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".

 

XDMI here as well.

Most intriguing comparison I plan to do is vs analog out.

Really hoping production rate will go up to speed, delivery pace seems to struggle much more than anticipated.

 

XDMI here as well.

Most intriguing comparison I plan to do is vs analog out.

Really hoping production rate will go up to speed, delivery pace seems to struggle much more than anticipated.

I don't mind waiting as we ALL are getting a better device for free in the end.

But daily info about what is happening,
future plans , new device ideas could entertain us much more during that waiting period and make this waiting less painful.

 

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.

Just for clarity, we recommend turning it off mainly because it can take a very long time to finish. We've seen it take 2 weeks on a very large NAS located library once! Next to that it can increase the time it takes to copy your library, as it will run in parallel during the copy process.

It only impacts SQ while the process is running, but not after, unless you specifically enable features using the generated data to apply volume levelling for example.

 

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.

To avoid the "need" to include an "energy management guide" we have configured the chargers maximum charge rate to 125 watts (was 100 watts).

You can now copy and scan your NAS library with file analysis set to max speed (default is throttled), while simultaneously up-sampling redbook to DSD512 in realtime, charge your Iphone on the USB port, and still have 25% spare capacity.

 

XDMI here as well.

Most intriguing comparison I plan to do is vs analog out.

Really hoping production rate will go up to speed, delivery pace seems to struggle much more than anticipated.

Yes it's slow, and although we've taken a lot of measures to speed things up, these are simply not instant.

We have managed to find another 3 to reinforce the team, but they all start in about 3 weeks due to having had to quit their current jobs, and/or starting after their summer holidays period.

The anodising company can double up on their output too, but, after the summer holidays of course... And we're about to purchase a robot for bead blasting, but these are build to order.

And then we are currently minus 4, summer holidays.

So although things are actually looking good for a significant boost in output, everything is just going to be slow for several more weeks. It looks like we'll manage to finish 7-8 more Olympus servers this week, but that's a small miracle on a skeleton crew, @Christiaan Punter , who normally works from home as he lives on the other side of the country, is staying in Oldenzaal in an Hotel to help building. It's just going to be me and him to pack them up and get as many shipped as possible tomorrow.

Our team will have more then doubled in size, from 6 in December to 14 after the summer holidays. These are all substantial differences, I'm confident the pace will pickup very significantly.

 

I don't mind waiting as we ALL are getting a better device for free in the end.

But daily info about what is happening,
future plans , new device ideas could entertain us much more during that waiting period and make this waiting less painful.

I'm absolutely going to return to spending a few hours a day communicating online, but right now I'm just extremely time restrained! I'll be back!

 

Emile, as always thank you for your transparency, humility and passion. Your team always remains above the fray, w you as a compass, which ultimately benefits all of us. Thank you all for the team’s triple overtime efforts under the pressure during this shorthanded stretch in particular.

it is already clear the wait will be worth it.

 

I'm absolutely going to return to spending a few hours a day communicating online, but right now I'm just extremely time restrained! I'll be back!

Can't wait for that to happen.
Hopefully soon.

Also Steve should get his Olympus package very soon.
That will be the words first Olympus XDMI with IO I believe.
He could entertain us a lot in the
"Emile liberation" period.

 

Shipping Update

The heavily reduced team spent quite some over hours in the shop to assemble and test the next batch of servers.
We are getting in the groove and we see routine effects starting to develop.

Shipping battery powered equipment also has its quirks, at Taiko we now know why there is not much battery powered equipment on the market!

We barely missed the Friday courier deadline, but the following servers - that will get a good burn in over the weekend - are ready and will dispatch beginning of next week:

- 10 (silver Olympus + I/O)
- 11 (silver Olympus + I/O)
- 20 (black Olympus)
- 23 (black Olympus)
- 32 (black Olympus)
- 33 (black Olympus)

We are very excited to get the first Olympus + I/O feedback!

 

Can't wait for that to happen.
Hopefully soon.

