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".

 

Agree 100%. I sign every time I see files in excess of 24.96 or DSD2x or more peddled by the recording companies. I listen much to colossal orchestral & choral music (the most difficult kind of music to reproduce) and have not heard any album in the aforementioned file-size excess that is better than some of the most treasured red book recordings. The huge size is pure marketing gimmicks to brainwash listeners that the bigger is the better or lure people to buy again and again the same classic recordings made in the late 1950s to late 1970s (e.g., Karajan's Beethoven symphonies, first Red Book, then "Karajan Gold," and then 24/96 and finally 24/192 files, etc. which I never loved in their various incarnations in terms of performance or SQ (SQ is mostly bad from the leaden Berlin Philharmonie acoustics or Karajan's wrong-headed control of recording process); I can foresee future DXD releases). I hope recording industry retire DSD (major labels have abandoned DSD) and limit file size to 24/44.1 or 24/48. I believe that big-size files, even if not upsampled, tend to degrade SQ for consuming excessive CPU and DAC chip processing. Perhaps that explains why I have never been smitten by those hi-res releases, including new recordings (e.g., Bruckner symphonies performed by Nelsons/Gewanhausorchester released in 24/192). Ultimately, it is the recording method and quality that matters the most - recording companies often apply compression excessively resulting in albums that sound muffled and suffocated.

I think the analysis is incomplete when only considering the rate. So many variables, not least of which is the genre, particularly with your fondness for orchestral and choral works. Even with an excellent 16-bit recording, I can't agree with a generalized statement that 16/44.1isn't a limitation. It's going to be very helpful for people like you and ray-dude to share some detailed insight into classical music on the Olympus.

PS - For many legacy classics DG/EBS remasters from tape to 24/192, then to all the commerical products from 24/192, including DSD64. Sony went the other way, to DSD first, and I think those Sony Classics DSD->PCM conversions sound amazing (no comparison with RBCD). But the point is there are as many variations in the studio workflow as anything else (not to mention fake hi-res). It's impossible to generalize this.

 

I think the analysis is incomplete when only considering the rate. So many variables, not least of which is the genre, particularly with your fondness for orchestral and choral works. Even with an excellent 16-bit recording, I can't agree with a generalized statement that 16/44.1isn't a limitation. It's going to be very helpful for people like you and ray-dude to share some detailed insight into classical music on the Olympus.

Based solely on my vast experience (I listen exclusively to classical, virtually 3-4 hours every night) I can tell you that Red Book is not a limitation (but can understand that the margin for errors is small for such format). See the attached photos of the 2 albums (both red book): Mata/Dallas Symphony's performance of Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky Cantata" (big choral and orchestral music) on Dorian (recording date is 1992) and Bohm/Bavarian Radio Symphony's live performance of Bruckner Symphony 7 (big orchestral music; from 1977 live released on Audite). I am yet to hear a better SQ-recorded album than the Dorian disc and yet to hear a better performance of Bruckner's glorious 7 than the 1977 Bohm/BRSO in glorious sound. They consistently give me goosebumps. I cannot recall any album in excess of 24.96 which has given me such sensation in terms of SQ.

 

i previously listened to a big library of 700kHz+ 24 bit PGGB files, which I found to be worthwhile (and before that, realtime upsampling).

With the Extreme, Router / Switch, and XDMS noise reductions delivering SQ improvements, I compared with the redbook versions (a lot fewer bytes to ship around / electrical activity) and found I prefer listening to the redbook .

As Ed said when we chatted during an XDMS, install, “Nyquist was right”

 

Based solely on my experience (I listen exclusively to classical, virtually 4-5 hours every night) I can tell you that Red Book is not a limitation (but can understand that the margin for errors is small for such format). See the attached photos of the 2 albums (both red book): Mata/Dallas Symphony's performance of Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky Cantata" (big choral and orchestral music) on Dorian (recording date is 1992) and Bohm/Bavarian Radio Symphony's live performance of Bruckner Symphony 7 (big orchestral music; from 1977 live released on Audite). I am yet to hear a better SQ-recorded album than the Dorian disc and yet to hear a better performance of Bruckner's glorious 7 than the 1977 Bohm/BRSO in glorious sound. They consistently give me goosebumps. I cannot recall any album in excess of 24.96 which has given me such sensation in terms of SQ.

There will always be exceptions in any direction, which was my main point. Btw, I have the Böhm Bruckner 7 and agree!

