Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
- Start date
Normally I'm pretty good in estimating distances but in your space there's no normal I guess
Indeed, it works in Steve's room as well where the Wilson Alexandrias can be considered as dominating the space, maybe even more so relatively speaking. With you it's more the proximity you need to "overcome". Dim the lights and the dominated feeling disappears in both rooms.
USA trip report PART3:
After leaving Mike's place we spend the night at the same airport hotel in Seattle and took a flight to Boston on the 18th. We decided that 3 flights in 4 days was getting old so we hired a real American car, a 2019 Chevy Tahoe 5.3L V8, to drive to our next stop and subsequently on to New York.
Look at those sleepy eyes
We spend the night in a pretty nice hotel there and drove to Rob Landini early on the 19th. Rob is not a WBF forum member but I got his permission to report on our visit to him here.
Rob's system consists of Rockport Arrakis 2 speakers, all Ypsilon Electronics, 4 Hyperion Monoblocks, PST 100 MK II Preamp [SE], DAC 1000 [SE] and of course the SGM Extreme in a large open space, 28 x 35 x 15 feet. Rob is in the process of having a dedicated listening space constructed designed from the ground up by John H. Brandt. https://www.jhbrandt.net/
Not surprisingly this is a very good sounding system. It really sounds "right". I suspect using all components from the same manufacturer ensures good gain / interface matching between all the components. The large space may have helped here too. Especially voices and guitars were stunning with just the right balance of clarity, weight and definition. In a blind test I may have guessed listening to good tube amps but with surprisingly clean and controlled bass. Male voices had the perfect amount of dimension, chest, weight and breath to them. It may have been the best rendering of male voices I have heard so far. Tube midrange magic with solid state! I guess Rockport is known for its midrange qualities, but Ypsilon is surely worthy considering if you are shopping for endgame amplifiers and are torn between tubes and solid state. Unfortunately we did not have that much time as we had to drive to New York that day, I could have easily spend the full day there listening. Gorgeous.
After leaving Mike's place we spend the night at the same airport hotel in Seattle and took a flight to Boston on the 18th. We decided that 3 flights in 4 days was getting old so we hired a real American car, a 2019 Chevy Tahoe 5.3L V8, to drive to our next stop and subsequently on to New York.
Look at those sleepy eyes
We spend the night in a pretty nice hotel there and drove to Rob Landini early on the 19th. Rob is not a WBF forum member but I got his permission to report on our visit to him here.
Rob's system consists of Rockport Arrakis 2 speakers, all Ypsilon Electronics, 4 Hyperion Monoblocks, PST 100 MK II Preamp [SE], DAC 1000 [SE] and of course the SGM Extreme in a large open space, 28 x 35 x 15 feet. Rob is in the process of having a dedicated listening space constructed designed from the ground up by John H. Brandt. https://www.jhbrandt.net/
Not surprisingly this is a very good sounding system. It really sounds "right". I suspect using all components from the same manufacturer ensures good gain / interface matching between all the components. The large space may have helped here too. Especially voices and guitars were stunning with just the right balance of clarity, weight and definition. In a blind test I may have guessed listening to good tube amps but with surprisingly clean and controlled bass. Male voices had the perfect amount of dimension, chest, weight and breath to them. It may have been the best rendering of male voices I have heard so far. Tube midrange magic with solid state! I guess Rockport is known for its midrange qualities, but Ypsilon is surely worthy considering if you are shopping for endgame amplifiers and are torn between tubes and solid state. Unfortunately we did not have that much time as we had to drive to New York that day, I could have easily spend the full day there listening. Gorgeous.
I'm suprised Ypsilon is a good choice for Rockport. I thought this was a brand that was very demanding to drive.
Normally I'm pretty good in estimating distances but in your space there's no normal I guess
Indeed, it works in Steve's room as well where the Wilson Alexandrias can be considered as dominating the space, maybe even more so relatively speaking. With you it's more the proximity you need to "overcome". Dim the lights and the dominated feeling disappears in both rooms.
tweeter to tweeter = 115 inches. room is 21' wide, 11' tall.
tweeter to each ear =109 inches.
back wall to tweeter plane = 9'.
I have very simmilar dimensions for the speakers to ear and to back wall .
