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".

 

Hi Emile/Taiko Audio,
I visited Volent Audio in Hong Kong again this afternoon.

View attachment 138397

I tried lifting up the Olympus I/O and I feeled that it should be much heavier than stated in the Taiko website.

View attachment 138398

May I know the correct weights of Olympus Server and the Olympus I/O?

Thanks！

Interesting that apparently they have the Olympus on top of a Daiza platform. I have not tried this option yet.

I tried: (a) directly on the floor (wood over concrete), and (b) with Revopods on the floor. With Revopods sounds better.

Besides Steve with his CMS, has anyone tried other alternatives? Tried the Daiza platform alternative?

 

Interesting that apparently they have the Olympus on top of a Daiza platform. I have not tried this option yet.

I tried: (a) directly on the floor (wood over concrete), and (b) with Revopods on the floor. With Revopods sounds better.

Besides Steve with his CMS, has anyone tried other alternatives? Tried the Daiza platform alternative?

Joe made me a special platform for the weight of the O/IO and I still use the Center Stage LS Ultra 2.25 footers

 

 

 

Interesting that apparently they have the Olympus on top of a Daiza platform. I have not tried this option yet.

I tried: (a) directly on the floor (wood over concrete), and (b) with Revopods on the floor. With Revopods sounds better.

Besides Steve with his CMS, has anyone tried other alternatives? Tried the Daiza platform alternative?

I'm now curious regarding placement of the Olympus. My plan was to place it to the right of the 360 vs on the concrete floor platform on this new shelf I built. Feedback will be very helpful...Did Emile mention the Olympus is less fussy than the Extreme??

 

I'm now curious regarding placement of the Olympus. My plan was to place it to the right of the 360 vs on the concrete floor platform on this new shelf I built. Feedback will be very helpful...Did Emile mention the Olympus is less fussy than the Extreme??

Actually Emile stated to beware of footers other than what is on the O/IO so I’m being a bit of a heretic here Not listening to probably very good advice from Emile

 

Actually Emile stated to beware of footers other than what is on the O/IO so I’m being a bit of a heretic here Not listening to probably very good advice from Emile

I followed this advice and put the Olympus feet directly on my platform which is a bamboo cutting board. Under the cutting board, I have some Revopods on thin carpet over concrete slab floor.

 

Actually Emile stated to beware of footers other than what is on the O/IO so I’m being a bit of a heretic here Not listening to probably very good advice from Emile

The main point is if you use footers to put them where the existing footers are. Otherwise, if you have an Olympus + I/O stacked, you will have nearly 100kg. / 220lbs. sitting on some footers on the bottom plate of the I/O. Chances of damaging something are quite big, especially if those footers are tiny and don't have a lot of contact surface area with the bottom plate.

The stock footers are easy to remove. And you can use the reinforced part of the chassis (where the stock footers are mounted) to put your new footers. I see you have already done that, Steve. Nice!

I have been playing with quite a few stands, including Livevibe, Artesania, CMS, HRS, etc. as well as different materials. Everything you put under the Olympus changes the sound. Still collecting data points and don't have anything to report yet. Although, my early impressions are that what @steve williams is doing sounds very good.

Also, how your room is treated / system voiced may be a big factor about what stand / footers you may prefer. For example, in some of my experiments, I lost a little bit of liveliness. And although I saw this as a negative, it could be perfect for someone with a brighter room / system. Some tighten the bass more, and that may work well with tube equipment. I will keep experimenting and if I can collect enough data, I will post my notes/results. They are too chaotic at the moment to share.

 

@Taiko Audio Emile, could you please kindly further clarify the issue of the reported SQ degradation from the existence of an internal storage based on your latest view? Let's me quote your/Taiko's view on the subject matter below first. Taiko's latest Olympus Introduction and FAQ document (v034, dated Oct 9), pp. 38-39, has a long answer to the question. To quote: " Update 21-05-2024: Adding an internal music drive no longer degrades SQ. Network based playback is still slightly ahead, by about 1%, IF you own the Router/Switch/DCD with a good quality power supply. If you don’t, local playback is superior, easily 10-15% better." Specifically, "Provided the Extreme Router is used, local storage file playback quality is not inferior to router + network sourced playback files, it’s basically equal"; "The NAS SQ will be 1-2% better than an internal storage (U.2/U.3) with router/switch/DCD. (The Router alone is mostly responsible for this, while the switch/dcd allow for a degree of “voicing” to taste)"; "Adding an internal storage drive to the Olympus very slightly degrades overall SQ compared to using no storage and using only a NAS. However, it is nothing huge, but you can hear a tiny difference on a highly resolving system. We’d rate this at a 1-2% impact, not enough to actually worry about"; "Local playback is not affected by the Router; Streaming / NAS playback is affected by router." The conclusion: "What it boils down to is 2 scenarios: 1) If you have the Taiko Router -> everything sounds about the same; 2) If you don’t have the Taiko Router -> local files sound best."

