Introducing Olympus & Olympus I/O - A new perspective on modern music playback

For those who just started reading up on Olympus, Olympus I/O, and XDMI, please note that all information in this thread has been summarized in a single PDF document that can be downloaded from the Taiko Website.

https://taikoaudio.com/taiko-2020/taiko-audio-downloads

The document is frequently updated.

Scroll down to the 'XDMI, Olympus Music Server, Olympus I/O' section and click 'XDMI, Olympus, Olympus I/O Product Introduction & FAQ' to download the latest version.

Good morning WBF!​

We are introducing the culmination of close to 4 years of research and development. As a bona fide IT/tech nerd with a passion for music, I have always been intrigued by the potential of leveraging the most modern of technologies in order to create a better music playback experience. This, amongst others, led to the creation of our popular, perhaps even revolutionary, Extreme music server 5 years ago, which we have been steadily improving and updating with new technologies throughout its life cycle. Today I feel we can safely claim it's holding its ground against the onslaught of new server releases from other companies, and we are committed to keep improving it for years to come.

We are introducing a new server model called the Olympus. Hierarchically, it positions itself above the Extreme. It does provide quite a different music experience than the Extreme, or any other server I've heard, for that matter. Conventional audiophile descriptions such as sound staging, dynamics, color palette, etc, fall short to describe this difference. It does not sound digital or analog, I would be inclined to describe it as coming closer to the intended (or unintended) performance of the recording engineer.

Committed to keeping the Extreme as current as possible, we are introducing a second product called the Olympus I/O. This is an external upgrade to the Extreme containing a significant part of the Olympus technology, allowing it to come near, though not entirely at, Olympus performance levels. The Olympus I/O can even be added to the Olympus itself to elevate its performance even further, though not as dramatic an uplift as adding it to the Extreme. Consider it the proverbial "cherry on top".

 

Olympus is really intended to operate in a low power regime (for obvious reasons). Roon cranking through analyzing my 30k++ library from my NAS gradually depletes the system BPS over a couple days, even with charging on (need to turn off analysis every now and then to let the battery recharge)

When Roon is doing normal playback (no analysis, etc), all is happy and can easily keep up.

 

Olympus is really intended to operate in a low power regime (for obvious reasons). Roon cranking through analyzing my 30k++ library from my NAS gradually depletes the system BPS over a couple days, even with charging on (need to turn off analysis every now and then to let the battery recharge)

When Roon is doing normal playback (no analysis, etc), all is happy and can easily keep up.

That is a startling, although on reflection, perhaps not an unexpected finding. I am surprised that even with the lowest "Throttled" setting, the energy depletion rate exceeds the maximum charge rate. For those wondering what this is, it's in Roon > Settings > Library:


In my experience on the Extreme and before that, Roon's analysis (which analyzes each tracks volume level and dynamic range) is a pretty heavy process, much more so than the actual scanning of files. Luckily both the above settings can be turned off, which I've often done in the past when adding large batches of files to my library.

Emile @Taiko Audio : perhaps it would be safer to ship future Olympi with Roon configured with these 2 settings OFF. The user can later run this Throttled (perhaps over prescribed intervals) at a later time after the initial library scan is complete?

 

Leaving On Demand to be Fast would work as well. Analysis for a single track is pretty fast

At the end of the day, lower power and higher SQ for the long term is a huge win over first set up (for obvious reasons), so the trade off is definitely the right one. Just need to be aware if you've got insanely large libraries that take more than 2-3 days to analyze

 

Does the analysis information affect playback in any way? I didn’t think it did but I haven’t looked into the topic in ages.

