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".

 

Amen to that. I still listen to physical media (vinyl, SACD, CD), so a preamplifier is essential. In over my 35+ years of buying high end audio, I’ve never found an “integrated” solution that bests separates, and I’ve tried a lot of such products. There’s a lot of seemingly compelling arguments about minimizing the signal chain complexity, but even if I could restrict myself to one digital source, I’m not sure I want an analog preamplifier to be inside a computer with its many sources of intrinsic noise, even one as extremely well-built as a Taiko. Yes, adding a lot of separates does add costs, including cables, space, heat etc. (see attached pic, those are 10-feet ceilings!). It would be nice to reduce clutter. But each time I try one of these integrated solutions, I invariably go back to separates.

I do have a nice Mola Mola MAKUA integrated preamplifier that combines a class A solid state preamp, a highly flexible phono stage, a world-class DAC, and a Roon endpoint. I use it in extremely hot weather with its matching Kaluga class D monoblock amplifiers, like in the current never-ending 100+ degree days that the Bay Area is suffering through. But once cooler weather returns, I’m sure I’ll switch back to my separates ARC/Lampi tube gear!

View attachment 137443

I used to run cooler SS gear in summers only, but then I got a minisplit A/C unit installed. One of my best "audio" purchases ever, as now my system sounds at its optimum 12 months out of the year. Coincided nicely with retirement, which intensifies the issues with more listening time.

 

Ah, retirement! Yes, as I tell my colleagues, that’s the only “promotion” I’m now looking forwards to. Carmel-by-the-sea is just 45 minutes from my house, but enjoys 65 degree weather all year. Great place to run tube equipment all the time. Only snag is a house my size in Carmel costs a king’s ransom and then some. Maybe if I get lucky and do one of these generative AI startups that’s turning a lot of twenty year olds in the Bay Area into billionaires (like the 27-year-old founder of Scale AI: https://scale.com/).

 

Try putting that house in South Orange County. Now you’re talking. I run tubes all year. My entire stream is tubes. I solved the problem with a 3rd HVAC system solely for my sound room

 

How do you solve the problem of noise from the AC, in terms of the blowers. I recall many decades ago, J. Gordon Holt, founder of Stereophile, wrote an illuminating article on how to design HVAC systems for high end audio that were essentially noiseless. Concert halls use such systems. You don’t hear a loud air conditioning unit in San Francisco Symphony’s Davies Hall. That would ruin pianissimos. But such systems are prohibitively expensive, I imagine for home use.

 

Remastered by Sound Lab! That should be the new logo of this company.

I’m hearing a great Oscar Peterson recording made by Telarc towards the end of his life in a studio in Toronto. Despite having had a stroke, Peterson plays really well supported by a group of fellow musicians who must be half his age or less. The recording, which I have heard thousands of times, sounds better than I remember, with all digital nasties eliminated. The trumpet that used to glare a bit doesn’t anymore. The sax sounds much warmer, as does Peterson’s piano. Great music with lots of bouncy tunes.

 

My HVAC is totally silent. I told my contractor when the build on the room was started that if I could hear the HVAC they won’t get paid.

I use an industrial size return duct that is 3x the area of residential duct. Rather than a straight from the duct in the ceiling to the furnace in the attic it is tortuous and the final 8 feet above the ceiling is lined with 1 1/2 “ insulation. Also the return sits directly above my dual mono dual power supply so that the heat goes straight up into the return duct. The air flow registers are in the ceiling at the rear of the room. Dead silent. Plus the unit I bought is rated ultra quiet

 

I’m guessing the next step in my musical odyssey might be to move to a Taiko Extreme! Any suggestions from the experts? Do I get the regular model or go for the big Kahuna? The XDMI interface seems to only make sense with a compatible DAC.

 

My HVAC is totally silent. I told my contractor when the build on the room was started that if I could hear the HVAC they won’t get paid.

I use an industrial size return duct that is 3x the area of residential duct. Rather than a straight from the duct in the ceiling to the furnace in the attic it is tortuous and the final 8 feet above the ceiling is lined with 1 1/2 “ insulation. Also the return sits directly above my dual mono dual power supply so that the heat goes straight up into the return duct. The air flow registers are in the ceiling at the rear of the room. Dead silent. Plus the unit I bought is rated ultra quiet

I used an acoustician to design the room
If you’re interested in the build it’s all described here

Doctor's Orders-Part Two-The New Listening Room Of Steve Williams

The History Most of you are aware by now that I moved back to Southern California in July last year after a 20 year hiatus in the SF Bay Area. It was there that I built my "dream" sound room. That room measured 18' W x 31' L x 9-12' H (sloped ceiling which was 9 feet high at the window and 12...

www.whatsbestforum.com

 

Here’s a photo of the huge return and another showing the air flow ducts in the rear of the room. Designing the room from the ground up factored out all of the concerns for HVAC noise

Doctor's Orders-Part Two-The New Listening Room Of Steve Williams

The History Most of you are aware by now that I moved back to Southern California in July last year after a 20 year hiatus in the SF Bay Area. It was there that I built my "dream" sound room. That room measured 18' W x 31' L x 9-12' H (sloped ceiling which was 9 feet high at the window and 12...

www.whatsbestforum.com

It is dead silent. If you come to my open house Nov 2-3 you can corroborate that yourself.

BTW the contractor was paid as no one has ever heard my HVAC

 

Thanks for the info. At 15x20x9, your room is about half the cubic footage of my room. My big Soundlab G9-7c’s wouldn’t fit! They need 10-feet ceilings at the very minimum. I’d love to have a custom HVAC, but it might be more challenging as my listening room opens up to a kitchen and dining room area. But something I need to explore. Part of the reason I went the Soundlab route was to find an electrostatic loudspeaker that’s big enough to reproduce music at a sufficiently large enough scale but not interact with the room as much as dynamic speakers tend to do. It’s a compromise at the end. I like the crossoverless design and the distributed resonance that eliminates bass resonances that large panels suffer from. But it’s less efficient than big Wilson’s and doesn’t go as loud or as deep in the bass.

