EuroDriver

Hi Bernard, Believe me Emile has tried every flavor of Linux under the sun, but none of them compares with a stripped Win LTSC The Windows kernel became a lot better about 2 years ago, driven by Xbox gaming performance needs I suspect Linux would have been cheaper, but as to support, Taiko has had no issues with its Win LTSC build, rock solid As to the weight, it has been copper cooling radiators, RF control, and vibration management which have resulted in the weight of around 40 kgs. Now there is a choice of software for the Extreme, Roon or Taiko Audio Server

Ray, I am at a loss for for words. Your review is a reference, and I am sure that I will come back to it time and again Thank you for this gift !

Hi Nenon, Think of each clock like a radio transmitter with a carrier wave at the clock frequency. Vibration causes frequency modulation, power supply fluctuations result in amplitude modulation. RF emissions in the MHz to GHz range are very hard to stop, they get everywhere

Each and every clock in a digital device is a source of RF emissions. The frequency and amplitude of these clock emissions are modulated by - power supply fluctuations - vibrations These RF emissions can be attenuated but they still get everywhere, through the air, piggy backing off the AC supply cables, piggy backing on network cabling Random modulation of clock emissions are not so harmful, tape noise does not kill the sound of a master tape. However music signal correlated noise is harmful and needs to be managed to be less harmful. Why do CD transports have a hard time competing with SOTA Music Servers ? It's the vibrations coming off the CD drive. Really good CD transports look like turntables for a reason, vibration control You can do a test with a perfectly optically isolated DAC, you do things to the music PC, and you can hear it

On Mike's system, his Studer Master tape running 1/2 inch tapes at 15 ips was the clear sonic champ. The sound at Mike's is glorious and gorgeous. In Hengelo we have great electronics low noise electronics, but mikey mouse speakers in comparison to Mike's MM7's. In Hengelo, Redbook sounds like a Master Tape in it's information density

The Taiko Extreme does indeed bring digital streaming and saved digital files to SQ performance levels that Emile and I never imagined could be possible even 18 months ago. 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. How and when is level of digital SQ playback possible ? The major factors are - RF Emissions shaping - Vibration control - reduction of music correlated distortion / noise These advances have been made possible by developing and engineering the Extreme on a system which has the Total DAC D12 Mk2 with its incredible low noise floor, and the Audionet Stern and Heisenberg Pre and Monoblocs. This ultra low noise combination has allowed Emile to clearly detect small sonic differences which on other systems could hardly be detectable and then one would not be sure which was sounding better. When you sum up 30 to 40 of these small differences then the SQ Delta becomes a big jump. Some of the variations are actually counterintuitive, but repeated testing consistently delivered positive results in the Extreme Server, low noise electronics, high transparency system context. An example of where shaped random noise helps dramatically to improve SQ is adding shaped dither to a digital mix of 2 digital PCM streams. You can find dither demo's on YouTube With vibration, the surprise takeaway is that digital electronics are just as vibration sensitive as analog electronics, so attention and engineering applied to vibration control is essential to achieve "extreme performance" The industrial grade RAM is extremely expensive and has to be custom ordered but it has very audibly better performance which we believe is due to lower vibration sensitivity than standard RAM. Before you rush out to order industrial RAM, the optimization of RAM speed, refresh rates is comparable to tuning a concert grand, only possible by ear, but when you hit the sweet spot, the music sings. I need to stop here, before i give away too much of Emile's IP. Emile has left pretty much no stone un-turned in chassis design, server board data channel architecture, OS stripping /optimization, CPU core process allocation, latency optimization and vibration management The other good news as Emile has delivered many Extremes World wide which then have been hooked up to many different DAC's and systems, the elevation of the customer's system sonics has been consistent in character and difference, a lot of happy customers

This year's Munich High End was particular challenging for us in the Aequo Audio / Audiopax / Sound Galleries Blue Moon room. With thinner walls than in the past, and a central location in Halle 3, we had an ambient noise level in our cabin of no less than 65 dB !! Luckily for us we were showcasing for the first time, active anti-vibration platforms and active ground control blocks which helped transform blah sound to "captivating", "refinement". Here is Michael Lavorgna's report on Audiostream https://www.audiostream.com/content/...comment-516726 The Sound Galleries collective continues to impress Michael !

