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".

 

if you ever want a first class courier shipping try World Courier , expensive, sure, but every time I used them it was well worth it...sure stuff goes wrong with them too, but they care about resolving issues and getting shipments delivered.

 

Does anyone use Starlink as a dedicated isp for their kit?

Not dedicated as in audio-only ISP. I use Starlink as the ISP for my entire home and segregate the audio-only behind the Taiko router/switch/DCD combination.

Steve Z

 

That copper on BLACK is simply sweet!

You'll have to put your Olympus on the rack back-to-front then to admire that combo (which I agree, looks great)

Steve Z

 

If I found an Olympus on the street, I think I could muster the strength to pick it up and run with it. Where there is a will…

 

I don't want to interrupt the on-going discussion about logistics for something as mundane as a few comments about sound quality, but here goes.

Regarding Olympus and PGGB files. I've been doing some comparisons of PGGB-processed tracks to original 44.1 tracks with my Olympus/XDMI analog daughter card. I've got quite a few hours on each, having them installed and playing Roon Radio 24/7 since delivery, with a few short periods to swap cards and play XDMI SPDIF to my Vivaldi. As stated before, the Vivaldi APEX DAC and Clock are for sale (the Cybershaft OP-21 reference clock is sold). So Olympus/XDMI analog is my way forward for now.

First off, I'm not hearing the dire SQ drops I was expecting as sample rate/file size goes up. But, in some formats I'm not hearing the SQ improvements touted in the past for high bit rates either.


I've been running the comparisons using 12 44.1 tracks I've ripped from CDs and with which I am very familiar. At least 7 of these tracks are music that wasn't treated very well by the original mastering from analog to digital or perhaps were recorded digitally to begin with. The other 5 are just things I really like and are recorded well enough, because I can only stand so much A/B B/A listening before I start to lose the will to go on living. So they are some blessed relief and enjoyment from the testing.


The challenging-to-listen-to tracks all get fatiguing because of harshness, brash or forward sound, edginess, flat perspective or all of the above. What I've come to refer to as typical digital nasties. These nasties are particularly irritating to me when they are associated with vocals.

So I have looked to PGGB in the past (pre-Olympus) to help tame or ameliorate these problems, at least to the point of making the tracks easier to sit through if not downright enjoyable.

PGGB Plus as the public release is called had been a big improvement in terms of its success rate at improving digital music for me on Extreme. Not everything can be completely helped (some things are truly wretched in their original form) but almost always DSD files produced by PGGB have made listening much more enjoyable.



That hasn't changed. I am not going to convert my entire music library to DSD512. Really great sounding albums in 44.1/48 or 88.2/96 kHz PCM format with Olympus don't seem to need the help of PGGB DSD and SQ improvements if any are pretty small and to me, not worth the time or the penalty in disk space to worry about.


However, those less the stellar sounding original files very definitely benefit from conversion to DSD and the magnitude of improvement in lack of grain, naturalness, and importantly in reduction or outright removal of edginess and harshness goes up as the bit rate goes up.

So these comparisons wouldn't take forever (reference: will to live) I compared originals to DSD128 and DSD512 and skipped DSD256. Whether the deltas would be even larger were Olympus not sensitive to processor load is moot point -- I have no way of knowing that. Suffice to say, for me DSD processing is worthwhile for my problem tracks and albums and I will continue to use PGGB at DSD512x1 to do so.

High bit rate PCM is interesting. I decided to cut right to the chase and instead of producing several test folders of upsampled/remastered test tracks at increasing bit rates, I went directly to 32 bit 705.6/768 as a best case/worst case test.

While I found high bit rate PCM did make improvements to certain non-problem attributes such as longer decay tails, increased ambience and air, a great sense of ease, etc the reduction in edginess and harshness if it was present in the original was less, in some cases much less than with PGGB DSD.

Plus, while I hear the DSD-processed tracks as very full-bodied with saturated tonal colors and lots of natural texture, in comparison high rate PCM sounds lighter, almost thinner and not nearly as vivid.

So, I offer this as an additional data point for those using or contemplating using PGGB with library files with their Olympus and Olympus I/O.

Steve Z

 

If I found an Olympus on the street, I think I could muster the strength to pick it up and run with it. Where there is a will…

"Where there is a will" -
there's normally money...
Don't hurt your back.. Hire someone.