SGM Taiko Extreme

[Nenon]

11 hours ago, isquirrel said:

The new Taiko Extreme does not upsample and does not use any internal clocks

 

What do you mean by "does not use any internal clocks". Surely, you need an internal clock to generate the USB output. 

I remember reading comments from Emile that they have found a solution that works better than OCXO clocks, but he is very secretive about it.

[Nenon]

6 minutes ago, EuroDriver said:

I have had the experience of listen to an decent quality 16/44 track played back on the Extreme and it sounded like a master tape. 

 

Well, it was a big pleasure to read the report of your visit to Mike Lavigne's listening room. But after reading Mike's comments, I was not left with the impression that the Extreme has reached the level of a master tape.

 

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-the-crème-de-la-crème.27433/post-603088

Quote

it was interesting seeing the reactions to my 2 turntables; they caused some quite strong preferences. and the grins and muttering after hearing the tape were priceless.

"how can we ever get digital to sound like 1/2" tape?" was said by someone.

how indeed?

 

Having said that, I have no doubts to believe that the Extreme is the best digital source on the market at the moment. The level of attention to details is OUTSTANDING! 

[Nenon]

43 minutes ago, dminches said:

Could someone explain to me how vibrations can get into the digital stream and cause issues?  I assume it is actually affecting the electronic stream of bits?

 

I am not saying it can't affect things; I would just like to understand it better.

 

 

Vibrations impact the oscillator / clock operation and create phase noise, i.e. audible jitter. There are many studies on this if you search the web. Think about where the clocks are in your system and which clocks are most important - that's the place where you need better care for vibrations. 

[Nenon]

On 11/7/2019 at 6:38 AM, marce said:

Depends where the kit is being operated, domestic homes are low vibration environment... a helicopter is not.. To affect the bit stream would take some serious vibration, clocks can be effected, but even then you'd need a lot of vibration to make a difference that is audible IMO.

 

9 hours ago, marce said:

I would not have thought the levels of vibration would have such an effect on the clock stability.

 

I am not a scientist, and it's hard for me to interpret some of the studies. Here is a chart table I have saved on my computer (can't remember where I got it from, but I am sure I can find it if I look for it).

It shows oscillators phase noise without vibration and under vibration.  The problem is I have no idea what 0.015 g2/Hz correlates to. Is it an earthquake with magnitude of 7+? Or is it vibration that can be caused by sound waves in our listening room, or transformers, or from our AC mains, etc. If someone can give a real-world example of that value, I would appreciate it. 

 

One thing I can say for sure, though. Vibration treatment on my computer and my DAC is clearly audible in my system. There is no question about it. I was looking for a logical explanation why, and vibrations impacting oscillators made the most sense to me. That does not explain why vibration treatment helps my phono stage, which does not have any oscillators, so there must be more to it. 

 

BTW, that Taiko Extreme motherboard looks a lot like this one - https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/WS-C621E-SAGE/overview/

 

 

 

[Nenon]

2 minutes ago, Nenon said:

BTW, that Taiko Extreme motherboard looks a lot like this one - https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/WS-C621E-SAGE/overview/

 

I guess that's not news. It has been publicly announced already.

Quote

It’s the Asus WS C621E Sage with 2X Silver 4114.

Source: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-the-crème-de-la-crème.27433/post-557810

 

 

[Nenon]

9 minutes ago, Miska said:

With asynchronous clocking, only clock involved in audio playback is the one inside DAC.

That's the theory but not what I hear. Upstream clock changes still had some impact in my system when I was using asynchronous data transfer. I use I2S now, so it matters even more.

 

13 minutes ago, Miska said:

Electrolytic capacitors are massively more microphonic than clocks. That would probably explain effect on DACs and phono stage.

That makes perfect sense. 

[Nenon]

13 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

I2S is for connecting between chips, maximum 20 mm distances. And it needs very very careful PCB layout to not totally screw up.

