Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[engadin]

Groan.

I had read Christiaan reporting astonishing sonic changes with different positions of the bars supporting the Taiko extreme in his Artesania rack.
Well.
My Taiko sits on center stage 2m 1.5 footers on an oak floor glued to concrete or other solid stuff.
Wasn’t the left front footer too much away from the Taiko’s front? Maybe I could have even better sound with different footer positions?
Mild paranoia set in.
Carefully I slightly lifted the Taiko just enough to put this footer a few cm closer to me.
Immediately soundstage became flat, some drive got lost.
This can’t be true …
Maybe I had upset those exotic footers, known to be fussy with a „settling“ time?
I repositioned the footer.
Mind you, just one bloody footer.
Drive &soundstage came back at once.

Groan.
This component has one of the very best casings of the industry.
These are clearly some of the very best footers this crazy industry has to offer.
Nevertheless …

Has someone here of the esteemed members left the path of mental sanity enough to determine optimum positions of footers?
Please advise?

 

[Rhapsody]

I assume you are referring to streaming ... if yes, with Qobuz and in Concert mode the gap in between tracks within a queue is <1s with the yesterday's backend update in my system.

Local albums exhibit a near-gapless behavior (again, in Concert mode).

I am not getting the same results. With local file playback in Concert mode I am getting <1 sec. With Qbouz streaming in Concert mode I am mostly getting 3-4 sec between tracks and sometimes 8-9 seconds.

Edit- I think this is what Cat6man is getting on streaming on as well. The <1 sec is on his file playbacks in Concert mode.

Can someone else chime in on what the time between tracks in Concert mode with Qobuz streaming is? Is it 3-4 or 5-6 or ??? depending on file size or are others getting <1 sec on Quobuz streaming in Concert mode.

I don't think Qobuz in Concert mode is doing <1 sec (YET. I hope I am wrong.

 

[Koegz]

Groan.

I had read Christiaan reporting astonishing sonic changes with different positions of the bars supporting the Taiko extreme in his Artesania rack.
Well.
My Taiko sits on center stage 2m 1.5 footers on an oak floor glued to concrete or other solid stuff.
Wasn’t the left front footer too much away from the Taiko’s front? Maybe I could have even better sound with different footer positions?
Mild paranoia set in.
Carefully I slightly lifted the Taiko just enough to put this footer a few cm closer to me.
Immediately soundstage became flat, some drive got lost.
This can’t be true …
Maybe I had upset those exotic footers, known to be fussy with a „settling“ time?
I repositioned the footer.
Mind you, just one bloody footer.
Drive &soundstage came back at once.

Groan.
This component has one of the very best casings of the industry.
These are clearly some of the very best footers this crazy industry has to offer.
Nevertheless …

Has someone here of the esteemed members left the path of mental sanity enough to determine optimum positions of footers?
Please advise?

The perfect footer, HRS. Plus wilbury the cat. Who stabilizes everything.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...oh, Wilbury is back home? I heard he was traveling.

 

[Kingsrule]

Groan.

I had read Christiaan reporting astonishing sonic changes with different positions of the bars supporting the Taiko extreme in his Artesania rack.
Well.
My Taiko sits on center stage 2m 1.5 footers on an oak floor glued to concrete or other solid stuff.
Wasn’t the left front footer too much away from the Taiko’s front? Maybe I could have even better sound with different footer positions?
Mild paranoia set in.
Carefully I slightly lifted the Taiko just enough to put this footer a few cm closer to me.
Immediately soundstage became flat, some drive got lost.
This can’t be true …
Maybe I had upset those exotic footers, known to be fussy with a „settling“ time?
I repositioned the footer.
Mind you, just one bloody footer.
Drive &soundstage came back at once.

Groan.
This component has one of the very best casings of the industry.
These are clearly some of the very best footers this crazy industry has to offer.
Nevertheless …

Has someone here of the esteemed members left the path of mental sanity enough to determine optimum positions of footers?
Please advise?

Way back Emile posted here that footer positions under Extreme made differences. FWIR there were no other details...

 

[Steve Williams]

Groan.

I had read Christiaan reporting astonishing sonic changes with different positions of the bars supporting the Taiko extreme in his Artesania rack.
Well.
My Taiko sits on center stage 2m 1.5 footers on an oak floor glued to concrete or other solid stuff.
Wasn’t the left front footer too much away from the Taiko’s front? Maybe I could have even better sound with different footer positions?
Mild paranoia set in.
Carefully I slightly lifted the Taiko just enough to put this footer a few cm closer to me.
Immediately soundstage became flat, some drive got lost.
This can’t be true …
Maybe I had upset those exotic footers, known to be fussy with a „settling“ time?
I repositioned the footer.
Mind you, just one bloody footer.
Drive &soundstage came back at once.

Groan.
This component has one of the very best casings of the industry.
These are clearly some of the very best footers this crazy industry has to offer.
Nevertheless …

Has someone here of the esteemed members left the path of mental sanity enough to determine optimum positions of footers?
Please advise?

Have a look at my pictures. My CS2M 1,5’s are all sitting just inside each stock footer and placed almost to the front and rear edges of the Extrenme . Works perfectly. I wouldn’t use any other form of isolation but I am biased to their efficacy

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[dminches]

View attachment 100227

Where's the switch and power supply going to go???

 

[Steve Williams]

Probably where my Playback Designs SACD player is (that’s assuming the new Extreme with battery supply will be a one box unit

 

[microstrip]

No filtering involved with either XDMS playback modes.

Discovery caches a track at the time, while Concert caches the next track in the queue thus allowing gapless playback.

Discovery should be the most purist as it minimizes the server load while playing, however Ed says no noticeable sound quality degradation is audible with Concert mode.

