Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

nenon said:

@romaz - keep up the good work! We all have learned so much from you and your experiments. One of my concerns when I heard you purchased an Extreme was that you would be done (end game) and your amazing experiments and reports would stop (and you will finally start listening to music ). But it turned out I was wrong. You are actually providing even more valuable information now. All the experiments you are doing in the context of the Extreme with network equipment, vibration isolation, grounding, USB cables, PCIe cards in the Extreme, etc. give us a really good perspective and a lot of new ideas came up from those experiments. As I am writing this, I am plugging in a Monoprice SlimRun HDMI cable (HDMI, not USB) to see what effects it would have on the I2S connection between my DAC and custom server. Your server / endpoint comparison was extremely helpful on many different levels!

@Steve Williams - if not for people like romaz, I would not spend a minute of my time here. I am a fairly new member, but my observations about your posts here so far have been that you like your CenterStage footers and your uber expensive power cord, and you don't want to try anything else, because you don't think there would be any improvement. I am exaggerating of course but I hope you get my point! And that's okay, but let people like romaz push the limits and post freely. He has said YMMV more than he should have. Those network tweaks for example have a pretty significant impact on any resolving system, especially for those people that have "cable" Internet rather the "fiber optic" one. We can't change you, but please don't kill that discussion - I find it very useful and it's perfectly inline with the "Taiko Extreme" topic and the "What's Best" forum.

Sorry about the offtopic message, but when people spend so much time and energy to describe their experiments - they should receive a big "thank you" and appreciation, not unnecessary criticisms.

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I truly love what Roy had done. I said that in my post. We all have different objectives and how to get to them. I hear you. These are indeed invaluable. Remember all roads lead to Rome

Steve Williams said:

At some point sit down and stop listening to sounds and start listening to music. The Extreme is .....Extreme.

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I hear you, Steve, and I am almost there. I am not a frequent poster on forums. This is only post #73 for me over a 4 year span. A few more and I'll be done.

Roy

You're reports are truly mind boggling amazing. I read every one word for word as well as checked and read all of your links. This is a topic that interests me. You are a scientist by trade and have a typical doctor attitude, which in medicine we call OCD . You have given all of your posts extensive evaluation and posted with great clarity and understanding. So yes I value all of this as I have, in my previous life before I retired, been down all of the same holes and loved the thrill of it as I was striving for my reality.

Buying the Extreme helped me quickly get to my reality. There isn't a doubt in my mind about any of your observations as they were always well described. I am certain the info you provided helped many readers.

Roy, I've learned to never talk about an Indian until you've walked a mile in his moccasins and you and I almost certainly wear the same size moccasins

Another +1 to Roy. He, and Oldmustang/Steve, kind enough to spare valuable time addressing Qs I had on PM. His clear practical answers to me borne out on his posts here. Thanks Roy. And Steve.

Steve Williams said:

We all have different objectives and how to get to them. I hear you.

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One thing I forgot to mention in my post. While I admire Emile's work, his design and test work has been mainly performed in a different country. He is on a completely different power grid than us in the States. He has fiber Internet coming to his office. I live in downtown Chicago and have cable coming to my house. Yes, that coaxial cable that connects to my cable modem connects to devices that provide Internet to millions of households in Chicago. Can there be more noise than Emile's fiber Internet? I will let you think about that...

So when Emile says that those tweaks have less impact than vibration isolation and power cords, I think YMMV statement should apply too. He cannot possibly test with every Internet / power grid combination in the world. And I am sure Emile was careful with his wording, it's not about that.
@romaz (who has cable Internet) conservatively said that the network tweaks matter at least as much as vibration isolation.
I have done a lot of experiments with both, although not on an Extreme, and I can tell you that they are environment/system dependent.

For those who live in the States and have cable Internet, and especially if Qobuz / Tidal is your main source - be open minded. Get rid of the all in one crappy device your ISP sent you and add a seperate cable modem and a router (preferably both powered by clean DC power). You might be up for an unexpected pleasant surprise. The cost for this experiment is less than $300... or as much as one Wilson Audio speaker cover, not even two. Even better option might be to switch to fiber Internet.

Steve Williams said:

Here!’s my point in this lazy Sunday......

IMO the Extreme is truly a break out product as I have said so many times it has changed the way I listen to music. For me all these tweaks and comparisons are great data points but applicable only in that system and only to the users ears.


