Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[steve williams]

@John T good luck with the replacement! I'm on week nine, post-op. That's why I waited until last week to get XDMS. I thought if I was doped up on morphine (I was) the last thing I needed was new alpha software! Good Luck. DM me if you think I can be of any help re: procedure, etc.

I had both of mine done 9 years ago. For me it was truly life changing . My wife and I walk 4-5 miles every day. They had me up walking in the recovery room an hour after surgery. It's not that bad . A good knee surgeon can do the procedure in less than an hour

 

[Bobvin]

Rerack complete (moved from Quadraspire bamboo to HRS; still using HRS shelves) and settled in over the last week - whew. Very notable additional resolution and micro details - the kind I always struggled to hear on various tracks but now are clear. Additional solidity in notes as well. I am guessing both the Horizon and the Extreme benefitted.

Must agree that the Extreme and Horizon are a beautiful sounding pair. Middle shelf will be reshuffled for Taiko's switch and router.

Re: grounding I do get beneficial results using the CAD-GC1 to ground the Extreme (on the screw) and the M12 switch. Hope to use it on the Taiko switch. Currently use Plixir LPSs on M12 switch and comcast modem.

Happy and safe holidays to everyone! Looking forward to everything up Taiko’s many sleeves in 2023.

Picture #1 confirms my strong belief — never, under any circumstances, let your wife look behind the equipment rack!

 

[John T]

@John T good luck with the replacement! I'm on week nine, post-op. That's why I waited until last week to get XDMS. I thought if I was doped up on morphine (I was) the last thing I needed was new alpha software! Good Luck. DM me if you think I can be of any help re: procedure, etc.

Exactly my train of thought! Thank you for the well wishes, ought to be interesting seeing that I am a minimalist when it comes to the medical community. I truly hope yours is coming along nicely and mine go's smoothly.

 

[John T]

I had both of mine done 9 years ago. For me it was truly life changing . My wife and I walk 4-5 miles every day. They had me up walking in the recovery room an hour after surgery. It's not that bad . A good knee surgeon can do the procedure in less than an hour

Steve this is music to my ears! If I didn't say I'm a bit nervous I would be a liar. This optimistic post and @MarkusBarkus reply really helps calm a very active brain! My 2nd one will be 3 months from the first. I really appreciate this...

 

[steve williams]

Steve this is music to my ears! If I didn't say I'm a bit nervous I would be a liar. This optimistic post and @MarkusBarkus reply really helps calm a very active brain! My 2nd one will be 3 months from the first. I really appreciate this...

I did mine 3 months after the first as well. It truly changed my life

 

[MarkusBarkus]

Since many of us are frothing like rabid dogs, ...er audiophiles, for switch info, perhaps this will help until the Taiko unit arrives from the Dept. of Sonic Bliss in Oldenzaal.

A switch test shoot-out this Sunday, also from The Netherlands (must be something in the beer):

Alpha Audio - Huge Live & Blind Switch test – 18-12-2022 – 10:30 CET

Over the past few months, we’ve been investigating network switches. What is it that makes us hear (or think we hear?) differences? Data? Power supply differences? Noise? We bought some addit…

alpha-audio.net

Props to @FredM who noted this on another WBF thread. Thanks Fred.

 

[John T]

Did a soft reboot, my default is TAS. Now for some reason when I switch back to ROON, Core cannot be seen. TAS no issues. Any suggestions before one of the Taiko crew reach out? It says Roon currently running, but Roon is not seeing the Extreme...WTF!

 

[steve williams]

Did a soft reboot, my default is TAS. Now for some reason when I switch back to ROON, Core cannot be seen. TAS no issues. Any suggestions before one of the Taiko crew reach out? It says Roon currently running, but Roon is not seeing the Extreme...WTF!

For me it's easy.....dump Roon

TAS IMO is every bit as good and XDMS tops the heap and is developing on a daily basis and it is nothing short of excellent

 

[John T]

For me it's easy.....dump Roon

TAS IMO is every bit as good and XDMS tops the heap and is developing on a daily basis and it is nothing short of excellent

I know Steve, shouldn't be an issue toggling between the 2...