Based on your views stated above, I decided to have internal storage for a variety of reasons (I never have any use for online services like Qobus or Tidal, would love to dispense with the expensive Router (I applaud your candor and transparency displayed in the above statements), and make life simple), having no reason to worry about 1-2% SQ difference. But ray-dude reported a very significant or audible SQ degradation from the presence of internal HD. Understand the caveat that we all have different ears and systems (e.g., unlike him, I always found file format in excess of 24/96 or DSD64 inferior with Extreme). While I have a big and growing library (currently around 15TB), I do not plan to store such big library either internally or on a NAS (if that's the way to go); I will limit my active library around 4-7TB. I always have PCM files uncompressed to WAV (for having heard an audible difference). Could you please share your latest view on the subject matter? If the non-installation of internal storage is Taiko's recommended way (the improvement to local storage has to be over 2%), I am open to such prospect. Same caveat about personal preferences. Thanks in advance.

 

@Taiko Audio Emile, could you please kindly further clarify the issue of the reported SQ degradation from the existence of an internal storage based on your latest view? Let's me quote your/Taiko's view on the subject matter below first. Taiko's latest Olympus Introduction and FAQ document (v034, dated Oct 9), pp. 38-39, has a long answer to the question. To quote: " Update 21-05-2024: Adding an internal music drive no longer degrades SQ. Network based playback is still slightly ahead, by about 1%, IF you own the Router/Switch/DCD with a good quality power supply. If you don’t, local playback is superior, easily 10-15% better." Specifically, "Provided the Extreme Router is used, local storage file playback quality is not inferior to router + network sourced playback files, it’s basically equal"; "The NAS SQ will be 1-2% better than an internal storage (U.2/U.3) with router/switch/DCD. (The Router alone is mostly responsible for this, while the switch/dcd allow for a degree of “voicing” to taste)"; "Adding an internal storage drive to the Olympus very slightly degrades overall SQ compared to using no storage and using only a NAS. However, it is nothing huge, but you can hear a tiny difference on a highly resolving system. We’d rate this at a 1-2% impact, not enough to actually worry about"; "Local playback is not affected by the Router; Streaming / NAS playback is affected by router." The conclusion: "What it boils down to is 2 scenarios: 1) If you have the Taiko Router -> everything sounds about the same; 2) If you don’t have the Taiko Router -> local files sound best."

Based on your views stated above, I decided to have internal storage for a variety of reasons (I never have any use for online services like Qobus or Tidal, would love to dispense with the expensive Router (I applaud your candor and transparency displayed in the above statements), and make life simple), having no reason to worry about 1-2% SQ difference. But ray-dude reported a very significant or audible SQ degradation from the presence of internal HD. Understand the caveat that we all have different ears and systems (e.g., unlike him, I always found file format in excess of 24/96 or DSD64 inferior with Extreme). While I have a big and growing library (currently around 15TB), I do not plan to store such big library either internally or on a NAS (if that's the way to go); I will limit my active library around 4-7TB. I always have PCM files uncompressed to WAV (for having heard an audible difference). Could you please share your latest view on the subject matter? If the non-installation of internal storage is Taiko's recommended way (the improvement to local storage has to be over 2%), I am open to such prospect. Same caveat about personal preferences. Thanks in advance.

My views and ratings have not changed. The experiences of people who’ve received their Olympus largely match my own. If someone rates something 3% or 5% which I’ve rated at 2% I don’t consider that an alarming difference. These percentages are highly subjective, I would expect them to differ from person to person, system to system, etc.

 

My views and ratings have not changed. The experiences of people who’ve received their Olympus largely match my own. If someone rates something 3% or 5% which I’ve rated at 2% I don’t consider that an alarming difference. These percentages are highly subjective, I would expect them to differ from person to person, system to system, etc.

