Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

ctydwn · Nov 14, 2022

The buzz around the XDMS improvements is killing me! Will be so curious to hear. Excited to upgrade from Alpha v1 to the latest Alpha week after Thanksgiving with amps fully broken in to hear the uptick in SQ upon return to the system (XDMS alpha v1 still streaming Qobuz for 4 weeks straight without a drop). Really sounds like amazing progress by Taiko and the community. And other surprise releases coming...

Also, as I plan the rack situation and now knowing the dimensions of the switch, can someone remind me of the dimensions/weight of the separate Taiko battery power supply, if that has been disclosed yet? I thought I vaguely recall ~10 months ago, but could not find....

Thanks again Team Taiko here (and all those working non-stop behind the scenes) and the alpha testers

Nils · Nov 14, 2022

Steve Williams said:
That back end patch was amazing as it once again upped the SQ once more.

Can someone help me to understand what a back end patch does. All I know is that it made a huge difference

I tend to agree with @Christiaan that the difference between Discovery and Concert mode is too small to make a big issue about

@Steve Williams XDMS' backend is comprised of two main elements:
- Server - this is the component that interacts with the source backends (e.g. Idagio, Qobuz, Tidal) via their respective APIs, only it interacts indirectly as these sources are fronted by a content aggregator which offers its own API - and fetches the selected track
- Player - this is the component that 'plays the music' by first cleaning/preparing the track for playback and then sending it to the DAC in your system

No doubt there are complex interactions going on between these two components, e.g. in Concert mode when next track is downloaded in // with current track being played.

The backend-patch identified as v221110 updated both above components - now, exactly what was changed is Taiko's IP and remains unknown - the effects though, are very audible to us all...

MarkusBarkus · Nov 14, 2022

@ctydwn per Emile's post:
"A few details:

Size H*W*D - 50*235*235mm / 2*9 1/4*9 1/4", weight 15.1KG / 33 lbs and a looker IMHO.

It has a pretty wide range 12V-19V DC input by means of standard DC barrel jack."

DW101 · Nov 14, 2022

MarkusBarkus said:
@ctydwn per Emile's post:
"A few details:

Size H*W*D - 50*235*235mm / 2*9 1/4*9 1/4", weight 15.1KG / 33 lbs and a looker IMHO.

It has a pretty wide range 12V-19V DC input by means of standard DC barrel jack."

Is that the BMS, or Switch?

MarkusBarkus · Nov 14, 2022

...switch.

Taiko Audio · Nov 14, 2022

Di-fi said:
Forgive my curiosity about this subject

It’s quite different for Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs with integrated nvme controllers. SATA is “terrible”, the power-supply, power-leads and SATA cable all have a mayor influence and can alter the outcome of that heroic effort you made there comparing all those drives. 4 years ago the Intel 660p was clearly king of the hill for music playback, since then we have launched several OS updates and by now the difference is almost impossible to hear with Roon and not audible at all with XDMS, the drives I mentioned we tested and all perform well.

Taiko Audio · Nov 14, 2022

ctydwn said:
can someone remind me of the dimensions/weight of the separate Taiko battery power supply, if that has been disclosed yet?

It will most likely be available in several forms / shapes / dimensions. Nothing set in stone yet.

Rhapsody · Nov 14, 2022

DW101 said:
Is that the BMS, or Swi

Taiko Audio said:
It will most likely be available in several forms / shapes / dimensions. Nothing set in stone yet.

Maybe something like this?

electric-current-transformer-substation-large-40488958.jpg

oldmustang · Nov 14, 2022

Taiko Audio said:
It will most likely be available in several forms / shapes / dimensions. Nothing set in stone yet.

Not that I get a vote or anything, but it would be nice to have an "economy" option for a BMS-on-a-budget that will be hidden behind the equipment rack in any event.

Steve Z

Di-fi · Nov 14, 2022

Taiko Audio said:
It’s quite different for Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs with integrated nvme controllers. SATA is “terrible”, the power-supply, power-leads and SATA cable all have a mayor influence and can alter the outcome of that heroic effort you made there comparing all those drives.

Ha, no worries Emile. Although I do not have an Extreme (but how much do I enjoy the ride here at WBF !), I am using a Xeon CPU (up to 8 cores isolated, not double CPU, ok) with a PCIe and M.2 slots and a decent PSU. Hence my curiosity about better NVMe SSD. Regarding SATA, it seems Antipodes is using it (music files) with very good results in K50, go figure.
I will try the WD RED NVMe to hear for myself.
Bedankt Emile!
Paul

EuroDriver · Nov 14, 2022

Visit to Oldenzaal

For various reasons I have not been in Oldenzaal for far too long a time.

My Goodness how the Switch and Network card have evolved since my last visit. As Emile showed me all of the new bits, it became quite clear that Emile’s carefully chosen all in approach was totally logical.

Then he played the system with the units in their production configuration and the sonics were Whoa, we are in a new sonic space.

I think everyone who gets these two highly engineered and optimized units will be gob smacked by the SQ uplift and enchanting musicality, they are that good

gds7368 · Nov 14, 2022

Taiko Audio said:
Those dimensions are correct!

product planning here ... I'm assuming the extreme sounds best on its own shelf, and not stacked on top of the battery supply ... ?

Taiko Audio · Nov 14, 2022

gds7368 said:
product planning here ... I'm assuming the extreme sounds best on its own shelf, and not stacked on top of the battery supply ... ?