Are you saying that in XDMS complete tracks are downloaded and played from RAM? This will introduce a long latency in playback.

 

[Armsan]

The last patch for XDMS Alpha v2 is a major SQ step forward.
Thank You Taiko Team.

 

[Steve Williams]

The last patch for XDMS Alpha v2 is a major SQ step forward.
Thank You Taiko Team.

I just got the patch last night and have been listening for the past few hours. Simply put I'm stunned . I really don't understand it but according to Ed the patch is an improved SQ back end. Initial impressions.........sound quality is better with deeper bass and better resolution

 

[EuroDriver]

Are you saying that in XDMS complete tracks are downloaded and played from RAM? This will introduce a long latency in playbac

in Concert mode there is a wait for the first track in the Queue to load, but the subsequent tracks are pre-loaded so that the gap is pretty short

 

[Steve Williams]

Reading the dialog that goes on in the Discord app, I can honestly say that the feed back given by members here is simply fantastic as the bugs seemed to be squashed much quicker . This coupled with the input member/users are giving as to suggestions etc have shown me the value of "community". These guys are many pay grades above me and feel very comfortable getting into the bowels of the Extreme and doing things which I laud because I personally would be too dangerous trying things on my own as I would create a lot of unnecessary team viewer fixes. Bottom line was , when I was going to sleep, Ed was reading the morning news and kindly did the patch. Thank you once again and as always, Ed. Your work always brings a smile to my face

I don't understand how you guys make it happen but you do. I'm truly impressed with the computing and coding knowledge members here have. To all of you, I give a big shout out because I believe the fact that this alpha user team is so knowledgeable, the XDMS platform will not only be better than expected and come across the finish line sooner. I haven't heard a big change lately in SQ with each new build, and there have been several in the past week, but my initial impression makes me want (even more) that switch and new ethernet card as Emile has said this is the biggest improvement to date (and he has more tricks up his sleeve).

Go Team Taiko

 

[microstrip]

in Concert mode there is a wait for the first track in the Queue to load, but the subsequent tracks are pre-loaded so that the gap is pretty short

Can this pre- load mode can be considered streaming? Can you legally load a full album and play it after it has been fully loaded?

 

[EuroDriver]

Can this pre- load mode can be considered streaming? Can you legally load a full album and play it after it has been fully loaded?

Every track that is downloaded is encrypted and unplayable by software other than XDMS. After the track is played, it is deleted

A lot of Audio Software is playing from RAM caches, it’s a common technique for improving sound quality

 

[pleroma]

Reading the dialog that goes on in the Discord app, I can honestly say that the feed back given by members here is simply fantastic as the bugs seemed to be squashed much quicker . This coupled with the input member/users are giving as to suggestions etc have shown me the value of "community". These guys are many pay grades above me and feel very comfortable getting into the bowels of the Extreme and doing things which I laud because I personally would be too dangerous trying things on my own as I would create a lot of unnecessary team viewer fixes. Bottom line was , when I was going to sleep, Ed was reading the morning news and kindly did the patch. Thank you once again and as always, Ed. Your work always brings a smile to my face

I don't understand how you guys make it happen but you do. I'm truly impressed with the computing and coding knowledge members here have. To all of you, I give a big shout out because I believe the fact that this alpha user team is so knowledgeable, the XDMS platform will not only be better than expected and come across the finish line sooner. I haven't heard a big change lately in SQ with each new build, and there have been several in the past week, but my initial impression makes me want (even more) that switch and new ethernet card as Emile has said this is the biggest improvement to date (and he has more tricks up his sleeve).

Go Team Taiko

Steve, what impresses me, having been in the development business a long time and knowing how difficult projects are to manage, is how well Ed and Christiaan are handling the pressure and unforeseen problems. Software projects seem to always slip and costs overrun (yikes, think of the Obamacare website!). I also think their composure is a reflection of Emile's leadership. These guys are really cool, and I can sense their future success with this. My hat is off to them.

 

[Steve Williams]

, but hasn't this threadlike up again with Emile finding some time to spend here and every post of his seemed to be a little nugget Steve, what impresses me, having been in the development business a long time and knowing how difficult projects are to manage, is how well Ed and Christiaan are handling the pressure and unforeseen problems. Software projects seem to always slip and costs overrun (yikes, think of the Obamacare website!). I also think their composure is a reflection of Emile's leadership. These guys are really cool, and I can sense their future success with this. My hat is off to them.

I had the good fortune of having Emile and one of his em[ployees "Ted" at my home shortly after I acquired my Extreme. It was a fun weekend and there wasn't a moment when Emile didn't have a smile on his face ,. It shines through on everything going on with all things Taiko. BTW, not that we don't appreciate Ed or Christiaan, whom we all sing praise for, but have you all noticed how this thread has lit up again with Emile finding some time to post, but when he did, they were all little nuggets of information

 

[Steve Vu]

No filtering involved with either XDMS playback modes.

Discovery caches a track at the time, while Concert caches the next track in the queue thus allowing gapless playback.

Discovery should be the most purist as it minimizes the server load while playing, however Ed says no noticeable sound quality degradation is audible with Concert mode.

Are there the differences about sound between these modes? If not, why does it must use 2 modes only for gapless playback?

 

[engadin]

Steve wrote: „My CS2M 1,5’s are all sitting just inside each stock footer and placed almost to the front and rear edges of the Extrenme .“

Thank you, Steve. Placing the footer closer to the front panel, closer to the edge made sound worse in my system.
Maybe this is because the footers here at my place are on the floor and not on a high end rack like yours.

Christiaan, Emile, maybe we can get your recommendations on footer/Artesiana support placement?

Cheers, Ulrich