 

A couple more observations with my Olympus - better interconnect cables DO make quite a difference with XDMI analogue out. I only had some cheap RCA cables initially and just managed to source some decent (not expensive) Bocchino RCA cables - maybe no surprises but worth noting. XDMI out is damn good!

The other influence is the XDMI battery charge level - for some reason my XDMI battery wasn’t charging when set to auto charging and I noticed it was sitting around 60%. I then set the charge to manual charge and let it get to 100% before playing any more music - wow, quite a difference in my system, so just make sure you’re charged up before sitting down for any critical listening.

FWIW after a solid 3.5hrs of playing XDMI via Roon, XDMI charge was sitting at 90% and still sounded excellent. I seem to recall seeing something about ideally it being above 80% for critical listening.

Powercord also made a huge difference!

 

A couple more observations with my Olympus - better interconnect cables DO make quite a difference with XDMI analogue out. I only had some cheap RCA cables initially and just managed to source some decent (not expensive) Bocchino RCA cables - maybe no surprises but worth noting. XDMI out is damn good!

The other influence is the XDMI battery charge level - for some reason my XDMI battery wasn’t charging when set to auto charging and I noticed it was sitting around 60%. I then set the charge to manual charge and let it get to 100% before playing any more music - wow, quite a difference in my system, so just make sure you’re charged up before sitting down for any critical listening.

FWIW after a solid 3.5hrs of playing XDMI via Roon, XDMI charge was sitting at 90% and still sounded excellent. I seem to recall seeing something about ideally it being above 80% for critical listening.

Powercord also made a huge difference!

 

Powercord also made a huge difference!

Absolutely. —-huge difference indeed. I was astounded by that

 

Amen to that. I still listen to physical media (vinyl, SACD, CD), so a preamplifier is essential. In over my 35+ years of buying high end audio, I’ve never found an “integrated” solution that bests separates, and I’ve tried a lot of such products. There’s a lot of seemingly compelling arguments about minimizing the signal chain complexity, but even if I could restrict myself to one digital source, I’m not sure I want an analog preamplifier to be inside a computer with its many sources of intrinsic noise, even one as extremely well-built as a Taiko. Yes, adding a lot of separates does add costs, including cables, space, heat etc. (see attached pic, those are 10-feet ceilings!). It would be nice to reduce clutter. But each time I try one of these integrated solutions, I invariably go back to separates.

I do have a nice Mola Mola MAKUA integrated preamplifier that combines a class A solid state preamp, a highly flexible phono stage, a world-class DAC, and a Roon endpoint. I use it in extremely hot weather with its matching Kaluga class D monoblock amplifiers, like in the current never-ending 100+ degree days that the Bay Area is suffering through. But once cooler weather returns, I’m sure I’ll switch back to my separates ARC/Lampi tube gear!

View attachment 137443

Never say never.
I was similar thinking long ago.
My totaldac 24 has NO output stage . Pure Vishay resistor ladder exits directly to XLRs and amps.
Internal volume control of totaldac must be very sophisticated as It was much better with Direct totaldac to amps than with respectable Kondo M1000 MK2 on the way.
So after 2 years of trying I sold Kondo becuse direct was simply way better.

Recently some friends were bringing many top preamps Including Audio Research , Gryphons , AudioNet and those always take some of the good stuff away.
I am still open to experiment and try new stuff. But so far direct is way better

 

Absolutely. —-huge difference indeed. I was astounded by that

I was told that the powercord wont make a difference since olympus is a battery powered. However, the difference is huge and even more than in extreme.

 

I was told that the powercord wont make a difference since olympus is a battery powered. However, the difference is huge and even more than in extreme.

Yes. As far as we are based on Steve opinion and Taiko staff opinion.
The reason is that the quality of the grounding wire in powercord makes a big difference.
I tried this on other gear and yes, quality of the grounding wire as well as it's capacitance , siver v copper , makes a big difference.

 

I was told that the powercord wont make a difference since olympus is a battery powered. However, the difference is huge and even more than in extreme.

The powercord absolutely makes a very large difference, particularly the neutral and ground wires. Worst case / depending on system components design these can even share current paths with your signal level conductors!

 

What is the current price for
Olympus
Olympus IO
(With xdmi.)
Including 21% VAT.
There are few who asked me and was not sure what are the numbers as there was an introduction discount.

@Christiaan Punter will upload the current pricelist to our website's download section later today. We've held off on adding the Olympus to our website in an official capacity to limit the order volume.

 

Emile, as someone getting ready to take delivery of an Olympus, but who would prefer an XLR analogue out, the mention that this feature will be forthcoming in a number of months has me curious whether those who received an earlier Olympus with rca analogue output will be able to retrofit XLR in the field, or will be required to return their unit to the factory for the retrofit of XLR. Any insight would be very much appreciated.

All XDMI output modules can be retrofitted by yourself if you have reasonable screwdriver skills. We'll make some videos on how to exchange modules.

We've made XDMI as modular as possible in order to make it relatively easy to exchange and/or purchase additional or alternative output options.

Currently available for ordering (as extra):

XDMI output cards MSRP excl. VAT

XDMI digital output board (RCA & AES/EBU) €900
XDMI Lampizator output (Taiko Link) €900
XDMI MSB output (ProISL) €900

 

The powercord absolutely makes a very large difference, particularly the neutral and ground wires. Worst case / depending on system components design these can even share current paths with you signal level conductors!

Is this by design or just an unavoidable problem due to battery charge necessity?