Taiko Audio with 'Evo spec' meets MSB Select II digital + NVS tt

lately I've had a bit of action around my place, with new amplifiers (ML3 and VAC Statements) and Ron Resnick's visit. then last week Ed Hsu of Taiko Audio/SGM spent 3 days (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) at my home. mostly I was gone to work and Ed was there working.

Ed visited to (1) convert the stock TS-150 and TS-140 Herzan's to the Taiko Tana top plates and remove the internal SMPS's, (2) add one more Taiko Tana Linear power supply, (3) to convert the now -3- Taiko Tana Linear Power supplies to the new 'Evo spec', and (4) introduce the new Daiza Panzerholtz plinths. the top plate conversions, and 'Evo spec' upgrades to the Linear Power Supplies was a big job and took most of the 3 days (when I got home from work we listened to that days work product). Ed also brought a suite of special vibration measuring devices and spent some time with those.

when Ed arrived i had 4 active units; a stock TS-140 sitting on my barn kitchen table unused, a stock TS-150 under the SGM server, a Taiko Tana TS-150 (under the dart pre) and TS-140 (under the NVS tt) each with a Taiko Tana LPS. also i had 3 panzerholtz plinths; one each under the TS-140 and TS-150 and one under one of the LPS's. now I'm using 4 active units; all fully Taiko Tana top plated, with 3 now 'Evo spec' LPS units (i switch one when i go from digital to vinyl until the 4th LPS arrives). sorry for all the detail and realize you might need to read it a couple times and look at the pictures to digest it. short answer is that now all my front end electronics and tt except the 2 power supplies of the MSB Select II are on SOTA active devices.

Evo Spec had been developed about 2 months ago with significantly better anti-vibration sonic performance on analog and digital electronics, but how would it perform for the Tana under a NVS turntable?

Wednesday night when i got home, two of the LPS's had been converted to 'Evo spec'. we connected both of those to the already Taiko Tana'd top plated TS-140 and TS-150 and listened to vinyl. i want to be objective here and just say there was a solid noticeable improvement in the performance. specifically more focus, cleaner, noticeably greater dynamic contrasts, more expressive, and greater tonal richness. interestingly since the dynamics were increased it was louder and more lively. i saw higher peak wattage for the same volume points (less smearing...rounding off peaks). i also noticed that on musical peaks things were all the way sorted out and it changed my reference for how some familiar pressings can sound. i used the same recordings i had used with Ron Resnick; specifically the Classic 45 4-disc of Mussorgsky's Pictures, disc 4 'Great Gates', and the Classic 45 disc 2 of Scheherazade. there were others, but these were enough to confirm the step up. these areas of performance were already at reference levels, so to get any improvements was impressive. we listened to a number of vocals, Jazz (Mallitoba Spank), and some rock. but more than the objective areas of clear improvement was the increase in calmness, ease and refinement which translated into a very beguiling and compelling musical experience.

Thursday night when i got home Ed had converted the stock TS-150 to full Taiko Tana top plate, and the 'Evo Spec' to the 3rd LPS. so now we inserted the Taiko Tana top plated TS-150 under the MSB dac box and then listened to this with dart pre also with Taiko Tana + Evo spec LPS. now this was a huge step up, since this was the first time i had had active under the MSB dac of any kind. wow. Ed had told me that dac's showed the biggest result from Taiko Tana treatment and he was right. we both listened to our reference tracks, and there was so much more space and rendering of delicate detail that it was spooky. I'm going to stop there and come back later to this subject.

Friday night when i got home Ed had completed the TS-140 top plate and so we did add that to the mix under the SGM server (needing to switch the third LPS unit from the tt to the SGM) and there was a further boost. and there is lots more details i will get into further in future posts.

on Sunday i did ask Jazdoc to visit just to give me some feedback. i won't speak for him at all.