Usually yes but we will sure make an effort to find a non harmful stacking solution, no promises though.

alwayslearning · Nov 14, 2022

Taiko Audio said:
Intel 665P, 670P
Western Digital Red

Emile, you have said that these are basically Taiko-approved products for increasing the storage capacity of your Extreme, correct? As far as I can tell, none of these are available in sizes exceeding 4 TB. At some point in the relatively near future, I will probably want to increase the storage capacity of my Extreme from my current 8 TB to either 24 or 32 TB. So I would probably be looking at 8 TB storage cards. Can you recommend any products that are available in this size? Just trying to get a handle on what this might cost.

Di-fi · Nov 14, 2022

alwayslearning said:
Emile, you have said that these are basically Taiko-approved products for increasing the storage capacity of your Extreme, correct? As far as I can tell, none of these are available in sizes exceeding 4 TB. At some point in the relatively near future, I will probably want to increase the storage capacity of my Extreme from my current 8 TB to either 24 or 32 TB. So I would probably be looking at 8 TB storage cards. Can you recommend any products that are available in this size? Just trying to get a handle on what this might cost.

It seems to me you might consider installing an extra (US$50) ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 expansion card? Supports four additional nvme m.2 drives. And choose the most economical Taiko recommended NVMe SSD. For example 4 x WD Red NVMe 4GB will give you an extra 16GB. But 2GB units are currently better priced per GB, specially the Intel 670P 2GB (US$150@Amazon), so that would be maximum 8GB per extra expansion card if you can fill up the empty PCIe slots to your liking. Verify with Taiko though since slots are either tied to CPU 1 or CPU 2.

Image taken form : https://www.monoandstereo.com/2020/02/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-experience.html

Taiko Audio · Nov 14, 2022

alwayslearning said:
Emile, you have said that these are basically Taiko-approved products for increasing the storage capacity of your Extreme, correct? As far as I can tell, none of these are available in sizes exceeding 4 TB. At some point in the relatively near future, I will probably want to increase the storage capacity of my Extreme from my current 8 TB to either 24 or 32 TB. So I would probably be looking at 8 TB storage cards. Can you recommend any products that are available in this size? Just trying to get a handle on what this might cost.

These we’ve tested and used but in theory every m.2 nvme drive should work. For 8TB there’s the Sabrent Rocket Q we’ve tested aswell.

Christiaan Punter · Nov 15, 2022

cat6man said:
So, the elephant in the room is "should we minimize extraneous metadata", change embedded album covers to external jpg files, etc???

We've had a discussion started on discord regarding the extra, often hidden, metadata that exists in many music files. I used musicbrainz Picard to look at metadata and found literally dozens of tags can be hiding in files. As examples, itunes has a number of their own meta tags embedded. Often, live concert recording made by intrepid fan(atics) have custom tags listing details of their recordings, taping equipment, their home web pages, etc.

It's been said that metadata can indeed have an influence on the sound quality but I have never investigated this personally. Honestly, I would not want to be without metadata, it's just too useful. Also, I'm sure that any influence will tie in closely with how the music data is processed. With the Extreme, there are some "magical" steps taken to rid music of "digititis" so I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that metadata has no influence with an Extreme.

Christiaan Punter · Nov 15, 2022

Steve Williams said:
All I know is that it made a big uptick in the sound

Cat6man described it very well. We found that certain programming elements that are deemed passive/inert and would merely enable better functionality had an influence on the sound nevertheless. We addressed this by removing these elements while seeking for other ways to achieve the desired goal. This is one of the reasons why the development of XDMS is slower than we all would like. But we simply will not tolerate features that have a negative impact on the sound quality.

jelt2359 · Nov 15, 2022

Christiaan Punter said:
Recently, we started work on streamlining our support system. With our growing customer base and with multiple persons providing support, in order to be truly effective, we need to have all the communication in one place.

To this end, we have implemented the Richpanel Support System, a utility that combines a clean and simple interface with very powerful organizational capabilities.

You can access our new support section from any page on the Taiko Audio website. Just click the Support menu item (top right) or the Chat balloon (bottom right) and a popup window will open.

View attachment 100175

You can choose to chat with us directly or browse the help section. At the moment, the help section is limited but we have the intention to expand this section to include a Frequently Asked Questions section and more.

If no support staff is available for a live chat, the message will be saved automatically and you will be alerted via mail when Taiko staff have left a reply.

The big upside of this system is that it seamlessly unifies chat and email. So, if desired, you can still send an email as usual to support@taikoaudio.com and it will go into the same system. Nothing changes for those who email us exclusively. The only thing you may have noticed is the Richpanel logo at the bottom of our emails.

View attachment 100176

View attachment 100177

View attachment 100179

Hi Christiaan, I tried following these instructions to go to support to ask about the Taiko DAC, but I couldn't see the chat bubble- nothing happens when I click 'support'. Am I missing something?

Christiaan Punter · Nov 15, 2022

jelt2359 said:
Hi Christiaan, I tried following these instructions to go to support to ask about the Taiko DAC, but I couldn't see the chat bubble- nothing happens when I click 'support'. Am I missing something?

I just checked it and it works for me in Chrome and MS Edge. Maybe it's blocked by a pop-up blocker on your end? Instead of the chat bubble, you can also click the Support link top right.

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