Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[ctydwn]

Thanks Emile. I hope u are not driving all night?! Really didn’t want to bother you all.
Yes, I had set those to Auto awhile back as part of the attempt before deciding to just stick w Roon. It’s no big deal. Roon still sounding pretty good to me and it is absolutely the least important thing.
I think we would all say please Taiko drive safe

 

[Taiko Audio]

Thanks Emile. I hope u are not driving all night?! Really didn’t want to bother you all.
Yes, I had set those to Auto awhile back as part of the attempt before deciding to just stick w Roon. It’s no big deal. Roon still sounding pretty good to me and it is absolutely the least important thing.
I think we would all say please Taiko drive safe

We’ve arrived at home safely! Please drop a note at support@taikoaudio.com and we’ll have a look.

 

[Steve Williams]

I had just been listening to Roon (since that bump in SQ ~3-4 months ago) in anticipation of XDMS and hadn’t been able to get TAS to work again. Given XDMS may take a bit longer than expected, any suggestions for resuscitating TAS?

I can see that initial blue line show up when trying to play a track in TAS, but the song never starts. Tried the usual things, restarting, rebooting, latest software, different players, etc Same issue from Qobuz or off Extreme direct. If anyone has run into this, thought I’d ask. Thanks again

I’ve had the same problem. When you see the blue line but no sound. Press the square stop button and then the reverse button. Then push play or just wait and It’ll work

 

[ctydwn]

Thanks Steve. While I couldn't get that button sequence to work, it motivated me to go back and see if there was something I could still click... turns out on that screen Emile mentioned, I selected "Output Device Selection" and reselected the Extreme. That did it. I had never selected that prompt before.

And, f me, the difference is not subtle. I was hesitant to say earlier, as I told a friend after being on the road recently for 2 months when I got back, something is missing in the system, the previous SQ magic and synergy I recall just not there, even after running things in again for a week. The feeling of catching myself looking at my phone versus being drawn in and closing my eyes, for example. More than a bit listless, etc.

IMMEDIATELY tonight upon TAS resurrection, recessed/veiled vocals reentered my room, emotional engagement returned, layered bass dynamics back, the cello rosin reappeared, could go on, but I can't wait to spend the next couple hours replaying all the tracks that I have been listening to to recalibrate and enjoy. Luckily, noone home tonight.

Not sure if in the past 2-3 months Roon took a step back, or what, just very glad TAS is up and running again. TAS was and is still is an epic accomplishment. To be able to compare right now back and forth makes it quite apparent. Thanks again.

 

[austinpop]

Not sure if in the past 2-3 months Roon took a step back, or what, just very glad TAS is up and running again. TAS was and is still is an epic accomplishment. To be able to compare right now back and forth makes it quite apparent. Thanks again.

Roon has for sure taken a turn for the worse, since the big Taiko software update in February. At that time, there was a period where Roon was sounding very good, but I think we all had that feeling that it was shortlived, and the other shoe would inevitably drop. It has. Roon has gotten worse again, and TAS is the gold standard.

 

[Christiaan Punter]

The question I have on this is - do CM2 footers (or any other footers) make a positive difference on a pure DC power supply? It's one thing when there is AC and completely different when it's all DC. It may or may not. I don't know...

From general experience, I can say that there will always be an influence through mechanical coupling, also when the component works with pure DC.

 

[matthias]

Or have CM to design a footer that incorporates into your PSU

I would avoid anything which makes the "new" Extreme more expensive as necessary.
As footers are in someway a subjective tweak, this is most certainly not what all customers are fond of.

Matt

 

[RUIN*ish]

Will the bps revert to mains when depleted?
If so, while on mains will it charge?
Can you share how many hours you're getting on full charge while only powering server?
Will there be multiple iec involved and lastly, this bps can/will render expensive power cords obsolete?
Best
Marc

 

[Taiko Audio]

Will the bps revert to mains when depleted?
If so, while on mains will it charge?
Can you share how many hours you're getting on full charge while only powering server?
Will there be multiple iec involved and lastly, this bps can/will render expensive power cords obsolete?
Best
Marc

A full day, it is fully manageable by a remote app, it allows you to configure when/how to charge, I’ve set it to charge every day between 4 and 6AM.
Multiple IEC?
Does indeed obsolete powercords.

 

[MusicFellow]

A full day, it is fully manageable by a remote app, it allows you to configure when/how to charge, I’ve set it to charge every day between 4 and 6AM.
Multiple IEC?
Does indeed obsolete powercords.

Emile, I‘m wondering about the noise that gets generated by DACs, amps or in this case the Extreme itself. Is that solely due to the Transformer (and then gone with the BPS)? I‘m asking because I learned from speaking to Shunyata that it‘s not only about blocking outside noise from coming into the system, but also about letting noise from noisy components find its way out. …and that‘s one building principle of their power cords. Apparently the new BPS solves that differently (or doesn’t need to address it anymore?). Curios to hear your take on that topic.