16 years ago, in 2002, i first heard a Halyconics active device in my room. i had the passive air suspended Rockport Sirius III for 9 years from 2002-2011. then in 2013 i bought my 2 Herzan units. lots of promise from those products.

that promise is now delivered.

 

IMHO only if use a poor drive and a poor software. CD ripping is known since long to be bit perfect. I am prepared to accept any kind of "magic" during the real time playback of digital, not during extraction or storage.

This time I feel I have to disagree with active platform supporters.

This subject has been the topic of many heated debates for over a decade but no consensus was ever reached afaik. I personally can hear differences in CD rips, I cannot explain why. Luckily in this day and age it's becoming less of an issue as CD rips are slowly but surely being replaced by digital downloads and on line streaming. I highly doubt you will get a response to this that will satisfy you.

 

This subject has been the topic of many heated debates for over a decade but no consensus was ever reached afaik. I personally can hear differences in CD rips, I cannot explain why. Luckily in this day and age it's becoming less of an issue as CD rips are slowly but surely being replaced by digital downloads and on line streaming. I highly doubt you will get a response to this that will satisfy you.

IMHO there was a large consensus on why these differences - they were technically explained and open minded people prepared to accept that digital playback is not a perfect process could find reasons for it. But you should know a lot more about it than me!

Any way, we are moving away from the main subject. Do you also have the experience that a rip carried with the CD ripper sitting on a Daiza platform will sound better?

 

IMHO there was a large consensus on why these differences - they were technically explained and open minded people prepared to accept that digital playback is not a perfect process could find reasons for it. But you should know a lot more about it than me!

Any way, we are moving away from the main subject. Do you also have the experience that a rip carried with the CD ripper sitting on a Daiza platform will sound better?

Hypothetically, yes (x2).

 

OK so what transports, drives, rippers does everyone use?

 

OK so what transports, drives, rippers does everyone use?

There is a drive accuracy list on the dbpoweramp forum:
https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?37706-CD-DVD-Drive-Accuracy-List-2016

A popular drive is the Pioneer BDR-S09J-X:
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=42582

 

There is a drive accuracy list on the dbpoweramp forum:
https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?37706-CD-DVD-Drive-Accuracy-List-2016

A popular drive is the Pioneer BDR-S09J-X:
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=42582

As all generic statistics this list can be very misleading without proper context, as it does not list the level of inaccuracy or separate it according to ripper software. Properly configured rippers will give us 100% accuracy when the CD is in good conditions - the drive repeats reading until there are no interpolation errors. Some years ago I ripped a few tens of CDs and all of them checked as accurate using dbPower. It is why is so difficult to understand the reported effects.

I got inaccurate rips from CDs suffering from CD rot, an oxidation process due to poor sealing of the metal layers inside the plastic layers of some CDs manufactured by Polydor for Decca and Hyperion.

BTW, I used the anonymous decent quality ATAPI CD reader of my computer, nothing special.

 

I think you guys are barking up the wrong tree.
it's one thing to say/claim why something happens. but hearing what happens is what we do.....and guessing why.
if CK hears a better rip with the Daiza under his transport, then we respect that as a data point. and Ed only speculated on possible reasons. nothing definitive and just his observations relative to digital playback and the Daiza.
maybe all rips are bit perfect, but that's not any guarantee that other forces are not at work in the 'rip' performance question. that is not a closed issue. having the same bits might be only part of the performance equation.
and Micro, the Daiza is passive, not active. the Tana (LPS + TS + top panzerholtz layer) is the active device, and the Daiza is only a passive platform used with it sometimes to augment it's higher frequency performance.

Sorry to response a bit late, as I have been very busy at work the past 2 days.

I do expect that there will be queries on anti-vibration for ripping drives. haha

Listening is believing.
Files with diff sonic performance can't be differentiated by check-sum softwares.
However, the lack of any explaining scientific theories currently doesn't always mean that it's a snake oil. Scientists may be able to find the explanations years later.
We have witnessed many such instances in the history of hifi :
digital cables 15 years ago.
powercords 10 years ago.
USB cables 5 years ago.
Ethernet cables 3 years ago.