Guys at some point rather than listening and comparing one router to another or Ethernet vs optical or fuses etc etc I suggest just listen to the Extreme. Emile is a wiz and he often offers caveats and about which I took his advice

the Extreme makes beautiful music on its own I say all of the other is merely adding a tone control to your system

Granted I have taken steps to optimize my Extrene but my path is the “KISS” technique

Keep It Simple Stupid

i can tell you that I’ve been down all of these rabbit holes. After awhile the paths go in so many ways that one tends to forget what the tonality of the Extreme was and the rabbit hole goes deeper

At some point sit down and stop listening to sounds and start listening to music. The Extreme is .....Extreme.

i can tell you that analog was heretofore my a priori. The addition of the Lampi Pacific has brought me so close to analog that many times for me it does come spooky close. I picked two sets of tubes to use and after almost 2 months I have had no desire to put in the second set of tubes as the first sounds damn good. I was going to change tubes today but the music is sounding so good that perhaps tomorrow or another day.

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My principle has been mostly KISL - Keep It Simply Lazy - since I got good digital .

The Extreme followed the same route. I sometimes feel guilty of not supplying comparative data about the excellent performance of the Extreme and its accessories (the new Sablon Audio USB cable, Sablon Audio Ethernet cable, the Daiza tables and the CMS 1.5 footers ) in my system but in fact using the whole combination managed to get the same involvement I get with other sources. So I did not feel motivated for nitpicking the subject.

There are still differences surely. I preferred the the Sablon Audio cables in my system to the more analytical and detailed Intona Reference. The CMS footers under the Vivaldi DAC and the Extreme give it more drive. Still did not have the time to take the Daiza's out of the system for a true check comparison, but I think I can say that they did not spoil the Extreme performance. Qobuz is not as immediate as PCIe files or physical media using the DCS Vivaldi player. Probably playing with the network connection can reduce the gap.

However my KISL practice does not imply I can accept KISS for explaining the performance and whys of high-end audio components. Unfortunately, IMHO Occan's razor can not be applied to the apparently extremely simple two channel sound reproduction, as in reality most of the time we only see the tip of the iceberg and the part under water is very complex, involving signals that we are not supposed to hear.

Is there a big difference between the noise that is delivered with cable internet (Xinity, etc) vs. FiOS?

nenon said:

One thing I forgot to mention in my post. While I admire Emile's work, his design and test work has been mainly performed in a different country. He is on a completely different power grid than us in the States. He has fiber Internet coming to his office. I live in downtown Chicago and have cable coming to my house. Yes, that coaxial cable that connects to my cable modem connects to devices that provide Internet to millions of households in Chicago. Can there be more noise than Emile's fiber Internet? I will let you think about that...

So when Emile says that those tweaks have less impact than vibration isolation and power cords, I think YMMV statement should apply too. He cannot possibly test with every Internet / power grid combination in the world. And I am sure Emile was careful with his wording, it's not about that.
@romaz (who has cable Internet) conservatively said that the network tweaks matter at least as much as vibration isolation.
I have done a lot of experiments with both, although not on an Extreme, and I can tell you that they are environment/system dependent.

For those who live in the States and have cable Internet, and especially if Qobuz / Tidal is your main source - be open minded. Get rid of the all in one crappy device your ISP sent you and add a seperate cable modem and a router (preferably both powered by clean DC power). You might be up for an unexpected pleasant surprise. The cost for this experiment is less than $300... or as much as one Wilson Audio speaker cover, not even two. Even better option might be to switch to fiber Internet.

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I agree

fortunately I live in Southern California in a small community with my own grid , as I typically listen in the daytime so my system is solar powered. So yes, every person is different and Qobuz and Tidal is my main source I believe when you say try a router different than what your cable company provides is good advice as I did that. So far I am balking at the need for a better power supply as mine sounds good enough that it isn't a priority, yet I believe you.

My satellite/router sits about 10 feet from the Extreme and is wired direct to the Extreme with a good Ethernet cable. I have
never had problem with my Orbi as some here say there are better which I bet there are

Steve Williams said:

( ...)
My satellite/router sits about 10 feet from the Extreme and is wired direct to the Extreme with a good Ethernet cable. I have never had problem with my Orbi as some here say there are better which I bet there are

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Although I believe you, I can't avoid thinking that this a very controversial way of connecting the Extreme.

