Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[cat6man]

I’m personally even ranking Roon with the new USB card above TAS without. However the delta between the two with seems to have increased, to my ears atleast.

sounds great and i can't wait to hear it myself.

have you found any changes to the optimum buffer settings or have those stayed the same?

 

[Steve Williams]

Well the good ship lollipop arrived at my house this morning via FedEx. This for me was the long awaited Taiko USB board, the final piece perhaps to the TAS pathway.

It came perfectly packaged from Holland to Southern California in 2 days so I was a happy camper.

Edward gave very simple (because it's that easy to install) instructions to make sure the board was mounted in the 5th bay. Just as Bob discovered, I too had my SSD in Bay 5 so it was a 2 stage procedure of taking the blank bay cover off #1 , disconnecting the SSD and putting it in Bay 1, and putting the Taiko USB board in Bay 5, and then attaching the enclosed interconnect . The whole process indeed took all of 15 minutes. BTW, taking the top off the Extreme and gazing inside showed me what a monstrous piece of work this is.

Then "a funny thing happened on the way to the forum".......

I jokingly said to Emile by text that it was so easy I'm hoping for sound" because as a tube owner you never know so I sat my butt down and loaded some demo tracks, pushed play, and guess what......no volume....however it showed that the file was playing as the progress bar was moving. Switched the cable to the old USB input and still no audio. Took some settings photos for Emile who confirmed my install was perfect and it wasn't a USB issue. Volume control was proper, mute was off, file was playing and no sound.

It was then Emile said, "have you checked your inputs?" DUH. I felt like Chevy Chase in Christmas vacation when his wife asked him if he plugged it in before turning the Christmas lights on.

I looked up at the display on my Lampi Pacific and it said AES/EBU so I have no idea why that happened but the proper input selected immediately produced some really great sound

Emile has put up a short You Tube video which shows how to install the board, but if I could do it , anyone can......

Here are some quick photos..

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Steve Williams]

So how does it sound.......

While I was having a sound issues, Emile had me switch to Roon to see if there was sound. So when I switched to the correct input I was still in Roon. That was the first time since October and I was lost in using it however when I played some of my demo tracks I almost fell off my seat. Roon sounded incredibly good and I also agree that it sounded better than TAS without the USB board

Then I loaded the same files in TAS and pushed play and then all bets were off. As Michaell Coreleone uttered in Godfather lll, "just when I thought I wear out, they pulled me back in"

All I can say is thank you to Emile and his team because truly the sound is so much better than anything I have heard in my system. The sound floor seemed virtually non existant, the dynamics were so much improved and the clarity of "everything" was simply amazing. The instruments in the soundstage for some reason seemed better separated and there was amazing decay. Sound permeated the entire sound stage but there was so much involvement for me and the immersive effect just had me inside the soundstage.

These are just some preliminary thoughts. I have to break for dinner but music is playing as you all are suggesting there is burn in required of at least 100 hours

To Emile and his team, if your Taiko switch can make this even better then all bets are off. As I have said from the outset, my network is a very simple one compared to others here

I will have more thoughts on this tomorrow but this is a quantum leap and to all of you Roon only users, you should be all over this as the sound is better than TAS without the USB board

 

[Rhapsody]

Touch is a wholly engineered album with one of the most spectacular, 3 dimensional, immersive soundstages (Soundscape). The musical and spacial elements play together to create a continuous firework display of music flying around all over the soundspace it creates. The clever use of 2 channels and phase manipulation makes it almost hypnotic and mind altering in places. As I remember, the bass is really gorgeous sounding....created to be musically pleasing, it more than hits the mark. You can feel the bass as it energises the space it plays in, including the listener. There is a seemingly endless depth, a kind of ethereal, eternal nature to the soundscape created. You can hear incredible depth and transparency, like looking into space with no atmosphere to hinder the clarity. The interplay between instruments is mesmerising and the PR&T will practically bounce you out of your seat. A few of the tracks you may label as being a little ‘commercial’ but then they just take off into beautifully musical, highly mesmerising, mindblowingly spacial musical artistry. When played at realistic levels, this album, and several other Yello albums allow an extremely well resolved system to provide incredible listener involvement. Background thoughts are obliterated and the music absolutely takes over, with no extraneous thoughts intruding. If you liked Touch, try
Stella - Yello
Electrified - Boris Blank
Mettavolution - Rodrigo y Gabriela
Convergence - Malia
Whole Lotta Love - 2 cellos
Essentially albums where the music and the studio engineering share the same pinnacle of creativity that ideally exhibit and demonstrate the full capabilities of super accurate, highly resolving, fully involving systems like the Taiko Extreme.

B,

Thx for all of the suggestions! Me like Fav'd them all.

 

[Rhapsody]

So how does it sound.......

While I was having a sound issues, Emile had me switch to Roon to see if there was sound. So when I switched to the correct input I was still in Roon. That was the first time since October and I was lost in using it however when I played some of my demo tracks I almost fell off my seat. Roon sounded incredibly good and I also agree that it sounded better than TAS without the USB board

Then I loaded the same files in TAS and pushed play and then all bets were off. As Michaell Coreleone uttered in Godfather lll, "just when I thought I wear out, they pulled me back in"

All I can say is thank you to Emile and his team because truly the sound is so much better than anything I have heard in my system. The sound floor seemed virtually non existant, the dynamics were so much improved and the clarity of "everything" was simply amazing. The instruments in the soundstage for some reason seemed better separated and there was amazing decay. Sound permeated the entire sound stage but there was so much involvement for me and the immersive effect just had me inside the soundstage.