 

Only thing I noticed back in the day is getting a dynamic range reading and the audio form. Looking at the help page, it isn't necessary for playback (I don't want Roon doing any volume control or adjustments or cross fade)

https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/audio-analysis#Detecting_corrupt_media

 

That is a startling, although on reflection, perhaps not an unexpected finding. I am surprised that even with the lowest "Throttled" setting, the energy depletion rate exceeds the maximum charge rate. For those wondering what this is, it's in Roon > Settings > Library:
View attachment 135059

In my experience on the Extreme and before that, Roon's analysis (which analyzes each tracks volume level and dynamic range) is a pretty heavy process, much more so than the actual scanning of files. Luckily both the above settings can be turned off, which I've often done in the past when adding large batches of files to my library.

Emile @Taiko Audio : perhaps it would be safer to ship future Olympi with Roon configured with these 2 settings OFF. The user can later run this Throttled (perhaps over prescribed intervals) at a later time after the initial library scan is complete?

As far as I remember Emile setting my Roon for Extreme This both options should be completely OFF as it uses tons of power in the background.

And yes it affected the sound very significantly in my system.
So I kept it OFF at all times.

I don't thing this has changed with Olympus.
Please let me know if I I'm wrong on that.

 

Most definitely not wrong! Any power draw/heat seems to impact SQ on these machines. Emile and team have moved absolute mountains to have these monster-class machines run as cool as they do

 

So I kept it OFF at all times.

I don't thing this has changed with Olympus.
Please let me know if I I'm wrong on that.

Yes, its been long recommended to have both these settings off

In the Taiko Roon Settings Document on the Taiko Website downloads page

https://taikoaudio.com/taiko-2020/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Recommended-Roon-Settings_V8.x80569.pdf

it's step 3 and step 4

 

Yes, its been long recommended to have both these settings off

In the Taiko Roon Settings Document on the Taiko Website downloads page

https://taikoaudio.com/taiko-2020/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Recommended-Roon-Settings_V8.x80569.pdf

it's step 3 and step 4

Perhaps an updated energy management guide for the Olympus would be in order? Many here have not used Roon in a long time since the advent of TAS and XDMS.

It appears there are Roon usage scenarios that can cause power draw in excess of the capacity of the BPS charger, causing the BPS to drain even with the charging enabled. I imagine this would be unsettling to some users.

 

That is a startling, although on reflection, perhaps not an unexpected finding. I am surprised that even with the lowest "Throttled" setting, the energy depletion rate exceeds the maximum charge rate. For those wondering what this is, it's in Roon > Settings > Library:
View attachment 135059

In my experience on the Extreme and before that, Roon's analysis (which analyzes each tracks volume level and dynamic range) is a pretty heavy process, much more so than the actual scanning of files. Luckily both the above settings can be turned off, which I've often done in the past when adding large batches of files to my library.

Emile @Taiko Audio : perhaps it would be safer to ship future Olympi with Roon configured with these 2 settings OFF. The user can later run this Throttled (perhaps over prescribed intervals) at a later time after the initial library scan is complete?

That’s possible BUT we’d need your Roon credentials to configure Roon before shipping.

However this is somewhat unexpected, 30K tracks is not that big a library, unless the files are all very large? @ray-dude do you have an estimate of the total library size in Terabytes? And it’s solved by just disabling the file analysing process?

 

Perhaps an updated energy management guide for the Olympus would be in order? Many here have not used Roon in a long time since the advent of TAS and XDMS.

It appears there are Roon usage scenarios that can cause power draw in excess of the capacity of the BPS charger, causing the BPS to drain even with the charging enabled. I imagine this would be unsettling to some users.

The CPU/subsystems can indeed draw substantial amounts of power, it’s beastly hardware, we can throttle power of course, but we’d need to know what to throttle. You’d want to balance SQ performance versus minimal necessary functionality.

A guide we can do of course but scanning a library I’d consider basic functionality so some more data input would be appreciated!

 

Its a simple toggle on/off regarding Background Audio Analysis Speed/On-Demand Audio Analysis Speed: Go into Roon Settings/Library scroll down to the last two and toggle off.

I'm more concerned with a relatively small amount of tracks 30K + and the depletion.. @ray-dude can you please let us know how long it is taking you and if disabling the forementioned settings helped...

