Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Just got an Extreme and can i say this is simply the most amazing thing ever as a source. I am enjoying the listening again and exploring so many tracks I have last heard years ago now given a new life. Thanks Emile - you are a true asset to the audiophile world! And i agree the extreme is cheap for what it is.
Lets use the word "inexpensive" rather than cheap but I understand what your meaning is

Welcome to the world of Extreme
 

Khalondir

New Member
Aug 28, 2020
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Hello!
I am going to buy a denafrips d/d Gaya and Terminator Plus dac and I am researching a music server as well. Has anyone on the forum ever used Taiko Extreme with Denafrips Gaya? or with some other d / d? I would like to know how Taiko Extreme does with a d/d converter between it and a dac.
Thankyou.
 

oldmustang

Well-Known Member
Dec 1, 2012
1,057
3,124
1,445
Hi micro, long time no argue :) I see I may have created the impression from my playlist and descriptions I'm adverse to digital recording / mastering. I'm not though, I do feel Redbook to be a limited format relative to what higher resolution recordings are capable of (assuming bit-perfect playback), which does not mean I cannot fully enjoy the format.

I'll list some higher resolution albums I used before (I do change my test playlist every few months to avoid boredom), I did not check the background on these but these (or at least some of these) are digitally (re)mastered and/or recorded:
QUOTE]

Thanks very much, Emile for the playlist suggestions. Nice music and it's good to hear some of what you use to evaluate with. I agree that the HDTT stuff is amazingly good given the vintage and technology, too.

Steve Z
 
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matthias

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2019
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Germany
Hello!
I am going to buy a denafrips d/d Gaya and Terminator Plus dac and I am researching a music server as well. Has anyone on the forum ever used Taiko Extreme with Denafrips Gaya? or with some other d / d? I would like to know how Taiko Extreme does with a d/d converter between it and a dac.
Thankyou.

May I ask what you do you hope to gain with the Gaia?
The Extreme has an excellent USB output and the TP an excellent USB input. The TP alone supports higher PCM and DSD rates in comparison to the combo with the Gaia.
Maybe @hols can chime in as he has a TP in his system.

Matt
 
Last edited:

Khalondir

New Member
Aug 28, 2020
15
4
3
40
May I ask what you do you hope to gain with the Gaia?
The Extreme has an excellent USB output and the TP an excellent USB input. The TP alone supports higher PCM and DSD rates in comparison to the combo with the Gaia.
Maybe @hols can chime in as he has a TP in his system.

Matt
My doubt was just that, if I would have any benefit in the system with Gaia DDC between Extreme server and Terminator dac. Apparently Gaia will not be necessary, since according to your answer Taiko Extreme and Termintor have great usb output/input.
 

ray-dude

Well-Known Member
Dec 8, 2019
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Folks, I was finally able to source some SR Orange fuses, and I've had a 5A fuse burning in on my Extreme for a couple weeks now. Out of the gate, I did notice more detail but perhaps a bit of harshness. Within a couple of days, the harshness went away, and the sound has been gradually evolving. It has now settled out, and I concur with @romaz and others that the added smoothness and detail is a net plus for me.

As always with power/digital things, your mileage will definitely vary, but a welcome small tweak in my room.
 

matthias

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2019
1,226
545
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Germany
Folks, I was finally able to source some SR Orange fuses, and I've had a 5A fuse burning in on my Extreme for a couple weeks now. Out of the gate, I did notice more detail but perhaps a bit of harshness. Within a couple of days, the harshness went away, and the sound has been gradually evolving. It has now settled out, and I concur with @romaz and others that the added smoothness and detail is a net plus for me.
As always with power/digital things, your mileage will definitely vary, but a welcome small tweak in my room.

Out of curiosity I would be happy to know how the Extreme sounds with a bypassed fuse :D

Matt
 

ray-dude

Well-Known Member
Dec 8, 2019
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Metal As <ahem> ;)
 

Esotar

VIP/Donor
Mar 27, 2016
411
361
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South Korea
www.digituslabs.kr
When I have money, I'll order DENAFRIPS GAIA.

It's very useful for connecting gaming PC, PS4, XBOX, Switch, and others.

I have schedule my Light Harmonic Korean only Full Custom DAC [Da Vinci Sire DE] and DENAFRIPS GAIA by AES/EBU.