Tried many different things but this works best.
it is great to know many of us got to the same point
The Ypsilon Hyperion's are very powerful - more than 600W at 4 ohms, 1200W at 2 ohm. Used in by-amplification they would drive anything ...
The room must be very large - everything seems small in the photos. Even the Gotham's...
I am surprised that by having almost to acoustic trearment Rob was able to get grat sound based on Emile opinion.
It seems some got it right investing mainly in equipement not into the room .
Would be great to compare it once the new dedicated room is ready for Rob to move in.
It seems some got it right investing mainly in equipement not into the room .
Would be great to compare it once the new dedicated room is ready for Rob to move in.
Indeed. This should be the correct link: http://highfidelity.pl/@main-964&lang=en
Korean powerful audiophile "Muscle Pain" received SGM Extreme and Magico M3 speakers yesterday.
Two devices combination seems to be very good, he said.
Please enjoy the movie~!
Two devices combination seems to be very good, he said.
Please enjoy the movie~!
Few years ago I had demo of the Aurender W20 and the SGM2018.
Because I do not like the idea of upsampling and because I was afraid by the complexity of the optimisation needed by the myriad of HQ Player filters.... I decided to go for the W20.
Now it is time for upgrade. I am therefore hesitating between the new Aurender W20SE or, the Playback Design MPT-8 (with the optional Roon core module) or even the Taiko Audio SGM Extreme... now that it do not upsample anymore with HQ player.
I just wonder: Now that Taiko Audio SGM Extreme do NOT uses HQ Palyer, I hope that there is no more optimisation needed ! will it be as "plug&play" as an Aurender or a Playback Design transport or... are there still optimisation needed to match your system ?
Because I do not like the idea of upsampling and because I was afraid by the complexity of the optimisation needed by the myriad of HQ Player filters.... I decided to go for the W20.
Now it is time for upgrade. I am therefore hesitating between the new Aurender W20SE or, the Playback Design MPT-8 (with the optional Roon core module) or even the Taiko Audio SGM Extreme... now that it do not upsample anymore with HQ player.
I just wonder: Now that Taiko Audio SGM Extreme do NOT uses HQ Palyer, I hope that there is no more optimisation needed ! will it be as "plug&play" as an Aurender or a Playback Design transport or... are there still optimisation needed to match your system ?
It took all of 10 minutes for Emile to set up my Extreme remotely from the Netherlands and to optimize it for my system, Set it and forget it
You can also use your laptop/PC to access Extreme if there is no monitor attached to Extreme.
A few weeks back, I paid a visit to Emile at his workshop in Hengelo. This would be my first opportunity to hear the Extreme and what better way to experience it than in a room that was specifically designed by its creator to showcase its capabilities? Prior to arriving to Emile's, my wife and I calibrated our ears by taking in a Baroque concert at the Southwark Cathedral in London. I have no vinyl or tape to use as a reference but I suspect a live unamplified acoustical performance will do.
Hengelo was a short flight from London and a 2 hour train ride from Amsterdam and while it was raining and dreary outside, I enjoyed some of the beautiful countryside that The Netherlands had to offer. Emile was kind enough to pick me up from the train station and despite the long journey that began in California days before, the journey was worthwhile as my day spent with Emile was both educational and inspiring.
Here is a row of SGM servers currently in various stages of burn-in. Emile suggests that during the first 5 days, the Extreme can sound quite dreadful and so before he ships one out, each Extreme goes through a mandatory 5 day burn in. Sometimes, customers request a longer burn in and Emile indicated he is happy to oblige.
Surprisingly, he suggested it is the 48GB of RAM that results in such horrible SQ during the burn in process. Regardless, it was immediately evident that the quality of workmanship and attention to detail is impeccable. There are apparently many chassis that are discarded because they fail to meet Emile's perfectionist standards and so it is the chassis anodization process that is often the reason for production delays.
What was most impressive to me is that these machines that you see here are being burned in 24/7 via a process that stress the CPUs and so these machines should run quite hot but because of the effectiveness of his passive cooling design including the utilization of expensive copper heat sinks (painted black) in critical areas, this machine barely ran warm to the touch. This is not something you will find with some of the Extreme's competition.