 

My guess is that ray-dude’s average file size is much larger than “normal.” So while he may be processing 30k files, the total data size could be pretty big.

 

However this is somewhat unexpected, 30K tracks is not that big a library, unless the files are all very large? @ray-dude do you have an estimate of the total library size in Terabytes? And it’s solved by just disabling the file analysing process?

Emile, I have ~8TB overall. That breaks down to (roughly)

3TB HD music (from 96/24 up)
1TB 44k music
4TB UHD music (PGGB upsamples)

Note that a lot of the PGGB upsamples can not be played by Roon (they are 48k family DSD512 which Roon doesn't support) so these are not imported to Roon

All this is going from my file server to the Olympus for analysis, so a fairly heavy data transfer

Also, doing a more careful directory by directory view, looks like I'm north of 40k tracks (sorry for misstating that before). Still a modest number, although the bulk of the files are larger HD files

 

I'm more concerned with a relatively small amount of tracks 30K + and the depletion.. @ray-dude can you please let us know how long it is taking you and if disabling the forementioned settings helped...

I think audio analysis is a "nice to have" and it is also only a one time thing when first connecting a library to Roon.

When analysis is off, system runs great.

I would not do any critical music listening with a heavy duty process like music analysis running in the background. I also don't use any DSP in Roon (part of the reason I off line upsample some music)

In "normal" operation everything is fine.

The surprise for me (which shouldn't have been a surprise in retrospect) was that a mains connected server could shut off because of depleted battery.

Given what this system is capable of burning (power wise), that shouldn't have been a surprise. Given that mains are only charging the batteries (not bypassing them to power the motherboard), that shouldn't have been a surprise.

To have a server of this performance class running on battery is a pretty wild thing to get your head wrapped around.

Since many of us will naively connect relatively large libraries to Roon and let it do its analysis thing, I shared as a heads up to pay attention to System BMS charge after you first get your Olympus (or not be surprised if it drains out). Turning off audio analysis works great as well.

I want to emphasize that normal Roon playback is fine. Today is my first full day actually listening to music (analysis off), and no power draw worries with analysis turned off

(EDIT)

Since I got some private questions, I want to emphasize that Roon imported my library very quickly with no problems (reading meta data). The time (and power) consuming part was when Roon was doing audio analysis, where it processes the entire track. There were no challenges at all with library import.

 

it’s beastly hardware

This should be in all caps, blinking red text. Quite the remarkable engineering achievement (mechanical, electrical, systems engineering) to be able to run this class hardware on battery, with passive cooling, with extremely noise sensitive hardware (the DAC) sitting right there.

It will take me a while to get my head wrapped around this new world order.

 

This should be in all caps, blinking red text. Quite the remarkable engineering achievement (mechanical, electrical, systems engineering) to be able to run this class hardware on battery, with passive cooling, with extremely noise sensitive hardware (the DAC) sitting right there.

It will take me a while to get my head wrapped around this new world order.

Can you please share what you think about the SQ im comparison to Extreme?
I believe many waited for more details on that.

 

Can you please share what you think about the SQ im comparison to Extreme?
I believe many waited for more details on that.

Ray... I've had to much rum and we need your words..

 

Can you please share what you think about the SQ im comparison to Extreme?
I believe many waited for more details on that.

I wish I had something substantive to offer here but I have not done any real critical or comparative listening. The SQ swings during burn in are notable. Moments of magic are definitely there (had my first Olympus-powered music cry Thursday night)

I have a week of work travel starting tomorrow, so I'm expecting to come back to a more stable reference

Wish I had more to share at this point (as an aside, took my Extreme several weeks to stabilize...those big caps really take their time settling in)

 

Ray... I've had to much rum and we need your words..View attachment 135099

Looks to me you have more work in front of you
Since Ray isn’t able to entertain us further, could you post more photos?