Thanks, Emile! For now I am staying with local storage. My choice is 8TB, more than enough for my active library (seeing no reason, as an example, to keep 40 different albums for one symphony, Bruckner 8, in Olympus' local storage; I only care about 8 albums for that symphony). I have my other digital source, the modded DVD transport connected to Horizon via special i2s (for operas and live concerts, and I have 300+ DVD/blu-ray discs and my video library is also growing fast). Life is too short for the vast repertoire of music. Keep it simple, stupid (referring to myself only).

 

I'm now curious regarding placement of the Olympus. My plan was to place it to the right of the 360 vs on the concrete floor platform on this new shelf I built. Feedback will be very helpful...Did Emile mention the Olympus is less fussy than the Extreme??

Gorgeous setup, John T!

 

Not critical. The internal drive of the Olympus will not fit unfortunately.

Emile,
Please, can you inform the specifications of the hardware needed to install the internal drive? I mean, does it need a certain processor and motherboard?
My NAS is a ATX PSU from Pink Faun, and I could try to assemble a processor and motherboard where I, maybe, could install the Taiko Olympus internal SSD.
Also, the double PCiE adapter for the OS disk and files disk, is changed to a single PCiE adapter if only the OS disk is present when a Taiko Olympus customer doesn’t order any internal storage?
Thank you.

 

I think Emile meant to say that the internal music drive of the Extreme won’t fit in the Olympus. The internal Extreme drives are m.2 SSDs in a PCIe Hyper card.

 

After reading the fantastic review from @ray-dude I was inspired to remove my internal music drive given I hadn’t had the opportunity anyway to transfer music from my Extreme.

I thought I’d take the opportunity with my son to do a quick video to help those that might end up down this same path - nothing overly professional but very simple to do! Here is the link

 

After reading the fantastic review from @ray-dude I was inspired to remove my internal music drive given I hadn’t had the opportunity anyway to transfer music from my Extreme.

I thought I’d take the opportunity with my son to do a quick video to help those that might end up down this same path - nothing overly professional but very simple to do! Here is the link

Excellent, and very helpful.

Although, if it were me, I would have added "Bob's your uncle" at the very end.

 

Down-Sampling

To make the most of the Taiko XDMI DAC daughterboard, I'm planning to down-sample some of my music from 24/352.8 and 24/192 down to 24/96, or even 16/44.1.

However, I'd like to ensure I do it correctly.

I've found three pieces of software that look promising:

• SoX
• iZotope RX
• PGGB

iZotope RX seems to stand out, but which one do you think would be the most suitable for high-quality down-sampling?

Also, what are your experiences with these programs?

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,

Thomas

 

Emile/ray-dude, I’m assuming the quality of power cable for the external NAS will also make a difference to the signal quality feeding the Olympus - might you be able to say to what degree the effect might be, and more vitally, if regardless of quality of cable, sound quality will always be improved over that of the standard 4TB internal storage?

Thanks for your patience with this : ) - kevin

 

Emile/ray-dude, I’m assuming the quality of power cable for the external NAS will also make a difference to the signal quality feeding the Olympus - might you be able to say to what degree the effect might be, and more vitally, if regardless of quality of cable, sound quality will always be improved over that of the standard 4TB internal storage?

Thanks for your patience with this : ) - kevin

FWIW I am using the wall wart that came with my NAS as well as a cheap Ethernet cable wired into my house router 100 feet away from my sound room and if there is a difference to be gained I just cant see what I am missing now as I am loving listening to my library. Emile did correct me when he commented that a good PC for the IO reaps rewards equally as did a great PC for the Olympus. So if I am wrong here I will add a good PC to my NAS but all I am using now is the supplied wall wart and smiling ear to ear.

 

FWIW I am using the wall wart that came with my NAS as well as a cheap Ethernet cable wired into my house router 100 feet away from my sound room and if there is a difference to be gained I just cant see what I am missing now as I am loving listening to my library. Emile did correct me when he commented that a good PC for the IO reaps rewards equally as did a great PC for the Olympus. So if I am wrong here I will add a good PC to my NAS but all I am using now is the supplied wall wart and smiling ear to ear.

Thanks Steve, and you know, at the level we’re playing at, I’d be sure as hell already in bliss with internal storage in the Olympus : ) - at this point, I’m just weighing the finest points of gain in sound realism with the inconvenience of finding and routing another (shortest) ethernet line to my taiko router from an NAS, and routing another power cable from my power outlets to the NAS. : ) - I’m sure your music sounds absolutely amazing with just that wallwart in place!

- kevin