BTW, all roads lead to Rome should also remember us that we do not know any more the exact place of the Milliarium Aureum, the starting point of all roman roads!

I am about to upgrade my Aurender W20 Music server to the Taiko Audio SGM Extreme.

but… I start to realize that now I listen more to QOBUZ Streaming than to locally stored music file. QOBUZ Sublime is so good that with my Aurender, most of the time I can’t hear a difference between streaming and playing localy stored for the same track. So I start to predict that soon I will listen 99% via streaming.

So, my question is: Does a Super TOL music server like the SGM Extreme also bring sonic advantage when streaming like it definitively does when playing locally stored files ? In other words, based on user’s feedback, the SGM Extreme (and the Aurender W20SE) sound much better than my « old » W20 when playing HD stored files, but… do they also sound better than an « old » W20 when streaming QOBUZ (or tidal) ?


So…If I soon go 100% streaming, does it make sense to save the $ of a TOL music server and instead get a TOL « Roon ready » DAC, with ethernet input, and have ROON Server runing on a good NAS on the network. This config removes the USB conversion in the chain, all the chain being Ethernet….

So, people who upgraded their music server to a Taiko Audio SGM Extreme, can you tell if, WHEN STREAMING, the Taiko Audio SGM Extreme also sound better than your old server ?

Also, If I want only to stream QOBUZ, I wonder il using just the native QOBUZ app running on a PC or a Windows server will be a better option than streaming QOBUZ via ROON ?

thanks for your advices

bmichels said:

I am about to upgrade my Aurender W20 Music server to the Taiko Audio SGM Extreme.

but… I start to realize that now I listen more to QOBUZ Streaming than to locally stored music file. QOBUZ Sublime is so good that with my Aurender, most of the time I can’t hear a difference between streaming and playing localy stored for the same track. So I start to predict that soon I will listen 99% via streaming.

So, my question is: Does a Super TOL music server like the SGM Extreme also bring sonic advantage when streaming like it definitively does when playing locally stored files ? In other words, based on user’s feedback, the SGM Extreme (and the Aurender W20SE) sound much better than my « old » W20 when playing HD stored files, but… do they also sound better than an « old » W20 when streaming QOBUZ (or tidal) ?


So…If I soon go 100% streaming, does it make sense to save the $ of a TOL music server and instead get a TOL « Roon ready » DAC, with ethernet input, and have ROON Server runing on a good NAS on the network. This config removes the USB conversion in the chain, all the chain being Ethernet….

So, people who upgraded their music server to a Taiko Audio SGM Extreme, can you tell if, WHEN STREAMING, the Taiko Audio SGM Extreme also sound better than your old server ?

Also, If I want only to stream QOBUZ, I wonder il using just the native QOBUZ app running on a PC or a Windows server will be a better option than streaming QOBUZ via ROON ?

thanks for your advices

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Get your Extreme if you can afford it and leave any doubts behind. It will sound significantly better in EVERY way, including Qobuz.
Reports here say that Qobuz sounds better on the Extreme than NAS storage. And that says a lot.
I don't owe an Extreme (yet) but have been trying all kinds of digital sources and have built enough high end DIY servers/streamers to be able to tell from personal experience. Almost everything I have learned after a few years of DIY has been implemented in the Extreme (on steroids!) plus there is so much more incredible engineering there. Once the fun of building my own servers goes away, I will probably be buying an Extreme myself. But for now, building and tweaking is one of my hobbies.

My principle has been mostly KISL - Keep It Simply Lazy - since I got good digital .

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we actually are more like than different on this one

I don't mean to be stupid in one's decision but rather there are some decisions that need no over thinking

I'm going to second @nenon 's comments and add my own appreciation for @romaz 's incredible posts. I've interacted with him extensively, both on- and off-line, for many years and value his findings tremendously. I would even go so far as to say I value his advice more than any audio person, even above manufacturers and reviewers.

I'll be brutally honest - if there's one thing I'm disappointed by, it's that he's posting his experiments here on WBF instead of his other "home" on the AS "novel" thread, where his explorations and findings are highly valued and missed.

Still, I understand the rationale, and respect his right to post wherever he wants. I'll be paying close attention, regardless!

spiritofmusic said:

Another +1 to Roy. He, and Oldmustang/Steve, kind enough to spare valuable time addressing Qs I had on PM. His clear practical answers to me borne out on his posts here. Thanks Roy. And Steve.