HAHA
 

Nigel-B-R&D

New Member
Jan 20, 2020
2
1
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59
Hello All,

Relatively new to the forum and posting here for the first time as my Extreme arrived (in the UK) last Thursday and did have a fairly good read through the past six months to see if my questions below were already answered.

I have two questions probably on the basis that the 'votes' show only one other user with dual aes, then these are probably for Emile or Chris. Though very happy to have "you just do this" from the other "dual" or anyone else in the know.

First regarding the Roon rebuld / update sessions that were being discussed in depth about a month. Is this something already implemented on newly shipped Extremes or is it a matter of having to configure my Roon membership? I am still on the trial but I suspect I will need to take at least the first years worth of the "monthly", but actually annually charged upfront, membership in order to continue use until TAS is available.

Second is regarding dual aes drivers. I believe Mark at Kog Audio in the UK may have contacted Emile on this, I went for a dual aes/ebu as previous servers, last being Aurender W20, had benefitted from it into my dCS Vivaldi dac, I do have the Vivaldi upsampler but having a dual aes server and dual aes transport I had removed it from this system as I was using all four aes inputs.

Paticularly as I have some very good Chord music AES cables and am just trying USB's I would like to use the dual aes Extreme output. Currently what I am getting when selecting the AES1+2 as output, is [cables going to AES 3 and 4 on the Vivaldi] Select Vivaldi AES 3+4 input as one would for dual aes, but I only have sound on the left channel which does appear to be the left stereo proportion of the track. When selecting AES 3 I have a stereo rendiction, but whilst difficult to quantify it does not appear to be quite as 'clear' / crisp as the single left channel heard with AES 3+4. With AES 4 selected I have silence.

I have tried setting the Vivaldi to "on/forced" dual aes and also on auto dual aes and the result is the same. I would note on the Aurender implementation that when a non MQA/ Not hires 44.1 track was played the system would show "single wire mode" and the dac would be taking (possibly from either) a single aes and would then switch back to dual for the next MQA / Hi-Res track.

If it helps in diagnosis playing a Tidal streamed FLAC 48Hz 24bit 2ch. MQA 192kHz file {Eagles Legacy] looking at the signal path all stages from source to first bit depth conversion are showing purple, sample rate conversion then shows green "high" as it is converting it from 48kHz down to 44.1khz, this is suggested to be because of either DSP (which I disabled to check and it was still converting) or to maintain compatibility, that I assume must be to the Vivaldi driver which is shown as WASAPI Exclusive mode.

Of course the DAC is actually capable of up to DSD from the transport or 2xDSD / DXD when used with the upsampler. But looking at the driver in settings->system->sound->device properties->additional device properties under VNC it does seem to have indications on both the supported format and advanced tabs that 44.1kz is the limitation of the driver with 44.1 being the only rate selectable as supported by the "digital receiver" on the former and on slection of either 24 bit 44.1khz or 16 bit 44.1khz on the advanced tab.

It would appear (or is a big coincidence) this i what is telling roon to limit to 44.1. Whether that is also preventing both channels being output on Vivaldi input "AES 3+4" (on the basis the Aurender would have shown "single wire") is conjecture, but clearly the Vivaldi is expecting something on the other channel that the driver, is preventing or at least not sending.

I have tried this with "Output" as well as "AES 1+2" and seem to get the same. I have also tried the ASIO Hammerfall DSP that was the other output on the system as it arrived and that does the same. I have not investigated the driver in every case, but could if helpful.

In case it was impacting / is relevant have run both the Vivaldi clock to the Extreme and also allowed the extreme to be master clock to the dac. This made no difference on the above.

I note that I do have a Trinnov Amaethyst elsewhere in the system which would only accept a 192 clocked input or lower, but although Roon finds it, it does not appear in the signal path and thus I do not envisage that the sampling restriction is being influenced from this, especially not down to a limitation of 44.1kHz.

Lastly and for now and the future most importantly even with a basic 'to hand' USB the system is more than matching the Aurender W20 with Chord Music dual aes cables. With a second pir connected to the Extreme A/B shows elements in both the stereo "AES 3" and (albeit left channel only) performance on dual aes that are better than the base USB cable and thus bode well for either / both upgraded USB cables or the dual AES when operational. All in all I am very happy with the Extreme and expect to be 'happier still' once this is overcome.

I suspect as did Mark from Kog that some type of teamviewer session may be the quickest way for this to be overcome and if the roon 'rebuild' is still needed I though these could be combined if you had more information of the 'symptoms'.

Many thanks in anticipation.