It's using LVDS with very very careful PCB layout... And I like it better than any USB I have tried so far. 

 

13 minutes ago, Miska said:

Sure, you can make things very sensitive to all changes (hard to get functional at all) if that is your goal...

Not my goal obviously. My point was that changes to upstream clocks with USB have always made a difference with any DAC I have tried, no matter how much DAC manufacturers / engineers keep saying that ONLY the DAC clock matters. I am yet to hear a DAC that is completely immune to crappy clocks in front of it. 

 

[Nenon]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

I have not yet seen such... But I favor Ethernet over USB.

 

 

Can you provide some measurement results? Yes, I've seen using I2S over cable making difference, but towards worse.

 

 

Sorry, if it is not clear I am an end consumer / DIY-er in some cases , not an industry manufacturer/designer/engineer. I don't own precise measurement equipment, just some basic ones.

 

What I said is that upgraded upstream clocks sound better in my system. I don't believe that the only clock that matters with asynchronous signal is the one on the DAC, because that contradicts my experience. I have not heard a DAC that is completely immune to upstream clock changes. Rajiv's review on the DCS DAC was interesting. I have never tried a DCS DAC or the top of the line MSB DACs. But with the other dozen of DACs I have tried, I can clearly hear audible difference when making changes to the upstream clocks. 

 

When it comes to digital sources, I have tested every product that has piqued my interest. That includes streamers like the microRendu, ultraRendu, sms-200, Allo DigiOne Signature Player. It also includes PCIe cards like the JCAT USB card, PinkFaun USB Bridge, PinkFaun I2S Bridge, SOTM USB card, etc. It includes quite a few different motherboards, CPUs, RAM, power supplies, etc. 

 

After testing all that, I like the sound of the PinkFaun I2S card with ultraOCXO clock and Sean Jacobs DC3 LPS the best of all in my system. However, it is clear that this is DAC dependent. Other implementations (i.e. USB, upsampling, etc.) work better on some DACs. So I always look at the entire chain from the file you play all the way to the analog conversion as one complex system and how software, hardware, and everything in between interracts together. 

 

But back to asynchronous tests with USB cards - a PinkFaun USB bridge with ultra OCXO clock installed sounds a lot better in my system (with all the DACs I have tried) than the same PinkFaun USB bridge without the ultra OCXO clock. Also their lower class OCXO clock installed on the same card sounds different. It's literally a matter of removing the ultra OCXO clock and putting the lower class OCXO clock, so that test eliminates a lot of questionable variables and leaves the clock as the only significant change in the system. That to me is a proof that the clocks upstream of the DAC make some kind of a difference. I have no respect of the manufacturers (at least of the DACs I have tried) who claim the contrary. To me, it is clear that they have no idea what they are talking about. 

 

Lastly, I have no desire to argue with anyone here, neither have the time for this. And I especially try to avoid arguments with people with 5-digit posts. Sorry, I have more important things to do in my life. Those discussions have been had many times in these forums and are not useful to anyone. No matter what you measure and what you say, you will not change my opinion. And I will not try to change yours. So let's move on and talk about the Extreme server, which has a state of the art engineering for this time. I would really like to have the opportunity to listen to one myself. 

 

[Nenon]

1 hour ago, isquirrel said:

I too thought that ultra precise clocks are important inn a music server, the transition from the Aurender W20 to the Taiko Extreme and the use of MSB Pro USB module has debunked that idea in my system. The MSB Select II DAC has an option of a Femto 33 clock which is the most accurate clock you can buy. The MSB Select II re-clocks all data and I have found removing upstream clocks have improved the sound. Until you have heard it, it's difficult to accept however myself and a bunch of MSB Select II owners have all come to the same realisation.

 

2 hours ago, isquirrel said:

I have had the Taiko Extreme for a month or so now, I have over 600 hours on it. It has sounded better and better and I still don't think it has hit its peak. If you have a MSB Select II DAC, you owe it to yourself to bite the bullet and get this beautifully built server. 