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Well, that is very kind of you Marc. I don't know that I belong in the same category as Roy -- that is very high praise indeed.

Steve Z

SGM Extreme - 6 week experience: Power (Part 1)

This represents my last planned installment on my experience with the Extreme and it will be presented in 3 parts. Once again, YMMV. The quality of power is easily the most impactful thing I have found with the Extreme and the Extreme is more demanding of quality power than any music server I have yet encountered. This is not a knock but rather a compliment. The Extreme sits on a much higher perch than any other server I have heard and so it stands more to lose when it is fed inadequate power.

When I first receive a component, the first thing that I do is I plug it straight into the wall using the power cord that the manufacturer supplied. If a power cord isn't supplied, I will typically use an inexpensive 14awg Transparent power cord that I have lying around and go on from there.

When I speak of the quality of power, I'm not just talking about clean power but also adequate power delivery. Digital components especially seem prone to high frequency noise in the mains. High power amplifiers, on the other hand, primarily seek to be fed a high current diet. I am finding that the Extreme needs to be treated as both a sensitive digital component and a high power amplifier.

Mains quality

Much has been written and said about how evil the grid is but sometimes the solutions offered aren't better or else they fix some problems and introduce others. Here is a comment from @Steve Williams that many including myself have pondered:

Steve Williams said:

It’s even better when you use a solar system on your roof. My garage battery will be coming shortly as well

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I have solar power in my home and have also contemplated installing a large Tesla battery in my garage to disassociate myself from the grid. The idea is certainly attractive but the problem is that both solar and battery power are DC sources and this DC needs to be converted to AC for home use with a sine wave inverter. These sine wave inverters are not audiophile quality. Attach an oscilloscope or a power factor analyzer to your line and what you will likely see is "step laddering" rather than a smooth sine wave. Attach the same oscilloscope to something like a PS Audio P20 or Stromtank and you will almost certainly see a higher quality sine wave produced. Until comparison testing is performed, I am not convinced solar power or a big Tesla battery is going to be universally better than power from the grid.

AC Regeneration

I have tried both the PS Audio P20 and Stromtank S2500 in my home and they each do good things and bad things.

First, the P20



Your mains line, in the ideal world, would have zero impedance and the P20 is as close to this ideal as I have seen. PS Audio claims the P20 to have an output impedance of only 0.049 ohms and the improvement seen with regards to dynamics is incredible. With the P20 in my chain, I have never heard my system sound more dynamic. Ever. What is interesting is that this impact on dynamics didn't come from my amps primarily but from my DAC and my music server. This means that even if I plugged my amps straight into the wall and kept only my DAC and server plugged into the P20, the massively improved dynamics was still largely there!

The problem with the P20 in my system was SQ. Just because the P20 is generating a fresh AC signal doesn't mean it is a high quality signal, at least this is not how it sounded in my system. Even after nearly 4 weeks of burn in, the presentation was very forward, aggressive and edgy, like a bad class D amp (PS Audio claims they are using class A/B amplification). Gone was any subtlety that my system had previously portrayed. Moreover, the noise floor was not that low. The P20 benefits greatly from a good power cord and so clearly, it is influenced by your mains line. It also benefited greatly from plugging my preferred line conditioner into it. I ended up not keeping the P20.

Stromtank S2500



I had higher expectations from the Stromtank and it is definitely the better AC regenerator. Unlike the P20, the Stromtank has the ability to generate a fresh AC signal purely from a series of LiFePO4 batteries. In battery mode, you can disconnect the power cord from the wall and music still plays. The quality of the power cord does play a small role in hybrid mode but not in battery mode. Compared against mains power, there is a definite drop in the noise floor. Even the hybrid mode where mains power is being mixed with battery power results in an improvement.

The problem with the Stromtank S2500 is line impedance. Batteries are not low impedance power sources but supposedly, running several LiFePO4 batteries in series lowers impedance. I could find no reported measurements but I suspect it's not very low as dynamics takes a hit compared against mains power. I plugged various amplifiers into the S2500 including a Soulution 520, D'Agostino Momentum Integrated, and a pair of Momentum M400 monoblocks and especially with the M400s, at moderate volumes that were well within the S2500s capacity, there was a sense of compression. I suspect this compression won't be present in the S5000 HP as that large unit which has even more batteries in series probably has much lower output impedance. Regardless, this is where the P20 trumps the S2500.