The exploration and application of various tweaks on CD ripping have been there in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong for many years (different file formats, diff ripping softwares, diff ripping drives, diff PSU for the drives, diff HD/SSD for storage and now anti-vibration for the ripping drive).
Maybe due to the language problem, our discussion in forums can't be read by overseas audiophiles.
I myself and many Asian CAS audiophiles are using such tweaks. The sonic diff is clearly audible, though not very big.

Let's give the WBF brothers a few more examples in Asia.
The Pioneer BR drive mentioned by Emile has been discontinued. The current model is Pioneer BDR-S11J-X. It's the best and a popular drive both for playback and ripping in Asia.
http://pioneer.jp/pcperipherals/bdd/products/bdr_s11j_x/

Japanese hifi makers have launched various anti-vibration enclosures for it to optimize the playback and ripping performance.
One example is the RATOC :
http://www.ratocaudiolab.com/product/accessories/rp_ec5_u3ai/

And recently in HK, the Afterdark brand has launched a product which incorporates a good linear psu and the Pioneer BDR-S11J-X into the same chassis.
And the chassis is reinforced with carbon fiber plates for anti-vibration.



Therefore the application of panzerholz Daiza platforms on ripping is not a surprise for CAS audiophiles in Hong Kong.
Emile of Taiko Audio have ripped albums with diff methods/tweaks.
Please bring them to the Munich Show and give interested visitors a demo.
Many thanks!

 

yesterday my shipment from Taiko Audio arrived. it contained 1 additional 'Evo spec' Linear Power Supply, as I previously only had 3 'Evo spec' LPS's for 4 Tana platforms. it also contained -9- Daiza's; 4 of these 9 are smaller sized for under each of my LPS's, 2 were for the TS-140's, and 2 for under each MSB power supply (sitting on Hardpoint Trinia's), and -1- that is just a switch with the one on my dart pre that was not quite the right size. now all my source gear (except RTR gear) is on Daiza's, 4 of those also on the active Tana platforms.

I had to basically tear apart my system to install all this as one went under the NVS tt, another under the dart pre, both MSB power supplies...…..so it was a huge job unpacking and installing it. you can see the 4 smaller Daiza's under the 4 LPS's, the 2 under the MSB power supplies, and the 2 now under the SGM server and the NVS.

immediate impressions of more refined high frequencies, more textures, more delicacy, calmer, quieter, more vivid. only done digital so far. I know from last time that as stuff settles it will go further, and as my system was torn apart that will settle too.

 

I know that that must’ve been a very big job! But it sounds like the effort was worth the incremental sonic progress!

 

active Tana moved to under the dart 458 mono blocks.

I finally got around to this.

I invited 2 friends to assist me in making this switch, as the dart mono's are 160 pounds each.

First we removed the TS-140’s from under the tt and SGM. Then put the extra Daiza + Hardpoints back under the SGM and listened to get a reference without the Tana’s. just removing the Tana from under the SGM caused a noticeable drop off in performance in refinement and nuance. Then we removed the Box Furniture amp stands (from under the dart monos) and installed the 2 Tana TS-140’s under the dart monos. When I moved the LPS’s I went to the copper/panzerholtz footers on the hardwood floor.

Then we listened again. If the removal of the Tana from the SGM was 1 step back, this was 4-5 steps forward. Both my friends were quite impressed by what they heard…..but then both left.

I’ve listened 5 hours last night, and now a couple hours this morning. It’s a bit better this morning after some settling. My whole viewpoint on most recordings has changed. This is a significant step up in system performance. The clear changes are improved clarity, greater dynamic snap, flow and sweep, and more space. Also; textures and delicacy are now improved. Bass is deeper and quicker. The music has a greater ‘jump’ factor, and the naturalness and listenability is improved since when the music gets going it does so with greater ease and flow and your ‘cringe factor’ is eliminated where you previously were used to things getting ‘hard’ or ‘stressed’.

