Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
- Start date
Christiaan Punter
Well-Known Member
As we develop and host these updates ourselves we’ll notify you if it there’s something you need to apply.
A.Philips version available from Autozone https://www.autozone.com/nuts-bolts...6sn5VHBBJE81HGO4MdhoCkmIQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Don’t you want one which is shorter than 10mm? Isn’t the issue that the 10mm is too long?
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I thought about this long and hard today. Yes the second filter also gets burned in but TBH I have to understand the effect of one filter at a time. So right now Router is still default and switch alt 1. In about 3 days I’ll switch that around and do the same with alt2. I Will use both alt filters together only after I’ve done all of the above.
I wasn't following the post closely, but trying to help. I saw Christaan's post of the screw size and saw someone said some people might have trouble finding them locally. So I did a quick search. Shorter ones are available from the same sellers as well as Home Depot.
Amazon has many M6 8mm ans here's an M6 8mm available online from Walmart. https://www.walmart.com/ip/525057325
There were indeed a few comparative reports when the Switch first arrived earlier this year. In my case, a 12v LPS certainly brought a useful improvement, but what really opened my eyes was finding the right AC power cable for my Farad Super3 power supply. Upgrading the AC cable made as much of a difference if not more than just adding the Farad with its stock power cord, but I almost missed it. The first couple of spendy AC cables auditioned made such a small difference, I wondered if the expense was worth it. Just dumb luck my reasonably-priced “compromise” cable, Audio Sensibility Signature SE, turned out to be such an overachiever. Man, what a difference!
So whether or not you choose to change to a 12v supply, my suggestion would be that experimenting with AC cables is definitely worthwhile. Good luck!
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I pulled power from the switch, as recommended to update the fetch ip for my extreme, and my WiFi signal disappeared. I had to power cycle the router to get WiFi back.
Power distributor feeding switch and router, wall wart powering the distributor.
BTW, I know this is how switches normally work (few seconds of downtime), but in my Taiko setup whenever I unpower the Taiko switch, the router seems to reset itself as well.
I'm not sure why- but the result is that it is not a few seconds of 'downtime'
I pulled power from the switch, as recommended to update the fetch ip for my extreme, and my WiFi signal disappeared. I had to power cycle the router to get WiFi back.
Power distributor feeding switch and router, wall wart powering the distributor.
@Taiko Audio
It seems that the Taikoaudio.com website is experiencing some availability issues.
I tried last night and this morning.
The website lags a lot and doesn't load properly. In particular the photo gallery.
A quick check gives 7 seconds of average load time, which is a lot.
It might be worth taking a look at what's going wrong.
It seems that the Taikoaudio.com website is experiencing some availability issues.
I tried last night and this morning.
The website lags a lot and doesn't load properly. In particular the photo gallery.
A quick check gives 7 seconds of average load time, which is a lot.
It might be worth taking a look at what's going wrong.
Yes we’re aware, we’re working on it. It always performed pretty decent, even with a lot of photos etc, as we have a very heavy duty hosting package, but the amount of traffic keeps growing and growing and it appears the website back-end itself is starting to choke under the amount of connections.
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
To change subject for a moment , I have lstened to default/default for 5 days and for the past 1 1/2 days I have been listening to default on router and Alt1 on switch. Granted it's early into the evaluation but TBH I prefer default over alt 1. In another day or 2 I will switch alt1 to router and default back to switch for another evaluation but so far alt1 is not my cup of tea
Try alt1 on the router (makes no diff to your burn in I guess) and default on the switch. You probably will still prefer default default, which sounds more musical, but I think you’ll like it more than alt1 on the switch.
Personally I still prefer alt1 router/ default switch with my plixir. The sound is neutral and detailed yet not sterile or harsh. I could live with default default, but I think it’s just a bit slower and loses a bit of details for me.
Personally I still prefer alt1 router/ default switch with my plixir. The sound is neutral and detailed yet not sterile or harsh. I could live with default default, but I think it’s just a bit slower and loses a bit of details for me.
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I really like default/default. I have had alt1 on the router for the past hour and ended the sounds is better but TBH alt1 does not grab me
I think this squirrel is going to find the nut using alt2 but as stated so far default/default is my favorite but I have yet to use alt 2
I think this squirrel is going to find the nut using alt2 but as stated so far default/default is my favorite but I have yet to use alt 2
My router just arrived, and I'm happy to report a super-positive set up and first listening experience.
Thanks to the sacrifice of those who've gone before me, I followed the steps of
- switch off Extreme (front panel), switch, and router
- switch them on in reverse of that order with suitable time intervals between.
The only thing I forgot to do in my eagerness was screw on the router wifi Ariel at first... ahem.
The picture I took of the sticker on the bottom of the router was using my phones 48MP camera and I found by zooming in I could distinguish a lowercase i in the SSID password so I got the Taiko Audio password right first time.
I already had my IP Scanner set up on the iPad, so I could discover the Extreme's new IP address, and get in with VNC and then XDMS.
I'm healthily paranoid about EMI and fortunately had a couple of washers handy in the house so the router is grounded, RJ-45 grounding tails applied to unused connections, and tinned copper braid covering each cable (digital and power).
I'm listening to XDMS so far, with switch & router powered via an Uptone JS2, one rail each device, with further regulation supplied by an Uptone Ultracap 1.2 on the Switch, and an ldovr regulator for the Router, both of which claim noise specs of 750 nanovolts.
Very early sound impressions are promising with improvements in:
- 'clarity', easily hearing into details of the performance as never before in every track
- soundstage, music is round me in the room to a significantly greater extent, and in tracks I've never especially noticed that from.