 

[Tuckia]

Did a soft reboot, my default is TAS. Now for some reason when I switch back to ROON, Core cannot be seen. TAS no issues. Any suggestions before one of the Taiko crew reach out? It says Roon currently running, but Roon is not seeing the Extreme...WTF!

John,
Try rebooting your iPad, or double click and drag the Roon icon up to get rid of that instance, then re-open Roon.

Or toggle back and forth between TAS and Roon in the Taiko app.

If that doesn’t work, sell your Pearls to me

 

[John T]

John,
Try rebooting your iPad, or double click and drag the Roon icon up to get rid of that instance, then re-open Roon.

Or toggle back and forth between TAS and Roon in the Taiko app.

If that doesn’t work, sell your Pearls to me

I did that Greg, not working. Nor will the laptop see the Extreme. When I don't come out of the anesthesia help yourself to the Pearls, door is never locked!

 

[EuroDriver]

I did that Greg, not working. Nor will the laptop see the Extreme. When I don't come out of the anesthesia help yourself to the Pearls, door is never locked!

All up and running again, Roon had a broken update.

Something to address in the Extreme Customer Service App features

 

[John T]

Thank You Edward, if I do another soft reboot will this occur again? TAS is my default

 

[EuroDriver]

Thank You Edward, if I do another soft reboot will this occur again? TAS is my default

I did I soft restart on your Extreme, just to test, and it went fine. The frequency of broken Roon updates is way down. It's the first case we have had for a long time

 

[steve williams]

I did I soft restart on your Extreme, just to test, and it went fine. The frequency of broken Roon updates is way down. It's the first case we have had for a long time

out of curiosity how do "you" fix a broken Roon update

 

[cat6man]

out of curiosity how do "you" fix a broken Roon update

Uninstall?

 

[kswanson27]

Uninstall?

Yes, uninstall and reinstall Roon. Ed had to do that for me a while back.

 

[Nils]

Results from Altaira Tests With Taiko Extreme

After last weekend's interesting Altaira demo at my dealer's I had an itch to scratch... So, I have been trying out Shunyata's demo-kit over the weekend on my system, including my Extreme, here are my findings:

I first swapped my current chassis-grounding cables out for Shunyata's Alpha cables but kept the same architecture, i.e. star with all chassis connected to my power-distributor's (Shunyata Everest) ground lugs. Result: no audible change.

I then connected the Alpha cables into an Altaira Chassis Hub and then connected the Hub to the Everest's ground lugs. Result: no audible change.

I then added the Altaira Signal Hub and connected that to the Chassis Hub - I connected Taiko's (unused) Ethernet port via an Alpha-cable and an Ethernet-tail into the Signal Hub. Result: clear improvement in SQ - lowered noise floor -> more details/music stepping out.

I pursued to test by instead connecting the USB port via Alpha-cable and USB-tail. Result: additional, incremental improvement in SQ.

I then moved to my MSB Premier DAC/Pre-Amp and connected (just like last weekend) it's unused AES/XLR input via Alpha-cable into the Signal Hub. Result: clear improvement in SQ - lowered noise floor -> more details/music stepping out.

Finally, I instead connected the BNC word synch port via Alpha-cable and BNC-tail. Result: a small additional incremental improvement in SQ.

I also disconnected the Chassis Hub altogether - Signal Hub instead connected directly into Everest.

Summary:
- Chassis ground remains the same, I use star topology with my simple and cheap grounding cables
- Altaira Signal Hub added clear SQ improvements - Extreme signal grounded via USB, Premier signal grounded via BNC
- Cost for the SQ improvement (Signal Hub + three cables) is not astronomic - (I may need to try this with more expensive Omega cables though)
- Build quality of Alpha cables and ground-tails is excellent - doing A/B test is child-play
- Experiment with your system - I believe Shunyata is handing out these eval kits to their distributors which is smart as each system is unique

Note: in pics below you see both ground-tails connected to Extreme & Premier - very quick to swap Alpha cable between then two tails for A/B, which I have done - a lot

 

[Zeotrope]

Results from Altaira Tests With Taiko Extreme

After last weekend's interesting Altaira demo at my dealer's I had an itch to scratch... So, I have been trying out Shunyata's demo-kit over the weekend on my system, including my Extreme, here are my findings:

I first swapped my current chassis-grounding cables out for Shunyata's Alpha cables but kept the same architecture, i.e. star with all achassis connected to my power-distributor's (Shunyata Everest) ground lugs. Result: no audible change.