This is big. Not played any vinyl or tape yet. The vinyl will be interesting as I’ve put the stock NVS ‘shaker shelf’ back underneath where the Tana was. Not sure how that equation will now work. The tape should be much better, but will have to listen.

I know how moving from one type of footer or shelf, or even degrees of 'active shelf' effectiveness, has worked for my sources. but with the dart monos this is new. I have no sequence of steps to allow me to have clear A-B-C hierarchy of effectiveness. I never compared other types of treatment to the Box Furniture amp stands. maybe other passive approaches might get me into this range of performance? I just don't know. OTOH my gut tells me that this is a breakthrough in amplifier performance.

I can tell you that those Tana TS-140's under my dart amps are not going anywhere. they have found a permanent home.

 

here is a pic of the SGM server and NVS tt with now 'passive' treatments. have not yet listened to vinyl to know the delta of performance. you can see the 'before' picture in post #88 here to see the SGM and NVS with the Tana's.

 

That is very, very interesting, Mike.

Active and pneumatic isolation underneath tube electronics makes all the sense in the world to me, and it is fascinating that it works under solid-state amps as well.

 

That is very, very interesting, Mike.

Active and pneumatic isolation underneath tube electronics makes all the sense in the world to me, and it is fascinating that it works under solid-state amps as well.

I'm a 'tube guy', fully appreciating what tubes can do in a positive respect for the music. as you know my 'epiphany' amps in my hifi journey were the 'tubed' Tenor OTL's. and I view the darts as along those lines.

tubes are very low distortion on their own as they use a vacuum as their environment. solid state to my ears in one respect is low distortion, but the view into the inner parts of the music is not as pure with solid state as tubes. my non scientific guess is that solid state circuits, due to their bits and pieces, are more environmentally affected than tubes. you say isolation is more obviously influencing tubes, I see it the opposite. the inherent lower 'macro'-noise of solid state allows solid state to reveal more benefit from resonance treatments than tubes......and some tube amps are 'voiced' with some degree of resident resonance. any sort of resonance control result is less predictable with tubes.....it's not plug and play.

and what I am hearing with the Tana active under the dart 458's is confirming my view on this subject. i'm now hearing the dart's with a much greater 'they are here' holographic presentation than before......more tube like. more inner view into the music (no.....not yet into ML3 Sig territory.....but 'some' closer). it's not rounded or blunted like some tubes do.....it's more naturally focused. so it's not lost any of it's linearity. just added 'life'.

i'm really enjoying any piano especially. the sparkle and life of the hammer strike and the tonal decay is something I enjoyed the ML3's do in a unique way and now i'm getting that same feeling (if a little different) from the darts. spooky territory.

solid state has the potential to get that inner fire and life of the music, but it needs perfect execution to do it. it helps to start with a great, powerful, amplifier, no global negative feedback, minimal parts count, build quality to die for, and the right system and signal path context. but it needs the assistance of ultimate resonance control to approach ultimate optimization of all the bits and pieces.

I could be dead wrong on my view of cause and effect. but it's easy to hear the Tana effects on the dac, the dart pre, and the SGM server......all solid state. the amps are the heart of the system and it only makes sense that it should work very effectively there.

 

Fair enough. Very interesting. The results are clearly in the listening!

I would have thought that tubes are more susceptible to acoustic vibration than are semiconductor devices, but of course I do not know. (It would take a lot of work to compare tube amps to the darTZeels on and not on the Tanas and try to discern for which amplifier topology does the isolation platform make the greater sonic difference?)

 

My guess is that the transformers in SS amps or DAC's are the source of vibration.
If you correct those you should have a lower noise floor.
Boulder for example goes the extra mile by completely isolating their transformers.
Yet I think active is even better.

