I did not, again it was just an experiment, I am 99.99% sure replacing that powersupply will make a large difference
Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème
- Thread starter CKKeung
- Start date
I did not, again it was just an experiment, I am 99.99% sure replacing that powersupply will make a large difference
Here's a very nice room using Audionet Heisenberg/Stern, TotalDAC twelve Mk2, and the Taiko Audio SGM Extreme, among others, featured in this update by monoandstereo.com.
Here is a pic of my system and also the Taiko Extreme. If I get ambitious (unlikely) I will remove the top and photograph. Enjoy!
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Bingo! Thermal camera. It's a small unit by Flir you can attach to your cell phone. Flir makes commercial-use devices for many purposes, but this one is useful too.
I bought it to examine the roof and outer house structures a few years back, as there was an insulation issue.
It will also show pipes and things in the walls...and the heat signature of your hifi! Here's an edited pic of the Extreme...
I bought it to examine the roof and outer house structures a few years back, as there was an insulation issue.
It will also show pipes and things in the walls...and the heat signature of your hifi! Here's an edited pic of the Extreme...
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Will the new XDMS software change the thermal signature of the Extreme?
.........and while I'm asking, are we still targeting a January release of XDMS?
Little likely. My Extreme arrives in a few days, and I have been told that it comes with TAS.
TAS is installed when the Extreme is in your home, and is carried out via an online session using TeamViewer.
First stage is going over the roon settings, in particular avoiding WASAPI, and then TAS install
We will also be using Yandex.translate on Telegram so that we can converse in Italian and English
Yes it is correct, it is installed by Team Viewer (we talked about it the other day by Telegram-Yandex) it was for brevity. But what is relevant is that at the moment TAS is installed and not XDMS.
By the way, Santa finally left Oldenzaal on Wednesday and arrived in Lisbon today. He has decided to spend the weekend there visiting the "Solar dos Presuntos" and the "Doca Peixe" but has promised that on Monday she will leave for Malaga.
Solar dos Presuntos! My wife and I have very fond memories of our meals there while visiting Lisbon (she is the pretty lady sitting by herself to the left while I was taking this photo):
It will be one of the first places we visit on our next trip to Portugal.
Steve Z
Congratulations! I am jealous, but that also means I moved one step ahead on the queue ...
All, we had the second iteration of music server shootout this weekend, in the first iteration Everest easily bested Innous Statement and Grimm MU1.
For the second iteration we had Antipodes K50 pitted against Extreme - Qobuz as source, leveraging the recommended interfaces meaning AES and Jorma cable for K50 and for Taiko USB and Shunyata Omegas cable, both connected to MSB Premier which in turn linked into a Audio Analogue ABsolute running in class A, speakers where Marten Parker Trio Diamond Edition hooked up via Shunyata Alpha v2 speaker cable. Ethernet cables as well as power cables also Shunyata.
Shunyata power cables hooked up to an Everest - we tried out different grounding approaches - see below.
We used two switches to feed into the servers - a standard Innous PhenixNET and a modified one - additional network filter and some other tweaks.
Software setup was initially Roon server + player and then also TAS for Extreme. (K50 recommends HQ Player as player but we did not have a license - K50 can probably increase SQ somewhat above what we heard.)
K50 sounded really good - better than the candidates that was part of iteration one (i.e. Innous Statement and Grimm MU1).
But Extreme running Roon was clearly better than the K50 - as expected, there is a price difference of 10 000 US $ between the products.
But - being second behind Extreme is a very good position, it seems that a lot of design philosophies are shared between K50 and Extreme when looking at their website.
Next - we did A/B/A with the switches - we already concluded during iteration one that Extreme sounded better with a standard PhoenixNet in the chain than without it (Extreme has the new USB Card installed and in use). With the modded PhoenixNet SQ improved further - not a lot, but difference was clearly perceived, so although very well designed and well built the PhoenixNet can be improved. We also tested K50 with the modded PhoenixNet and the increase in SQ was relatively bigger compared with Extreme improvement leading to the conclusion that Extreme is better insulated against upstream network nasties - although of course not immune. (It will be interesting to repeat this test once the network + switch card is available.)
Then we switched Extreme from Roon to TAS.
Wow! Air, space, dynamics - everything fell into place on a higher level than before - mindblowingly good! This was by far the biggest change in SQ.
Lastly, we tested the effects of grounding. All along the above tests we had the following in place:
Second test - use special grounding cables from Entreq, these are pure silver and specifically designed for grounding (https://www.entreq.com/products/eartha-cables-17667932) so cable 3 and 4 was replaced. Result was a clear increase in SQ.
Conclusion:
For the second iteration we had Antipodes K50 pitted against Extreme - Qobuz as source, leveraging the recommended interfaces meaning AES and Jorma cable for K50 and for Taiko USB and Shunyata Omegas cable, both connected to MSB Premier which in turn linked into a Audio Analogue ABsolute running in class A, speakers where Marten Parker Trio Diamond Edition hooked up via Shunyata Alpha v2 speaker cable. Ethernet cables as well as power cables also Shunyata.
Shunyata power cables hooked up to an Everest - we tried out different grounding approaches - see below.
We used two switches to feed into the servers - a standard Innous PhenixNET and a modified one - additional network filter and some other tweaks.
Software setup was initially Roon server + player and then also TAS for Extreme. (K50 recommends HQ Player as player but we did not have a license - K50 can probably increase SQ somewhat above what we heard.)
K50 sounded really good - better than the candidates that was part of iteration one (i.e. Innous Statement and Grimm MU1).
But Extreme running Roon was clearly better than the K50 - as expected, there is a price difference of 10 000 US $ between the products.
But - being second behind Extreme is a very good position, it seems that a lot of design philosophies are shared between K50 and Extreme when looking at their website.
Next - we did A/B/A with the switches - we already concluded during iteration one that Extreme sounded better with a standard PhoenixNet in the chain than without it (Extreme has the new USB Card installed and in use). With the modded PhoenixNet SQ improved further - not a lot, but difference was clearly perceived, so although very well designed and well built the PhoenixNet can be improved. We also tested K50 with the modded PhoenixNet and the increase in SQ was relatively bigger compared with Extreme improvement leading to the conclusion that Extreme is better insulated against upstream network nasties - although of course not immune. (It will be interesting to repeat this test once the network + switch card is available.)
Then we switched Extreme from Roon to TAS.
Wow! Air, space, dynamics - everything fell into place on a higher level than before - mindblowingly good! This was by far the biggest change in SQ.
Lastly, we tested the effects of grounding. All along the above tests we had the following in place:
- All cables are cheap/standard cables fitted with spades in one end and open cable in other end
- Grounding cable from MSB -> Audio Analogue ABsolute
- Grounding cable from Audio Analogue ABsolute -> Everest grounding lug
- Grounding cable from Extreme grounding lug -> Everest grounding lug
- Grounding cable from PhoenixNet chassi -> Everest grounding lug
Second test - use special grounding cables from Entreq, these are pure silver and specifically designed for grounding (https://www.entreq.com/products/eartha-cables-17667932) so cable 3 and 4 was replaced. Result was a clear increase in SQ.
Conclusion:
- Extreme is the King of the Hill! But SW is key - TAS is huge improvement over Roon! With continued vertical integration across HW and SW we will get to audio nirvana - step by step
- Switch still matters
- Grounding matters - as does the cables used to implement grounding
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The Taiko Software in the shootout was the venerable TAS. XDMS is still waiting in the wings ;-)
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