Taiko router but if we have additional trafic in that router it will still use same processor and memory and drown more current that generates more noise.

Can actually turn out negative, do you also have a separate mains installation and/or grounding?
 
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Can actually turn out negative, do you also have a separate mains installation and/or grounding?
I have separate mains for Audio equipement including modem , router, switches.
I have 2 rails (2,6 mm , 10 G, 5.2 mm2) from the same phase.
Also all equipemnt is gounded to a separate 0,5 ohm (!) ground.
( there are nine 11 m long rods in my backyard to be able to reach 0,5 ohm.)
 
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Can actually turn out negative, do you also have a separate mains installation and/or grounding?
Emile, is the performance target to have the new switch on the same main power line as the server? I was hoping the DAC cable would isolate the server. Maybe not?
 
I have separate mains for Audio equipement including modem , router, switches.
I have 2 rails (2,6 mm , 10 G, 5.2 mm2) from the same phase.
Also all equipemnt is gounded to a separate 0,5 ohm (!) ground.
( there are nine 11 m long rods in my backyard to be able to reach 0,5 ohm.)
Did you use grounding enhancement material? Is that 0.5 ohm consistent? 8' 5/8th thick rods I presume, and how far apart? I installed my grounding system, even with a pneumatic tool, not easy! Sorry for all the questions...John
 
Sorry, the cable going from the new switch to the Extreme...

The maximum length is 10 meters (30 ft) but we recommend a 7 meter (20ft) maximum.

I have separate mains for Audio equipement including modem , router, switches.
I have 2 rails (2,6 mm , 10 G, 5.2 mm2) from the same phase.
Also all equipemnt is gounded to a separate 0,5 ohm (!) ground.
( there are nine 11 m long rods in my backyard to be able to reach 0,5 ohm.)

Well I think right now you'd be better off placing your modem , router, switches on a separate mains system, if you're just splitting a single phase with a common neutral it's not going to matter that much though.

Emile, is the performance target to have the new switch on the same main power line as the server? I was hoping the DAC cable would isolate the server. Maybe not?

No noise passing there but unfortunately you're still mains powered!
 
The maximum length is 10 meters (30 ft) but we recommend a 7 meter (20ft) maximum.



Well I think right now you'd be better off placing your modem , router, switches on a separate mains system, if you're just splitting a single phase with a common neutral it's not going to matter that much though.



No noise passing there but unfortunately you're still mains powered!
Great, more than enough for the placement etc....Will you offer shorter than 7 meter as well?
 
There are some minor differences but not of the better or worse kind, but over 20 feet there’s some deterioration.
20 feet is a smidge over 6 meters. Why offer a 7 meter cable if it exceeds the threshold
 
Sure, 1,2,3,5,7 meter lengths.
These preterminated cables are very common, available and very inexpensive.

Unless you are going to tell us that one brand sounds better than another (Nooooo. . . . please, no).

Steve Z
 
These preterminated cables are very common, available and very inexpensive.

Unless you are going to tell us that one brand sounds better than another (Nooooo. . . . please, no).

Steve Z

I have a few different lengths and brands, in high-end everything sounds somewhat different, but the differences are relatively minor relative to the delta to a rj45 terminated UTP cable, like 1-2% of that.
 

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