 

Fair enough. Very interesting. The results are clearly in the listening!

I would have thought that tubes are more susceptible to acoustic vibration than are semiconductor devices, but of course I do not know. (It would take a lot of work to compare tube amps to the darTZeels on and not on the Tanas and try to discern for which amplifier topology does the isolation platform make the greater sonic difference?)

I agree that the Tana might take the tube amps further too. the big VAC's have a designed in passive ball and cup decoupling between the amp and power supply, and the ML3's have the custom built Virginia Class SRA stands. not sure I will try the Tana with either of those but will consider it. I would need some help.

 

I was suggesting it only theoretically, not practically. It would be a huge undertaking.

 

My guess is that the transformers in SS amps or DAC's are the source of vibration.
If you correct those you should have a lower noise floor.
Boulder for example goes the extra mile by completely isolating their transformers.
Yet I think active is even better.

the dart 458's have an internal suspension system for their transformers. they hang on springs, and when you ship the amps you have to insert transport screws to hold them in place. once I forgot to remove them and had this mid bass resonance I could not figure out until I removed those screws.

yet the active, optimally executed by Taiko with the Tana + Daiza, really took things to another level. as you say there is good passive.....even designed in passive.....and then there is really great active.

 

(...) and what I am hearing with the Tana active under the dart 458's is confirming my view on this subject. i'm now hearing the dart's with a much greater 'they are here' holographic presentation than before......more tube like. more inner view into the music (no.....not yet into ML3 Sig territory.....but 'some' closer). it's not rounded or blunted like some tubes do.....it's more naturally focused. so it's not lost any of it's linearity. just added 'life'. (...)

Interesting. More tube like, added ´life´, more naturally focused. All additive properties, that most audiophiles (me included) praise a lot.

Unfortunately without proper knowledge of the implementation and control algorithms of the active tables we can not have any idea why it is happening - the system is too complex. But IMHO we are dealing with a lot more than just isolation.

What happens to sound quality if you switch the control of the active platform off or just do not connect the power, compared to your situation before the arrival of the active tables?

 

Interesting. More tube like, added ´life´, more naturally focused. All additive properties, that most audiophiles (me included) praise a lot.

Unfortunately without proper knowledge of the implementation and control algorithms of the active tables we can not have any idea why it is happening - the system is too complex. But IMHO we are dealing with a lot more than just isolation.

What happens to sound quality if you switch the control of the active platform off or just do not connect the power, compared to your situation before the arrival of the active tables?

ok Francisco, you asked, and I went ahead and did that. I did a quick on and off and on again.

I had been listening to a 192/24 file of Takashi Asahina's 'live recording' of Beethoven's Complete Symphonies (Exton). went back to the 1st Symphony, listened to the first 90 seconds, then turned off all 4 Tana Active units, then listened for 90 seconds, then turned back on all 4 and listened again for 90 seconds. so the 'in between time' was less than 1 minute.

keep in mind that the top panzerholtz layer on each TS unit is passive, as is the Daiza shelf on top of the TS unit. we are only eliminating any active component.

it was like a different recording...….on this particular system, at this particular time, and on this particular piece of music. with the active turned off, the soundstage and top end air was reduced a bit, the sound got a bit rough and lost a degree of it's flow and inner glow, the strings congealed and the refinement and delicacy was reduced. the bass foundation seemed a bit less 'there' but there were not large bass events to really distinguish things. certainly it was less engaging and enveloping. there was a bit less projection of energy into the room.....a flatness relatively. it lost a bit of nuance. it was significantly more obviously digital.

none of these things were huge.....but musically they jumped out.

and maybe if I never heard the active (Tana vibration control) version of this recording, I would be delighted with the passive version. it's the conundrum we are faced with.

I like this recording for it's natural balance and flow so I know it well.

would every system reveal the things I heard equally? unlikely. so YMMV.