It's also easy to notice the extensive use of copper in other areas not just for copper's superior heat dissipating qualities but also because of its much more musical resonant qualities. You'll also note the German Panzerholz wood his transformers are mounted on to minimize vibrations. When I asked Emile why he chose a combination of Mundorf and Dueland capacitors for the Extreme's power supply, he said it was because it sounded better that way. Emile showed me a bin that contained various types of capacitors he had tried and didn't like and so nothing in the Extreme is there unless it has been carefully vetted. It is obvious that this machine is more than the sum of its parts. It is a carefully tuned machine through proprietary hardware and software optimizations that would be near impossible for anyone to reverse engineer. I suspect there may be some in Emile's camp that wonder why he shares the technology in the Extreme so freely but like any good chef knows, just knowing the ingredients doesn't guarantee a good cake, let alone a cake of worldwide acclaim.
As for the stock server-grade ASUS motherboard used in the Extreme, I have often wondered why Emile didn't design his own motherboard like Antipodes and Innuos have and it turns out Emile has. As I have a background heavily entrenched in DIY, I have explored motherboard design myself and if one has the capital, any of these motherboard manufacturers will gladly build you one. What Emile found, however, was the motherboard he designed didn't sound better. In fact, he tested dozens of boards and I was able to witness for myself some of these boards that failed to make the cut including several that were in active prototype form.
In the end, what one needs to know is that the Extreme is not just a music server, it is an embodiment of Emile himself. While Emile is not a one man show, this machine has his fingerprints all over it. This includes years of university level IT experience consisting of both computer and networking development and deployment with an emphasis on maximizing process efficiency, a quality that is quite evident in the Extreme's design. It also includes countless hours of noise spectra measurements at a cost of more than a hundred Euros per hour and ultimately, careful listening tests because good measurements don't always guarantee natural sound.
So what did I think of the Extreme's sound qualities? At this point, I can't really say. I can only tell you how Emile's listening room sounds as a whole. Emile was up front and told me there are times when his mains quality is horrendous because of the industrial machinery used by neighboring tenants. I asked him why he didn't invest in a Stromtank battery supply similar to the one I had in my home recently for evaluation as this would disconnect his system from the mains?
He told me it was important that he designed the Extreme to excel under real world conditions. It's the same reason he doesn't use exotic fuses or cables. Unlike his customers who build their systems for musical enjoyment, this listening room is more of a test lab designed to be transparent and revealing of flaws.
It's the reason he chose the Focal Maestro Utopia Evo speakers. At their best, Focals are among the finest speakers I have heard but with the wrong front end, their beryllium tweeters, while extremely resolving can also sound fatiguingly bright. As for the Audionet Stern and Heisenberg monoblocks, having tried the Audionets in my home briefly, they drove my Wilson Alexia 2s with ease and while very fast and resolving, you would never mistake them for tubes. Relative to my D'Agostino Momentum amplification, I thought the CH Precision sounded dry but the Audionets sounded even drier. And so I prepared myself for a sound presentation that would be accurate, resolving, and transparent but perhaps bordering on the clinical.
I was wrong. As Emile queued up various tracks including complex orchestral soundtracks, accuracy, resolution, and transparency were there in spades but not at the expense of musicality. In fact, for large orchestral music, this presentation was very much my preference! I was expecting a thinner signature because having recently tried his Startech SFP PCIe card in a recent DIY build, this is what I heard but somehow, the presentation was full bodied with just enough harmonic richness. Just as importantly, the presentation was neither too bright nor too dark but rather neutral and nicely balanced. Even though his revised TotalDac d1-drivers had not yet arrived, I felt there was excellent dynamics with plenty of "you are there" vibrancy and immediacy. Some people tune their rooms to sound intimate as if the artists are performing in the room. I prefer systems that make you feel you have been transported to Carnegie Hall if that is where the performance actually took place. It's a much more difficult trick and the presentation at Emile's was quite believable.
Emile and I did some A/B testing of optical network cabling vs a long run of cheap copper Ethernet cabling and while to my ears, there was a very obvious difference in favor of optical, the cheap Ethernet cabling sounded very good, good enough to live with if I had to and not complain and so I can understand why some people who own the Extreme would feel no need to tinker further.