I then connected the Alpha cables into an Altaira Chassis Hub and then connected the Hub to the Everest's ground lugs. Result: no audible change.

I then added the Altaira Signal Hub and connected that to the Chassis Hub - I connected Taiko's (unused) Ethernet port via an Alpha-cable and an Ethernet-tail into the Signal Hub. Result: clear improvement in SQ - lowered noise floor -> more details/music stepping out.

I pursued to test by instead connecting the USB port via Alpha-cable and USB-tail. Result: additional, incremental improvement in SQ.

I then moved to my MSB Premier DAC/Pre-Amp and connected (just like last weekend) it's unused AES/XLR input via Alpha-cable into the Signal Hub. Result: clear improvement in SQ - lowered noise floor -> more details/music stepping out.

Finally, I instead connected the BNC word synch port via Alpha-cable and BNC-tail. Result: a small additional incremental improvement in SQ.

I also disconnected the Chassis Hub altogether - Signal Hub instead connected directly into Everest.

Summary:
- Chassis ground remains the same, I use star topology with my simple and cheap grounding cables
- Altaira Signal Hub added clear SQ improvements - Extreme signal grounded via USB, Premier signal grounded via BNC
- Cost for the SQ improvement (Signal Hub + three cables) is not astronomic - (I may need to try this with more expensive Omega cables though)
- Build quality of Alpha cables and ground-tails is excellent - doing A/B test is child-play
- Experiment with your system - I believe Shunyata is handing out these eval kits to their distributors which is smart as each system is unique

Note: in pics below you see both ground-tails connected to Extreme & Premier - very quick to swap Alpha cable between then two tails for A/B, which I have done - a lot

As some of you who read my mini-review (a few pages back) know, I am using the Altaira Signal Hub with Omega ground cables with my Extreme, Nagra HD DAC X, and DarTZeel 18NS preamp, with excellent results. If you already have a Denali or Everest, it’s really a no brainer to add on the Altaira. At ~$4k with cables the value is immense.

@Nils - you should try connecting the ground cable directly to the Extreme’s ground screw. That’s what it is there for and I suspect that because of the lower impedance compared to other connection points, you will get better results. As I understand it, you are trying to get as close to the AC ground as possible. Measure the resistance between the ground pin on the AC input and the end of the Shunyata ground wire and connect where resistance is lowest. I suspect this will be via the ground screw provided, not the USB or Ethernet ports. Therefore, using an Ethernet or other point to ground to is not going to be as good as a connection that is closer to the AC input on the component.

 

[Nils]

As some of you who read my mini-review (a few pages back) know, I am using the Altaira Signal Hub with Omega ground cables with my Extreme, Nagra HD DAC X, and DarTZeel 18NS preamp, with excellent results. If you already have a Denali or Everest, it’s really a no brainer to add on the Altaira. At ~$4k with cables the value is immense.

@Nils - you should try connecting the ground cable directly to the Extreme’s ground screw. That’s what it is there for and I suspect that because of the lower impedance compared to other connection points, you will get better results. As I understand it, you are trying to get as close to the AC ground as possible. So using an Ethernet or other point to ground to is not going to be as good as a connection that is closer to the AC input on the component.

Check the pics - I am connecting Extreme's ground-screw to chassis ground on the Everest - AND I am connecting it's USB port to Altaira signal hub.

Agree that cost/SQ benefit is beneficial - I will be investing in this, most likely with Omega-cables, My eperience so far is that Shunyata has managed to provide nice incremental results as you move up in cable quality (and price).