The bigger problem is transients. There is a reason the very best power supplies I have heard aren't battery-based. Typical of the battery supplies that I have tried and similar to the Aurender W20SE that I had in house for evaluation which incorporates LiFePO4 batteries in its PSU, the transients sound soft. I was able to significantly improve this by connecting my preferred line conditioner into the Stromtank but for $20k, I did not find the S2500 to be a good fit in my system and this will be explained further later in this post.

Two more to follow...

Dear Roy @romaz ,

Did you perchance experiment with 2 other topics on the Extreme:

• Stylus/Euphony OS instead of Windows/Roon/Jplay, and
• the effect of a downstream USB regenerator - like your tX-USBultra SE powered by an SR-7 DR rail - vs. direct USB output?

Regards,
Rajiv

SGM Extreme - 6 week experience: Power (Part 2)

Line conditioning

Line conditioners can do a good job of eliminating HF noise in mains but many are current limiting (or at least stunt dynamics) despite the manufacturer's claims to the contrary. Dan D'Agostino, for example, advises not to plug any of his amplifiers "into a power strip or power conditioner."

Of the many that I have had a chance to try, a few have stood out, largely because I did not find that they stunted dynamics. In this preferred group are the Shunyata Triton V3, SR PowerCell 12 UEF SE, AQ Niagara 7000, and the Sound Application TT-7. Within this short list, the Shunyata Triton V3 sounded the most dynamic and amps plugged into the Triton V3 actually sounded more dynamic then they did plugged into my wall (and my wall is wired with 6awg wire). With the other conditioners, however, there was still generous dynamics displayed with no sense of compression when compared against plugging straight into the wall. Ultimately, it is the Sound Application TT-7 that rose to the top for me and the Extreme definitely scales to it.

Sound Application Power Grid Interface TT-7



@onlychild suggested his Sound Application C7 is an "entry level TT-7" and this isn't really true. The C7 was first released by Jim Weil 8 years ago and was based on copper foil capacitors. From there, Jim released the T7, his first unit to utilize expensive virgin Teflon capacitors and finally, in early 2018, he released the first version of the TT-7. Since its initial release, the TT-7 has gone through 8 revisions culminating in what he considers to be his final version, the Power Grid Interface TT-7 you see pictured above. Having had the opportunity to hear each revision, some revisions have resulted in small gains and others larger gains but the culmination of these improvements from his initial TT-7 to this latest TT-7 is a rather giant chasm. Against the C7, this gap is even larger.

All of Jim's line conditioners, including the C7 provide 3-stages of surge protection without the use of MOVs that degrade with time. They also provide power factor correction and using Jim's meter, I found my power factor go from 0.91 without his unit to a perfect 1.0.

While all line conditioner designers believe their way is best, Jim believes the problems with mains power is not common-mode noise but rather transverse-mode noise and so he filters for both. No one else seems to even talk about transverse-mode noise. Where most conditioners filter into the MHz range (for example, the Shunyata TritonV3 suppresses noise by >24dB to 30MHz), Jim claims his unit suppresses noise to 80dB up to 2.5GHz which addresses HF noise created by such things like microwave ovens. Ultimately, the only thing I care about is how my system sounds with this line conditioner in place.

Using the Stromtank S2500 for comparison, as previously stated, the S2500 resulted in a fairly significant drop in the noise floor compared against my dedicated 30A line. Against the TT-7, I could hear zero difference in noise floor. Zero. In blind A/B testing, it wasn't a fair fight because where the S2500 results in soft transients, the TT-7 results in incredibly fast transients and so the resolution of my system was much higher with the TT-7 and anyone I blind tested easily picked up on this. What I did then was I plugged the TT-7 into the Stromtank unit and I blind tested my group with the Stromtank in hybrid mode vs battery mode. Without the TT-7 in line, it was fairly easy to hear the difference between hybrid mode and battery mode but with the TT-7 plugged into the Stromtank, no one could tell any difference at all. This told me that with the noise in my environment, the TT-7 was filtering as well as a battery.

While low noise floor and no dynamic compression are important, where the TT-7 runs circles around the other line conditioners and against the Stromtank is with transient response and in this regard, this latest TT-7 is what I consider to be the "Extreme" of line conditioners. Its ability to respond to transient demands is unparalleled from my experience and all the other conditioners that I listed sound slow and smeared in comparison.