Nigel B
 

Esotar

VIP/Donor
Mar 27, 2016
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Congratulations, Emile~!!!

This thread views are over 400,000~!!!!!!!

Hey Steve, I have one question.

SGM Extreme thread's this record was made for only 19 months.

The fastest speed record, right?
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Congratulations, Emile~!!!

This thread views are over 400,000~!!!!!!!

Hey Steve, I have one question.

SGM Extreme thread's this record was made for only 19 months.

The fastest speed record, right?

You're probably correct. I told Emile several times that this thread was my favorite read every day on WBF. Emile has a lot on his plate right now including moving to a bigger and better factory. TAS, Taiko remote as well as filling orders which in the present day is difficult because so many parts are backordered with the pandemic and then when shipping is done that too proves to be very slow. Having said this, it only makes me smile in anticipation of the day Emile releases those much awaited products because IMHO that will be the path I follow as TAS in its infancy is as good or slightly better than a current build of Roon

This plus the fact that the remote should give Emile and his team more time to do what they do best......bringing us the very best server and customer service. There is a reason that people read this thread

Kudos Emile
 

Esotar

VIP/Donor
Mar 27, 2016
411
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www.digituslabs.kr
I'm very proud for Korea to make SGM Extreme super big hit world first.

But after Mike and you participated in this legendary thread, SGM Extreme became invincible music server in the world.

I'm very happy that world best HI FI forum manager and World the most powerful audiophile Mike Lavigne support with

me.

Emile's products are all fantastic but his mind is much more excellent than his products.

Emile is last one who is very kind and giving me many helps.

I'm very lucky.



We have one more aim.

[[[[[Over 5,000 replies]]]]]

I hope this goal will be made within September.

Please post many replies for Emile, good guys~!!!
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
But after Mike and you participated in this legendary thread, SGM Extreme became invincible music server in the world.

One last credit is due and that is a shout out to CKKeung who always manages to start the best threads here. So if people see a thread started by CK, I would say that it is worth reading
 

Esotar

VIP/Donor
Mar 27, 2016
411
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www.digituslabs.kr
One last credit is due and that is a shout out to CKKeung who always manages to start the best threads here. So if people see a thread started by CK, I would say that it is worth reading

Oh~!!!

Actually I had the plan to make SGM Extreme thread.

CKKeung made this thread 1 hour faster.

HAHA

If I made this thread, Emile lost you and Mike???

I'm very lucky, Steve~! HAHA
 

Taiko Audio

Industry Expert
Feb 10, 2017
4,231
13,023
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The Netherlands
taikoaudio.com
Hello All,

Relatively new to the forum and posting here for the first time as my Extreme arrived (in the UK) last Thursday and did have a fairly good read through the past six months to see if my questions below were already answered.

Welcome to the forum Nigel!

First regarding the Roon rebuld / update sessions that were being discussed in depth about a month. Is this something already implemented on newly shipped Extremes or is it a matter of having to configure my Roon membership?

Your Extreme is fully up to date.

Paticularly as I have some very good Chord music AES cables and am just trying USB's I would like to use the dual aes Extreme output. Currently what I am getting...

Double wire can be configured as double speed and quad speed. Double speed can be useful for some older DACs like the Pacific Micronics, or the DCS Elgar which where limited to 96KHz rates over AES, if you set it to double speed it will pass 44.1/48/88.2/96 unchanged but it will split 176.4/192 into 2 88.2/96 channels. You can configure this in the control panel for the AES/EBU card.

I suspect as did Mark from Kog that some type of teamviewer session may be the quickest way for this to be overcome

That tends to be the quickest way, if you contact us on contact@taikoaudio.com we can schedule a session at your convenience.
 
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Nigel-B-R&D

New Member
Jan 20, 2020
2
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Welcome to the forum Nigel!



Your Extreme is fully up to date.

Double wire can be configured as double speed and quad speed. Double speed can be useful for some older DACs like the Pacific Micronics, or the DCS Elgar which where limited to 96KHz rates over AES, if you set it to double speed it will pass 44.1/48/88.2/96 unchanged but it will split 176.4/192 into 2 88.2/96 channels. You can configure this in the control panel for the AES/EBU card.

That tends to be the quickest way, if you contact us on contact@taikoaudio.com we can schedule a session at your convenience.

Many thanks Emile, I will try the card settings as noted and if not getting there on my own I will emal you for a session.

Great product that I can see is only going to get greater still.

Kind regards
Nigel
 
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