- bass 'focus' & texture
Plus an immediate desire to turn up the volume compared to what I was listening at pre-router - I'm taking that as a good sign of noise floor reduction. I gave in as soon as I was satisfied with first comparison impressions.
My hypothesis was/is that having the Extreme, Switch, & Router combo for Emile and team to distribute their software processing across will be a solid long term investment. And as it turns out I'm really happy with what I've heard so far out of the box, and excited by what will come as burn in progresses.
If this is the sound quality 'direction of travel' to expect with BPS, TACDD, XDMS NSM, etc. I can't wait!
Thanks to the sacrifice of those who've gone before me, I followed the steps of
- switch off Extreme (front panel), switch, and router
- switch them on in reverse of that order with suitable time intervals between.
The only thing I forgot to do in my eagerness was screw on the router wifi Ariel at first... ahem.
The picture I took of the sticker on the bottom of the router was using my phones 48MP camera and I found by zooming in I could distinguish a lowercase i in the SSID password so I got the Taiko Audio password right first time.
I already had my IP Scanner set up on the iPad, so I could discover the Extreme's new IP address, and get in with VNC and then XDMS.
I'm healthily paranoid about EMI and fortunately had a couple of washers handy in the house so the router is grounded, RJ-45 grounding tails applied to unused connections, and tinned copper braid covering each cable (digital and power).
I'm listening to XDMS so far, with switch & router powered via an Uptone JS2, one rail each device, with further regulation supplied by an Uptone Ultracap 1.2 on the Switch, and an ldovr regulator for the Router, both of which claim noise specs of 750 nanovolts.
Very early sound impressions are promising with improvements in:
- 'clarity', easily hearing into details of the performance as never before in every track
- soundstage, music is round me in the room to a significantly greater extent, and in tracks I've never especially noticed that from.
- bass 'focus' & texture
Plus an immediate desire to turn up the volume compared to what I was listening at pre-router - I'm taking that as a good sign of noise floor reduction. I gave in as soon as I was satisfied with first comparison impressions.
My hypothesis was/is that having the Extreme, Switch, & Router combo for Emile and team to distribute their software processing across will be a solid long term investment. And as it turns out I'm really happy with what I've heard so far out of the box, and excited by what will come as burn in progresses.
If this is the sound quality 'direction of travel' to expect with BPS, TACDD, XDMS NSM, etc. I can't wait!
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Here's my take midway though today If the choices were only default and alt1, I would have mine set at Default/Default. I thought alt1 was too polite for my system and ears. I switched alt1 from switch to router and returned Default to switch The sound was better but not to my liking
It was lacking detail, and layering and yes you could convince me that it was burn in and I was being premature. Indeed...I agree
Yet, I was eager to hear what Alt2 brought to the table. And so I made the decision to halt early my alt1 experience before burn in. It was my thought that if Alt2 sounded off then indeed burn in would be high on the list of what's needed BUT, if it sounded better, that would be encouraging.
It took but a few minutes to make the cable and filter switch. I decided to leave alt2 in my router for no other reason than alt 1 was there now and it would give a quick comparison between the 2.
Well I have to say, it was nothing short of being gobsmacked as suddenly with XDMS, everything that I heard on default/default, I was hearing but with more of it. I played my short 6 file demo list and with virtually no burn in it sounded better than anything I have heard to date, except to say I thought it to be slightly veiled, and this only became apparent after I switched from XDMS to Roon. Roon had all of the attributes of what I was hearing with XDMS but absent the veil. It had a very detailed but open sound. The detail heard was what I search for and this quickly became the what I preferred, because Alt2 in switch just fell short of how it sounded in the router
So not the best way I can describe my thoughts is that Default is a very neutral sound
Alt 1 seems to be less than Default when in comes to detail and emotion, and drawing me in
Alt 2 is default on some steroids , at least for my ears and my system. I have no idea if others will come to the same conclusion but for my ears, room and all tube system , Alt2 in Router and default in Switch seems to be where this squirrel has found the nut.
So for now at least this is where I intend to focus my listening efforts. In fact had I not switched to Roon I would be eternally happy with XDMS
My second favorite setting is default/ Default
YMMV
It was lacking detail, and layering and yes you could convince me that it was burn in and I was being premature. Indeed...I agree
Yet, I was eager to hear what Alt2 brought to the table. And so I made the decision to halt early my alt1 experience before burn in. It was my thought that if Alt2 sounded off then indeed burn in would be high on the list of what's needed BUT, if it sounded better, that would be encouraging.
It took but a few minutes to make the cable and filter switch. I decided to leave alt2 in my router for no other reason than alt 1 was there now and it would give a quick comparison between the 2.
Well I have to say, it was nothing short of being gobsmacked as suddenly with XDMS, everything that I heard on default/default, I was hearing but with more of it. I played my short 6 file demo list and with virtually no burn in it sounded better than anything I have heard to date, except to say I thought it to be slightly veiled, and this only became apparent after I switched from XDMS to Roon. Roon had all of the attributes of what I was hearing with XDMS but absent the veil. It had a very detailed but open sound. The detail heard was what I search for and this quickly became the what I preferred, because Alt2 in switch just fell short of how it sounded in the router
So not the best way I can describe my thoughts is that Default is a very neutral sound
Alt 1 seems to be less than Default when in comes to detail and emotion, and drawing me in
Alt 2 is default on some steroids , at least for my ears and my system. I have no idea if others will come to the same conclusion but for my ears, room and all tube system , Alt2 in Router and default in Switch seems to be where this squirrel has found the nut.
So for now at least this is where I intend to focus my listening efforts. In fact had I not switched to Roon I would be eternally happy with XDMS
My second favorite setting is default/ Default
YMMV