These are just some preliminary thoughts. I have to break for dinner but music is playing as you all are suggesting there is burn in required of at least 100 hours

To Emile and his team, if your Taiko switch can make this even better then all bets are off. As I have said from the outset, my network is a very simple one compared to others here

I will have more thoughts on this tomorrow but this is a quantum leap and to all of you Roon only users, you should be all over this as the sound is better than TAS without the USB board

Hi Steve, Will be curious at what you hear today. I noticed a BIG jump in SQ after leaving the Extreme/usb card streaming over the first night. Please do tell

 

[dminches]

Does the new USB card require a power leg/VBUS on the USB cable for handshaking? My current Sablon is unpowered. Just making sure I can still use it.

 

[tsaett]

Does the new USB card require a power leg/VBUS on the USB cable for handshaking? My current Sablon is unpowered. Just making sure I can still use it.

It is the receiving end (i.e. your DAC) that dictates that. if you DAC's USB receiver is self-powered, you will still be able to use your unpowered Sablon.

 

[dminches]

It is the receiving end (i.e. your DAC) that dictates that. if you DAC's USB receiver is self-powered, you will still be able to use your unpowered Sablon.

Thanks. I have been using an unpowered one between my Pacific and the Extreme so that should still work.

 

[Sablon Audio]

It is the receiving end (i.e. your DAC) that dictates that. if you DAC's USB receiver is self-powered, you will still be able to use your unpowered Sablon.

fwiw Chris, I’ve come across a couple of servers which needed vbus for handshake with amanero (lampi) dac.

 

[oldmustang]

B,

Thx for all of the suggestions! Me like Fav'd them all.

Likewise, @Blackmorec. I'd love to learn more about the tracks and albums you have on your reference list. So far, everything you've recommended has been spot-on. Great sound AND music!

Steve Z

 

[tsaett]

fwiw Chris, I’ve come across a couple of servers which needed vbus for handshake with amanero (lampi) dac.

Hi Mark, interesting! I shall change my verdict to "most probably yes" then.

Chris

 

[Johnny Moondog]

We are trying to be as fair as possible and are roughly shipping according to original Extreme order dates.

Will we receive an email notice when our Extreme order date comes up in the queue? Or should we contact you to confirm interest and issue payment?

 

[Steve Williams]

Hi Steve, Will be curious at what you hear today. I noticed a BIG jump in SQ after leaving the Extreme/usb card streaming over the first night. Please do tell

Hi Bob

FWIW I have spent all morning reacquainting myself with the new look of Roon and also to corroborate what I heard yesterday. As most know, I am on the TAS bandwagon as I believe that's where the best SQ will be found. As a result I haven't used Roon since October other than an hour yesterday. I also know that many Extreme users have not opted for TAS beta or have TAS beta with the TAS driver but still use Roon because they like the platform , metadata etc. They are reluctant to use TAS until either a new platform is developed and/or bugs are ironed out. I can understand their reasoning but for me TAS with the TAS driver simply destroyed Roon.

Well after installing the Taiko USB board yesterday I almost fell off my seat when I listened to Roon. As Bob, myself and Emile et al have found, Roon with the USB board sounds better than TAS without the Taiko USB board. That's a tough one for TAS users to believe but Roon today was so good, if I had never heard TAS I could live with Roon and the Taiko USB board forever.

But as one member posted several weeks ago, once TAS is heard it is impossible to unhear it

once you start up TAS now it has me shaking my head wondering how Emile puled off yet another huge uptick in SQ of TAS. I remember having TAS prior to the TAS driver and thinking how much better than Roon it was. Then when he installed the TAS driver I suggested that it was the secret sauce that made TAS as great as it was. Well Bob hit it right on....if TAS driver is the"secret sauce" then TAS with the USB board is "the icing on the cake"

The sound floor now just seems to be nonexistent. Imaging, dynamics, immersion and well as pristine clarity creates such a sense of "you are there" that I am gob smacked. It's difficult to wrap my head around the changes and for the price of admission to buy the card, it "is in fact the best purchase made this year" to my system

For those that are using Roon and haven't committed to TAS for the above mentioned reasons, having the Taiko USB board is an absolute must. You might never try TAS but I'm here to say that TAS is indeed something special with the Taiko USB board

This afternoon in fact will be dedicated entirely to TAS. It will likely be quite a while before I return to Roon but what I heard this morning lit up my ears

 

[Johnny Moondog]

If you liked Touch, try
Stella - Yello
Electrified - Boris Blank
Mettavolution - Rodrigo y Gabriela
Convergence - Malia
Whole Lotta Love - 2 cellos

Five stars for Convergence by Malia! I heard it on TIDAL but no longer subscribe. It's currently not available on Qobuz, so I went old school and bought the CD. Phenomenal performance and production! Will definitely explore your other recommendations...