 

One manufacturer of cables I trust told me that a customer of his captured uncompressed and unmixed live performances (jazz etc.) from a DC area FM radio station in a CD-recording machine. He demoed such CDs (red book) and everybody who listened agreed that they had the best sound of any albums they had listened to; such CDs from uncompressed and unmixed live broadcast were the closest to live music. Unmixed with only 2 mikes (one for each of the stereo channels). Multi-mike mixing and compression (often unavoidable in big orchestral and choral music recording sessions) hugely contribute to SQ degradation.

 

I can tell you that the Olympus with XDMI or USB is so friggin good that I defy anyone to pick out redbook from 24/192 or DSD 512. Everything and I mean everything sounds beyond amazing and is so emotionally engaging

 

I can tell you that the Olympus with XDMI or USB is friggin good that I defy anyone to pick out rebook from 24/192 or DSD 512. Everything and I mean everything sounds beyond amazing and is so emotionally engaging

„ Everything Sounding beyond amazing” is all I wanted to know.
Its just the beginning, so its hard to imagine what this will sound after burn in completed.
There is plenty of components in bth Olympus and IO , as well as cables ( qsfp , xdmi) to improve.

 

i previously listened to a big library of 700kHz+ 24 bit PGGB files, which I found to be worthwhile (and before that, realtime up upsampling).

With the Extreme, Router / Switch, and XDMS noise reductions delivering SQ improvements, I compared with the redbook versions (a lot fewer bytes to ship around / electrical activity) and found I prefer listening to the redbook .

As Ed said when we chatted during an XDMS, install, “Nyquist was right”

Totally agree. With the Olympus, the level of noise is soooo low or even absent that, here, that effect is even more easy to discern. I’m not saying it because Emile said it but because I’ve experienced it myself. As raw and unchanged the files are, the better they sound, in my system and room.

 

My experience has been that with the same mastering of the same recording producing both 16/44.1 and 24/96 or 192 files, the higher resolution files will sound better than the red book. Oftentimes people are comparing 2 file sets that were not produced at the same time and draw conclusions about the resolution.

 

My experience has been that with the same mastering of the same recording producing both 16/44.1 and 24/96 or 192 files, the higher resolution files will sound better than the red book. Oftentimes people are comparing 2 file sets that were not produced at the same time and draw conclusions about the resolution.

Hi dminches,

Is your conclusion about the 24/96 and 192 files sounding better than 16/44.1 based on your direct experience with the Olympus-I/O?

 

Hi dminches,

Is your conclusion about the 24/96 and 192 files sounding better than 16/44.1 based on your direct experience with the Olympus-I/O?

No. I don’t have my Olympus yet.

 

From these early comments and I see @cmarin was thinking the same, it appears the Olympus reacts/handles everything in a masterful fashion...

 

My experience has been that with the same mastering of the same recording producing both 16/44.1 and 24/96 or 192 files, the higher resolution files will sound better than the red book. Oftentimes people are comparing 2 file sets that were not produced at the same time and draw conclusions about the resolution.

We may have somewhat different experience; no right or wrong answer of course since we often have different ears or listening habits (for me, timbre naturalness is the single most important factor). I agree that with some new digital recordings I heard a difference between red book and 24/96 (but not between 24/96 and 24/192). For example, Honeck/Pittsburgh SO's performance of Bruckner 9, I have all the different recording formats, from 16/44.1, 24/96, 24/192, to DSD1x and DSD2x. I heard a difference between the first two formats but suspect that it is the recording company that intentionally throttled the format bandwidth because the price jump from 16/44.1 to 24/96 is big, from around $13 to $19 for download price; the recording was natively in DSD256). Red book was set as the CD format at the outset because the sound spectrum is well within our hearing limits. I would not bother with trying to tell the difference if any between DSD1x and DSD2x for that Bruckner 9 recording until I have received Olympus (in Extreme, I did not hear any obvious superiority of DSD over WAV based on recollection of that recording's SQ, I am yet to hear again; that album is well recorded, but not exemplary in any way, distinctly below the 2 redbook alums I mentioned above; for some people DSD is intrinsically inferior in SQ, but I have no opinion of my own because all I care about is result, not the underlying technology of which I know nothing; opinions are divided in the industry regarding PCM vs DSD).

 

From these early comments and I see @cmarin was thinking the same, it appears the Olympus reacts/handles everything in a masterful fashion...