Having been to Munich this past May and to RMAF, Axpona, THE Show in Newport, the LA Audio Show, the California Audio Show in San Francisco, and CES over the past 2 years, I have had a chance to listen to a number of excellent systems but for my tastes, probably none that were better than what I heard in Emile's listening room. It is a testament to his ability to properly configure an audio setup and impressive enough for me to proceed with an order for my own Extreme.
I first met Emile in Munich at the SGM booth in 2017 and while speaking with Emile, I was impressed with his ability to make me feel like I was the only person in the room despite the fact that the room was packed with people. Those who have had the opportunity to personally interact with Emile know what I am talking about. He is generous with his time and sharing of knowledge and I couldn't have dreamt up a more enjoyable visit. Emile, thank you.
Hengelo was a short flight from London and a 2 hour train ride from Amsterdam and while it was raining and dreary outside, I enjoyed some of the beautiful countryside that The Netherlands had to offer. Emile was kind enough to pick me up from the train station and despite the long journey that began in California days before, the journey was worthwhile as my day spent with Emile was both educational and inspiring.
Here is a row of SGM servers currently in various stages of burn-in. Emile suggests that during the first 5 days, the Extreme can sound quite dreadful and so before he ships one out, each Extreme goes through a mandatory 5 day burn in. Sometimes, customers request a longer burn in and Emile indicated he is happy to oblige.
Surprisingly, he suggested it is the 48GB of RAM that results in such horrible SQ during the burn in process. Regardless, it was immediately evident that the quality of workmanship and attention to detail is impeccable. There are apparently many chassis that are discarded because they fail to meet Emile's perfectionist standards and so it is the chassis anodization process that is often the reason for production delays.
What was most impressive to me is that these machines that you see here are being burned in 24/7 via a process that stress the CPUs and so these machines should run quite hot but because of the effectiveness of his passive cooling design including the utilization of expensive copper heat sinks (painted black) in critical areas, this machine barely ran warm to the touch. This is not something you will find with some of the Extreme's competition.
It's also easy to notice the extensive use of copper in other areas not just for copper's superior heat dissipating qualities but also because of its much more musical resonant qualities. You'll also note the German Panzerholz wood his transformers are mounted on to minimize vibrations. When I asked Emile why he chose a combination of Mundorf and Dueland capacitors for the Extreme's power supply, he said it was because it sounded better that way. Emile showed me a bin that contained various types of capacitors he had tried and didn't like and so nothing in the Extreme is there unless it has been carefully vetted. It is obvious that this machine is more than the sum of its parts. It is a carefully tuned machine through proprietary hardware and software optimizations that would be near impossible for anyone to reverse engineer. I suspect there may be some in Emile's camp that wonder why he shares the technology in the Extreme so freely but like any good chef knows, just knowing the ingredients doesn't guarantee a good cake, let alone a cake of worldwide acclaim.
As for the stock server-grade ASUS motherboard used in the Extreme, I have often wondered why Emile didn't design his own motherboard like Antipodes and Innuos have and it turns out Emile has. As I have a background heavily entrenched in DIY, I have explored motherboard design myself and if one has the capital, any of these motherboard manufacturers will gladly build you one. What Emile found, however, was the motherboard he designed didn't sound better. In fact, he tested dozens of boards and I was able to witness for myself some of these boards that failed to make the cut including several that were in active prototype form.
In the end, what one needs to know is that the Extreme is not just a music server, it is an embodiment of Emile himself. While Emile is not a one man show, this machine has his fingerprints all over it. This includes years of university level IT experience consisting of both computer and networking development and deployment with an emphasis on maximizing process efficiency, a quality that is quite evident in the Extreme's design. It also includes countless hours of noise spectra measurements at a cost of more than a hundred Euros per hour and ultimately, careful listening tests because good measurements don't always guarantee natural sound.
So what did I think of the Extreme's sound qualities? At this point, I can't really say. I can only tell you how Emile's listening room sounds as a whole. Emile was up front and told me there are times when his mains quality is horrendous because of the industrial machinery used by neighboring tenants. I asked him why he didn't invest in a Stromtank battery supply similar to the one I had in my home recently for evaluation as this would disconnect his system from the mains?