I have been on the road for 2 weeks, and just got back from visiting and DAC testing on some superb systems with Magico Q7 and Evolution Acoustics MM7. Here are my take aways. 1) HQ Player's new XTR filters deliver a major improvement in sound quality that can heard on mid fi systems and better 2) The XTR filters help both PCM DAC's and DSD DAC's. In ultra transparent systems where you can hear everything, the DSD DACS's are getting an even bigger uplift than the PCM DAC's 3) There are quite a few DAC's which have their format / sample rate sweet spot at a fairly low sample rates, and these DAC's do not benefit very much from HQ Player's digital filtering prowess. All of the DAC's below take good advantage of HQ Players out board filtering and will sound better with each significant HQ Player release 4) The best / optimal DAC for the listener depends very much on his system and how the listener enjoys his music The PCM DAC's which I highly recommend for an audition are Aqua Formula - Bass definition outstanding Metrum Adagio and Pavane Level 3 - very sweet highs Total DAC D1-6 and D1-12 - excellent tonal density but some may miss the additional detail that 352 / 384 KHz brings The DSD DAC's which I would recommend for auditioning Nagra HD - pricey, max DSD 128, and you need the optional output transformers, but oh what a sound, simply superb Lampi GG DSD 512 - the emotional heart string pulling diva. When fitted with the output tube and rectifier tube that matches the system and the listener's sonic taste, this will float the emotional listeners boat. T+A PDP-3000 HV - the XTR filters makes this DAC very sonically competitive once more. T+A DAC 8 DSD - the price performance champ. Some easy to fit upgrades will be offered by Taiko Audio soon On the interesting list, but I have not heard them Bryston BDP-3 Gryphon Calliope

Hi miguelito, I have e-mailed you regarding our revised DAC rankings. HQP 3.16 has changed the SQ competive landscape quite considerably Best Ed

Hi ricka, There are settings in HQ Player, which at first glance, should be set and forget, but if you have a transparent and revealing system you can hear changes as you vary the setting, and some times quite big changes. An example of this is varying the buffer size. Whether you can actual change the size of the data blocks being sent over USB is controlled by the parameters in the ASIO driver. For some DAC ASIO drivers this is fixed, but even with these DAC's when you vary the buffer size, the the sound changes ! Another well known example is even if you are using HQP for PCM to DSD, the settings for PCM to PCM conversion affect the sound of PCM to DSD. The SQ delta of this second level tuning is very system dependent and very much YMMV. But it's free and we have yet to find a good system which does not benefit from this king of second level fine tuning

Hi Brian, Working with Alex at Alma Audio, there will be a room at the LA show with a SGM

Hi Matt, The SGM will be in at least 2 rooms at High End 2017. More details to come Look forward to seeing you and Claudia

I first heard the Aqua Formula on Dec 10, when I was doing a demo of the SGM. We used Poly Sinc Shrt MP and TPDF to convert everything to 24/352 or 384. We were very impressed by the sound in a system with a Bespoke balanced TVC, Pass amps and Zu speakers My second encounter was in early January in Seattle at Mike Lavignes where the system was SGM > Formula > XLR in to Dartzeel pre and power amps and Evolution Acoustics MM7 speakers in a purpose built listening room. I had never heard digital reproduction so good, anywhere. Last week Alex at Alma Audio, CA told us we have got to try the Closed Form filter with the noise shaper NS5. On Wednesday we tried Closed Form in Monaco, and wow, a even higher level of transparency and realism. This was with SGM > Formula > EAR integrated > Avantgarde Duo speakers with a Trio Bass horns. The Aqua Formula does not stop surprising us with its detail, transparency, tonality and dynamics. The icing on the Cake, is how good native DSD64 tracks converted to DXD by HQ Player, sound when delivered to the Formula, quite stunning, the best DSD 64 Playback chain we have ever heard. IMHO, for anyone looking to put together a top shelf system, this is one DAC to have an extended audition. However, please note, that being a discrete R2R, it takes a long time to burn in, and takes at least a week to start showing its potential

If you like, we could build you a SGM with a i7 7700K. Would it sound noticeably better ? We don't think so Skylake package has it's weak points for sure, but Skylake 6700 K is much better sounding than 5th and 4th generation comparable processors. We tested a lot of motherboards before we settled on the one we use. Power supplies are key, the ones in the SGM are custom designed and manufactured

We do offer bundles with DAC's such as the T+A DAC 8 DSD, the Aqua Formula. Then the price / performance looks very compelling compared to some very well regarded DAC's. For tube rollers, we can organize a bundle with a Lampizator GG