 

[RUIN*ish]

A full day, it is fully manageable by a remote app, it allows you to configure when/how to charge, I’ve set it to charge every day between 4 and 6AM.
Multiple IEC?
Does indeed obsolete powercords.

Iec
One for charging and one to switch to mains when battery is depleted...while still listening..
Marc

 

[cat6man]

Emile & Ed (and anyone who has gotten to hear the new stuff):

Obviously(?) battery+xmds is best.

How would you rank xdms alone vs battery alone (i.e. with tas)?

 

[Ultrafast69]

Roon has for sure taken a turn for the worse, since the big Taiko software update in February. At that time, there was a period where Roon was sounding very good, but I think we all had that feeling that it was shortlived, and the other shoe would inevitably drop. It has. Roon has gotten worse again, and TAS is the gold standard.

I was thinking the same thing, and just jumped back to TAS using Tidal and files. Roon IMO is sounding light, no meat on the bone, no texture. For whatever reason on TAS it’s asking me for Qobuz credentials that I’m having issues with connecting - Update: I tried a few checks, including resetting the DAC and Server, then updated the password, and after this Qobuz is now playing. Not sure why, but it worked.

 

[EuroDriver]

I was thinking the same thing, and just jumped back to TAS using Tidal and files. Roon IMO is sounding light, no meat on the bone, no texture. For whatever reason on TAS it’s asking me for Qobuz credentials that I’m having issues with connecting.

We have seen Qobuz connection issues with Roon and TAS the during time we were in Munich last week.

I spoke with a Product Manager of Qobuz who was at Munich and raised the issue with him. He gave me a comforting reply about their delivery outage handling process

Qobuz feeds it's content over several different content delivery backbones to the different types of client which include, 3rd party software clients, hardware devices, Qobuz own software running on mobile devices and client PC's. This means a Smartphone will be happily playing Qobuz, but Roon and TAS are having issues even though they are connected to the same LAN / Wifi

The Good news for XDMS users is that during the whole time Roon and TAS were having problems, XDMS was connecting and staying connected to Qobuz without a blip

A stable connection to Qobuz was not the case when XDMS first connected to Qobuz back in November 2021. XDMS / Qobuz had 3 outages, but each outage was resolved by our Streaming Agregator in less than 18 hours. We have had no XDMS connection to Qobuz outages for several months now.

Our Streaming Aggregator gets full attention when they raise a ticket as they have a fleet of tens of thousands of hardware devices across the World.

Our Streaming Agregator pays attention to us, as they know we don't cry Wolf, and they don't want the issue we raise to damage the User Experience of their other thousnads of customers who are unlikely to report an issue / raise a ticket when their wireless speaker has a connection problem.

Bottom line, connection issues with Qobuz are minimal and have trended down. When they do occur they are resolved in less than a day

 

[EuroDriver]

Emile & Ed (and anyone who has gotten to hear the new stuff):

Obviously(?) battery+xmds is best.

How would you rank xdms alone vs battery alone (i.e. with tas)?

The SQ uplift delivered by BPS and XDMS is very system dependent.

What I have heard is startlingly obvious for both

 

[ctydwn]

Whatever/whomever the Streaming Aggregator is, I propose a well deserved raise and/or life supply of hefeweizen and schnitzel.

 

[bryans]

Whatever/whomever the Streaming Aggregator is, I propose a well deserved raise and/or life supply of hefeweizen and schnitzel.

Streaming Aggregator is just a tool that tells you the streaming URL/Link you use to find a streaming service like internet radio, etc. For example if I start an internet radio station, I need a way for you to find my station.

 

[EuroDriver]

The Streaming Service Integrator we are using is doing a lot more than serving up links to Internet radio stations

They actually catalog and assign a unique ID to every track in each streaming service’s catalog.

They have serious infrastructure and a 24/7 manned operations center with the aim of delivering top notch QOS

 

[bryans]

The Streaming Service Integrator we are using is doing a lot more than serving up links to Internet radio stations

They actually catalog and assign a unique ID to every track in each streaming service’s catalog.

They have serious infrastructure and a 24/7 manned operations center with the aim of delivering top notch QOS

OK, not to get into a tic for tac debate but there is no Quality of Service on the Internet. You can have a dedicated link with QoS to a provider but once you leave that provider, all bests of QoS are off. The broadband link that people use in their home is not a dedicated link which applies QoS.

Regarding Streaming Service Integrator I just used the Internet radio stations as an example. The assigning of unique IDs points to the steaming service catalog.

 

[Taiko Audio]

OK, not to get into a tic for tac debate but there is no Quality of Service on the Internet. You can have a dedicated link with QoS to a provider but once you leave that provider, all bests of QoS are off. The broadband link that people use in their home is not a dedicated link which applies QoS.

Regarding Streaming Service Integrator I just used the Internet radio stations as an example. The assigning of unique IDs points to the steaming service catalog.

I don’t think Edward and you are referring to QoS with the same thing in mind