Also Steve should get his Olympus package very soon.
That will be the words first Olympus XDMI with IO I believe.
He could entertain us a lot in the
"Emile liberation" period.

time to start a chant.

we want Steve!
we want Steve!
we want Steve!
....(kind of like "let phil sing" for some folks)

 

Emile,
Please, clarify, at least for me, which is the behaviour of the XDMI batterie, depending on what the server is doing.
To make my question crystal clear: the discharging pace/speed of the XDMI batterie is faster when the server is OFF, when the server is ON but doing nothing or when the server is playing music?
Or it keeps the same pace/speed of discharging, independently of which is the status/condition of the server?
Thank you.

 

Emile,
Please, clarify, at least for me, which is the behaviour of the XDMI batterie, depending on what the server is doing.
To make my question crystal clear: the discharging pace/speed of the XDMI batterie is faster when the server is OFF, when the server is ON but doing nothing or when the server is playing music?
Or it keeps the same pace/speed of discharging, independently of which is the status/condition of the server?
Thank you.

EDIT I think I now understand your question, your attempting to understand how the battery reacts at certain times, its behavioral pattern...

 

EDIT I think I now understand your question, your attempting to understand how the battery reacts at certain times, its behavioral pattern...

Exactly John, just asking.

 

As Vassil said a few weeks ago the more we interrupt Emile the longer it will take to ship product out. You can see he missed shipping a bunch today

 

The System BPS is always charging from the LPS.

System off (shipping mode) is no power
System standby is modest power
System on not playing music is more power
System playing redbook music with no other things more
System playing higher res music more still
System playing music while Roon does analysis or upsampling or whatever is most

System is designed so System BPS is at 100% all the time (it is charging faster than it is discharging)

The changes to increase the power of the LPS that Emile mentioned above is to help keep it there, even if in one of the higher power regimes


The XDMI BPS has a toggle in the app to be charging all the time, have charging off, or auto charge when you’re asleep, and charging be off the rest of the time

The XDMI BPS will get less than 100% if you’re not charging all the time. In the default auto mode, it will recharge overnight while you sleep

All the charge and power info is in the Taiko app

If you have the I/O, you’ll have two additional BPS’s visible in the app (in the I/O)

 

As an aside, I have been traveling for work this week, so looking forward to going home to a (partially?) burned in Olympus. I’ll be doing a bunch of listening this weekend, and will keep an eye out here for questions. Real critical and comparative listening will be later, but happy to help with questions where I can

 

The System BPS is always charging from the LPS.

System off (shipping mode) is no power
System standby is modest power
System on not playing music is more power
System playing redbook music with no other things more
System playing higher res music more still
System playing music while Roon does analysis or upsampling or whatever is most

System is designed so System BPS is at 100% all the time (it is charging faster than it is discharging)

The changes to increase the power of the LPS that Emile mentioned above is to help keep it there, even if in one of the higher power regimes


The XDMI BPS has a toggle in the app to be charging all the time, have charging off, or auto charge when you’re asleep, and charging be off the rest of the time

The XDMI BPS will get less than 100% if you’re not charging all the time. In the default auto mode, it will recharge overnight while you sleep

All the charge and power info is in the Taiko app

If you have the I/O, you’ll have two additional BPS’s visible in the app (in the I/O)

Ray, so you just keep it in default and it charges in the wee hours...Correct?

 

Yes I am running it that way. I have not yet experimented with charging on vs off to hear the sq impact, but the default auto mode has worked great for me so far (aka, 4 days home able to listen to the beast…very early days)

 

Ray, are you using XDMI for the analog card or in native mode to an XDMI DAC? Just curious if the native mode runs the battery down less than the DAC. I realize you won’t know this if you don’t have an XDMI DAC.

 

Ray, are you using XDMI for the analog card or in native mode to an XDMI DAC? Just curious if the native mode runs the battery down less than the DAC. I realize you won’t know this if you don’t have an XDMI DAC.

I asked the same question to Vassil today thinking that an external XDMI DAC would draw less, he said no as the motherboard continues the draw...