Is the TT-7 perfect? No, it is not. The more things you plug into it and the more these things draw current (like amplifiers), according to Jim, line impedance actually drops and so this is a good thing. At the same time, if you plug a noisy component into the TT-7, such as a component with a poorly designed SMPS, that component will pollute the other components as the TT-7 only filters against mains noise and not against other components plugged into it. There are scenarios where you may require 2 TT-7s and so this becomes a more expensive proposition. This latest Power Grid Interface TT-7 is not inexpensive at $15k but I consider it just as foundational to my system as the Extreme.

One more to follow...

austinpop said:

Dear Roy @romaz ,

Did you perchance experiment with 2 other topics on the Extreme:

• Stylus/Euphony OS instead of Windows/Roon/Jplay, and
• the effect of a downstream USB regenerator - like your tX-USBultra SE powered by an SR-7 DR rail - vs. direct USB output?

Regards,
Rajiv

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Rajiv, I tried booting Euphony from a USB stick and it won't boot. I will need to take my Extreme down from its perch but as heavy as it is, I will wait until my new rack arrives before I do this.

I have moved on from the tX-USBultra. I tried the Iso-Regen and it is a step backward.

bmichels said:

I am about to upgrade my Aurender W20 Music server to the Taiko Audio SGM Extreme.

but… I start to realize that now I listen more to QOBUZ Streaming than to locally stored music file. QOBUZ Sublime is so good that with my Aurender, most of the time I can’t hear a difference between streaming and playing localy stored for the same track. So I start to predict that soon I will listen 99% via streaming.

So, my question is: Does a Super TOL music server like the SGM Extreme also bring sonic advantage when streaming like it definitively does when playing locally stored files ? In other words, based on user’s feedback, the SGM Extreme (and the Aurender W20SE) sound much better than my « old » W20 when playing HD stored files, but… do they also sound better than an « old » W20 when streaming QOBUZ (or tidal) ?


So…If I soon go 100% streaming, does it make sense to save the $ of a TOL music server and instead get a TOL « Roon ready » DAC, with ethernet input, and have ROON Server runing on a good NAS on the network. This config removes the USB conversion in the chain, all the chain being Ethernet….

So, people who upgraded their music server to a Taiko Audio SGM Extreme, can you tell if, WHEN STREAMING, the Taiko Audio SGM Extreme also sound better than your old server ?

Also, If I want only to stream QOBUZ, I wonder il using just the native QOBUZ app running on a PC or a Windows server will be a better option than streaming QOBUZ via ROON ?

thanks for your advices

Click to expand...

Absolutely the Extreme sounds better. Though it might not be a fair comparison, since my previous streamer/server was an Innuos Zenith STD 2 at a fraction the price of an Extreme.

However, both streaming and locally stored file playback with the Extreme are much better than the Zenith. I had the Zenith connected to my Vivaldi Upsampler via copper ethernet as I thought it sounded better that way than using USB from Zenith to Upsampler.

Prior to receiving my Extreme I had already converted the LAN feed to my Zenith from a long run of copper ethernet cable from DSL modem to Emile's recommended Startech FMC/Startech SFP and fiber optic, which was a positive step forward in and of itself.

But, when I first received the Extreme I initially hooked it up to that original copper ethernet cable from the modem, and it still handily beat the Zenith.

Now, with the Extreme connected via fiber optic, the head end FMC powered from one output of an Uptone JS-2 linear power supply and the DSL modem connected from the other JS-2 output, I would say that streamed content, whether from Tidal or Qobuz is very satisfying to listen to. However, I'd still give the nod to content stored locally on the Extreme.

I would never claim the Zenith STD 2 is the equal of an Aurender W20. But for a low-power CPU based device it does a very credible job. The Extreme however is simply in another league.

I think if you go back in this thread some way, you'll find some commentary addressing direct comparison of a W20SE to the Extreme.

I hope this helps,

Steve Z

romaz said:

Rajiv, I tried booting Euphony from a USB stick and it won't boot. I will need to take my Extreme down from its perch but as heavy as it is, I will wait until my new rack arrives before I do this.

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That will be a very interesting experiment. Do keep us posted.

romaz said:

I have moved on from the tX-USBultra. I tried the Iso-Regen and it is a step backward.

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Thanks, that's interesting to know.