He told me it was important that he designed the Extreme to excel under real world conditions. It's the same reason he doesn't use exotic fuses or cables. Unlike his customers who build their systems for musical enjoyment, this listening room is more of a test lab designed to be transparent and revealing of flaws.
It's the reason he chose the Focal Maestro Utopia Evo speakers. At their best, Focals are among the finest speakers I have heard but with the wrong front end, their beryllium tweeters, while extremely resolving can also sound fatiguingly bright. As for the Audionet Stern and Heisenberg monoblocks, having tried the Audionets in my home briefly, they drove my Wilson Alexia 2s with ease and while very fast and resolving, you would never mistake them for tubes. Relative to my D'Agostino Momentum amplification, I thought the CH Precision sounded dry but the Audionets sounded even drier. And so I prepared myself for a sound presentation that would be accurate, resolving, and transparent but perhaps bordering on the clinical.
I was wrong. As Emile queued up various tracks including complex orchestral soundtracks, accuracy, resolution, and transparency were there in spades but not at the expense of musicality. In fact, for large orchestral music, this presentation was very much my preference! I was expecting a thinner signature because having recently tried his Startech SFP PCIe card in a recent DIY build, this is what I heard but somehow, the presentation was full bodied with just enough harmonic richness. Just as importantly, the presentation was neither too bright nor too dark but rather neutral and nicely balanced. Even though his revised TotalDac d1-drivers had not yet arrived, I felt there was excellent dynamics with plenty of "you are there" vibrancy and immediacy. Some people tune their rooms to sound intimate as if the artists are performing in the room. I prefer systems that make you feel you have been transported to Carnegie Hall if that is where the performance actually took place. It's a much more difficult trick and the presentation at Emile's was quite believable.
Emile and I did some A/B testing of optical network cabling vs a long run of cheap copper Ethernet cabling and while to my ears, there was a very obvious difference in favor of optical, the cheap Ethernet cabling sounded very good, good enough to live with if I had to and not complain and so I can understand why some people who own the Extreme would feel no need to tinker further.
Having been to Munich this past May and to RMAF, Axpona, THE Show in Newport, the LA Audio Show, the California Audio Show in San Francisco, and CES over the past 2 years, I have had a chance to listen to a number of excellent systems but for my tastes, probably none that were better than what I heard in Emile's listening room. It is a testament to his ability to properly configure an audio setup and impressive enough for me to proceed with an order for my own Extreme.
I first met Emile in Munich at the SGM booth in 2017 and while speaking with Emile, I was impressed with his ability to make me feel like I was the only person in the room despite the fact that the room was packed with people. Those who have had the opportunity to personally interact with Emile know what I am talking about. He is generous with his time and sharing of knowledge and I couldn't have dreamt up a more enjoyable visit. Emile, thank you.
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Thank you, romaz, for this report! Well done!
By our members’ reports and from my brief listening session I personally think the SGM Extreme is state-of-the-art. I was unaware Emile uses Focal speakers. Now I am even more impressed with the SGM Extreme that it sounds from your report natural and unfatiguing with that Focal tweeter.
We made a train switch in Hengelo on the way to Lochem, but, unfortunately, we did not program in time for a visit with Emile. I hope to visit Taiko during a future trip to The Netherlands. (And what do I say to Tinka when she asks: “Where is the record player? Where are the tubes? Why are we here?”
)
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Welcome to WBF Roy, my Extreme continues to improve as the hours accrue. Be prepared to give it plenty of time before doing any critical listening, if there is such a thing with the Extreme!
It is same to "Plug & Play".
Only [[[installation Terminator USB Driver]]]~!!
Emile has Terminator DAC.
I sent it to Emile.
Emile is very busy, but he will support Terminator DAC someday.
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Would be interested to know how your extreme compares with the W20 considering one is half the price of other (?)?
Korean audiophile Muscle Pain is on. 1 lover of Aurender.
Although he ordered Extreme, he also ordered Aurender W20SE.
He will keep W20SE, but he decided to sell W20SE.
The reason is that W20SE is much less than SGM and MP.
He is Aurender big fan, but he advised Aurender must make cheaper and wonderful quality's W30.
Aurender will develop, but not now.
Korean audiophiles change their mind.
This is the truth of Aurender.
But I think Aurender will be strong rival of Taiko Audio.
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