John, I am sure that is the case but it is way too early to draw any conclusions about recording resolutions. Not enough people have their Olympus or have had time to really test differences.

 

John, I am sure that is the case but it is way too early to draw any conclusions about recording resolutions. Not enough people have their Olympus or have had time to really test differences.

Hey Dave, let's salute John T's hopefulness

 

We may have somewhat different experience; no right or wrong answer of course since we often have different ears or listening habits (for me, timbre naturalness is the single most important factor). I agree that with some new digital recordings I heard a difference between red book and 24/96 (but not between 24/96 and 24/192). For example, Honeck/Pittsburgh SO's performance of Bruckner 9, I have all the different recording formats, from 16/44.1, 24/96, 24/192, to DSD1x and DSD2x. I heard a difference between the first two formats but suspect that it is the recording company that intentionally throttled the format bandwidth because the price jump from 16/44.1 to 24/96 is big, from around $13 to $19 for download price; the recording was natively in DSD256). Red book was set as the CD format at the outset because the sound spectrum is well within our hearing limits. I would not bother with trying to tell the difference if any between DSD1x and DSD2x for that Bruckner 9 recording until I have received Olympus (in Extreme, I did not hear any obvious superiority of DSD over WAV based on recollection for that recording, I am yet to hear again; for some people DSD is intrinsically inferior in SQ, but I have no opinion of my own because all I care about is result, not the underlying technology of which I know nothing; opinions are divided in the industry regarding PCM vs DSD).

Are all these file sets of the same recording made from a single, high resolution recording or are they made independently.

 

John, I am sure that is the case but it is way too early to draw any conclusions about recording resolutions. Not enough people have their Olympus or have had time to really test differences.

Point taken, it is early but similar points presented. No doubt this can play out differently system to system. This is all just voyeurism for me. Thank you Michael! At this juncture hopefulness is all I have!

 

Are all these file sets of the same recording made from a single, high resolution recording or are they made independently.

If you were referring to the Bruckner 9 album (see photo), it was recorded live in the Pittsburg SO's hall, in DSD 256 by Reference Recording and sold in various formats, Red Book format the cheapest, and DSD 256 the most expensive (around $45, in both stereo and 5.1 surround). I suspect Reference Recording "filtered" the various formats to justify the price difference. Pure speculation on my part, but as I wrote above, this state-of-the-art recording by Reference Recording cannot remotely compete with the 1992 Prokofieve/Shostakovich (Dorian recording) in Red Book (though they are of different music; there is a liveliness and naturalness that is missing in the much newer Bruckner album in much higher resolution). The whopping difference in file density: 700MB (Red Book) vs. 8GB (DSD256 - an obscene size). Frankly, I love this Red Book-format Bruckner 9 (live by Leitner and a provincial German orchestra) much better, both in terms of performance and SQ. This to say that sound engineers' recording method and quality is way more important than any digital format in which the recording is released. If done well and with care, Red Book may be all we need, but we could agree with 24/48 to play safe.

 

If you were referring to the Bruckner 9 album (see photo), it was recorded live in the Pittsburg SO's hall, in DSD 256 by Reference Recording and sold in various formats, Red Book format the cheapest, and DSD 256 the most expensive (around $45, in both stereo and 5.1 surround). I suspect Reference Recording "filtered" the various formats to justify the price difference. Pure speculation on my part, but as I wrote above, this state-of-the-art recording by Reference Recording cannot compete with the 1992 Dorian recording in Red Book (though they are of different music; there is a liveliness and naturalness that is missing in the much newer Bruckner album in much higher resolution).
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Thanks for the information. I would not be surprised if variations of the same master recording would sound very similar, especially with the Extreme of Olympus. I think resolution differences would be more audible if they were created from the music and not another file set, if that makes sense. Just my opinion.

 

I suspect Reference Recording "filtered" the various formats to justify the price difference. Pure speculation on my part ...
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In this and similiar cases the recoding engineer at NativeDSD, Tom Caulfield (a great guy btw), uses HQPlayer Pro and the DXD edit master to produce the lower resolution formats. Digital filters are necessarily involved in HQP, but nothing to intentionally degrade lower-priced offerings. If there is a difference between the resolutions, they are speaking for themselves. I have the 24-bit DXD of this recording, but I haven't compared it with others. I suspect this debate could become every bit as impassioned as DSD v. PCM and delta-sigma v. ladder. Once emotions settle, maybe we can get an accurate read of some of these things on the Olympus.