 

I am a little bit confused what are you trying to say here. I was trying to say that many manufacturers make claims that upstream devices don't make a difference, but I have never heard a DAC yet that is completely immune to upstream devices (never heard any MSB DACs, or the DCS DAC Rajiv reviewed, in my system, though). I have heard the opposite many times - changing upstream devices makes a bigger difference that changing DACs. By improved upstream clocks I did not mean daisy chaining a bunch of USB de-crapifiers between the server and the DAC. I am pretty sure if you try to do that with your Taiko Extreme, you would end up with worse quality after all. But your Taiko, according to Emile, has something that works better than OCXO clocks, whatever that is... There are obviously clocks in every computer. What I actually meant was generating a clean, low-jitter, low-noise digital signal that goes directly to your DAC. That's what Taiko Extreme (and any other good quality source IMO) does. 

 

So, are you saying that devices upstream from the MSB Select II DAC with Femto 33 clock don't make a difference? If that's the case, hats off to the MSB engineers. But does that mean you can replace your Taiko Extreme with a MacBook (or a NUC, or another genetic computer) and you won't hear any audible difference? I thought you were saying that the Taiko Extreme does make a big difference. So I am a little confused exactly what are you trying to say? 

 

[Nenon]

7 hours ago, isquirrel said:

My apologies, when I re-read my post I can see how its confusing. So let me start from the beginning:

 

I already had the Aurender W20 when I purchased the MSB Select II DAC (+dual power supplies, 33 Femto clock) I decided to use the AES 110 ohm output from the Aurender as I could then use the additional clock sync option on the W20 & on the DAC. That produced a sound that at the time was probably at or close to Start of the Art digital playback. Not using the USB option mean't that I was missing out on MQA streaming and ultra high res files. Then Jonathan from MSB told me they had engineered a USB solution that should have made music servers all but redundant. This was interesting and I subsequently acquired the ProUSB module and external USB to Fibre module.

 

More info here: http://www.msbtechnology.com/accessories/prousb/

 

Still using the W20 I moved to the Pro USB solution. It was clearly superior although I still found that different USB cables sounded well, different.

 

Fast forward to the Taiko Extreme, a unit was lent to me and much I as tried not to enjoy it, the facts were obvious it sounded considerably better.

 

So yes I 100% agree that even with the ProUSB module and the fact that the DAC re-clocks all data, the source as it has forever been (I am thinking of the Linn Sondek LP12 days :-)) is all important. It doesn't matter how good your DAC is if it doesn't have the best data fed to it, its simply not going to be there. 

 

I have tested the Taiko Extreme with MSB's Bit Perfect test files, unfortunately they only work with MSB's latest DAC's. The files all played Bit Perfect the same as they did on the Aurender W20. So if they were playing bit perfect what was going on to generate such a difference in sound quality? 

 

The answer I have come to believe is noise and isolation. Emile has taken such "extreme" length's to lower the noise floor and or shift it to frequencies which do not cause major issues in the digital playback realm.

 

I trust this explains my findings with greater clarity.

 

MSB offers a number of input options: I have found the following to be the case in order of preference when using either the W20 or the taiko Extreme.

 

1.   ProUSB

2.   USB

3.   Network Renderer V2 

 

 

 

    

 

That makes sense and is inline with what I was thinking. The fiber-isolated USB module and the ultra low noise clock in the MSB DAC must be reducing the influence of the upstream components quite significantly, but like with other products, they are still there. Otherwise a different USB cable or upstream server would not make a difference. I am sure that even a MacBook would sound really good, but if you want those last bits of performance and refinement, the Taiko Extreme would do it.

BTW, it's the same with my EtherREGEN switch - while it almost annulates upstream effects, the word "almost" plays a key role here.

Thank you for the feedback.