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".

 

This is interesting because what Roon transmits is neither FLAC nor WAV, but a PCM stream.

It would indeed be interesting to find out where this difference lies.

Cheers,

Thomas

i may be wrong, but my understanding is that roon core outputs pcm, which does not preclude it streaming via flac (or other compressed lossless)

 

Ive heard Marty's .wav files and the compared flac files and they really are a big uptick

something is sticking out in my aging mind. I somehow remember Marty bringing .wav to the attention of the XDMS developers and beta testers on Discord. I seem to remember that at some point there was a backend up date where there was a huge uptick in SQ and rumor had it that XDMS wa converting files to .wav, or is that just a fabric of my aging mind. It's been a while since I have used XDMS but somehow this sits in my mind

 

Ive heard Marty's .wav files and the compared flac files and they really are a big uptick

something is sticking out in my aging mind. I somehow remember Marty bringing .wav to the attention of the XDMS developers and beta testers on Discord. I seem to remember that at some point there was a backend up date where there was a huge uptick in SQ and rumor had it that XDMS wa converting files to .wav, or is that just a fabric of my aging mind. It's been a while since I have used XDMS but somehow this sits in my mind

I believe Ed (who heads the XDMS project) consulted with Cat6man (who has spoken often of what he finds to be the superiority of WAV) about an XDMS conversion.

 

I believe Ed (who heads the XDMS project) consulted with Cat6man (who has spoken often of what he finds to be the superiority of WAV) about an XDMS conversion.

There was some talk about different flac CODEC engines for XDMS if I recall correctly, but I don't know what was decided.

Someone mentioned a sound quality difference between what XDMS was using and the latest ffmpeg implementation of flac, though my imperfect understanding of ffmpeg is that it is much more than a simple flac algorithm and encompasses video and multimedia as well.

So where is flac decompression/conversion (if any) occuring in the Olympus/Roon ecosystem?

Steve Z

 

There was some talk about different flac CODEC engines for XDMS if I recall correctly, but I don't know what was decided.

Someone mentioned a sound quality difference between what XDMS was using and the latest ffmpeg implementation of flac, though my imperfect understanding of ffmpeg is that it is much more than a simple flac algorithm and encompasses video and multimedia as well.

Steve Z

yes, i've been on my hobby horse about wav versus flac for years now, going back to my hqplayer days.
i've gone in to see BobV at Rhapsody a few times this year to listen to the extreme and olympus.

over the past few years, my tests with the extreme had convincingly showed me (plus Ed and assorted friends) that WAV was superior to FLAC or qobuz, using my totaldac rigs. this is not the case for every track but on many, it is very obvious to hear.
setup: extreme--usb to sotm reclock/convert to aes/ebu--totaldac reclocker--totaldac triunity
(no live clock upgrade yet)

my first visit this year we compared: (with his wonderful allsyvox speakers, xdmi analog with about 7-10 days burn in)
1. extreme--usb-esoteric dac (WAV)
2. olympus+io--xdmi analog (qobuz)

in comparing 1 and 2, it was unexpectedly close with 2 having a wider soundstage but not blowing extreme+wav out of the water. i'd give 2 a SQ gain of 20-30%, not at all what i had expected. because now we know the xdmi-analog needs more time to break in, plus qobuz requires flac decoding, i can't really assess how much the olympus+io was limited by burn in time versus flac decoding.

my second visit (same speakers) was olympus+io only, comparing WAV local files and the same music on qobuz, but now there had been over a month of burn in time for the xdmi analog. here the WAV was, as BobV said, "night and day" better. my objective for the visit to rhapsody was to determine if the WAV/FLAC SQ delta still existed in the Olympus and it clearly did. since the olympus is so very low noise, i'm quite surprised the added computation processing to decode flac could be audible. my guess is something else is going on. or is it somehow system dependent?

after this, we all went downstairs to listen to bobV's wonderful SET driven horns, using the xdmi-analog output and only listening to local WAV files. this was alsolutely EXQUISITE, just stunning. we didn't even try streaming and went into pure listening (not analyzing) mode. as steve williams has said, 'you can't unring the bell'. the sound was so good that i found myself wanting an olympus even though it is way out of my price comfort zone. i can't wait for some of that trickle down goodness to come to the extreme.

i've since done a little bit screwing around with various music converter programs but really have not been able to draw useful conclusions and i do not have the requisite skills (or patience?) or tools to dig into the formatting of music files, bit level comparisons, decoding and buffering strategies in software etc. Ed et taiko are aware of this and are looking into it. i trust they will get to the bottom of this. i've been in the background on this for a while and hope that since the cat is now out of the bag, we'll have some patience while taiko digs themselves out from under a pile of silver anodization. i expect 2025 to bring even better SQ, particularly for streaming.

miscellaneous:
--a great track to use is the Weaver's "guantanamera" from their live concert at carnegie hall (Red Book version, i don't like the 24-96 version)
--my default music converter has always been dbpoweramp which, after fixing metadata in a tag editor, i use to convert flac sources to wav.
--my dac is limited to 24-192 so higher bit rates are a non-issue here.
--all my SQ evaluations of WAV/FLAC have been red book only, which is the vast majority of the music i listen to.
--if everyone had ordered a black olympus, by now we'd probably have them all shipped AND the wav/flac fix available!!!!

 

I went to Volent Audio in Hong Kong, and was able to compare:
A- Olympus+IO -> USB -> Totaldac Sublime ->
B- Olympus+IO -> XDMI analog ->

In that system/room, for me, Olympus+IO -> USB -> Totaldac Sublime -> preamp sounded better than O+IO -> XDMI analog. However, it was not far.

He did not have the XDMI AES installed in the O+IO, so I could not compare Olympus+IO -> Totaldac Sublime -> preamp.

AES is the native connection used in Totaldac, so I suppose this will sound better, because in my system the Olympus with XDMI/AES sounds much better than Olympus USB feeding the Totaldac Sublime. For me, the 24/192 (and DSD64 DoP) limitation of AES is not a problem.

He did not have the Live Clock update to the Totaldac Sublime and did not have the Sublime update to the Totaldac Drivers XLR mk2.

I have not tried the XDMI-analog in my system because I need two digital inputs and don't use a preamp. I use the Totaldac Drivers Sublime XLR and the Totaldac digital volume.

So next step for me is to perform the Live Clock updates to my Totaldac Sublime DAC.

Hopefully, the next version (Oct/2025?) version of the XDMI analog will have at least two digital inputs (even if optional), and will be a meaningful upgrade vs. the current version.

fascinating VPN. thanks for the review. i will get my triunity and reclocker updated to live clock in the next few months. it will be very interesting to hear the xdmi/aes output to totaldac in the future, as i'm sure the aes/ebu will eclipse the usb out of the olympus.

 

yes, i've been on my hobby horse about wav versus flac for years now, going back to my hqplayer days.
i've gone in to see BobV at Rhapsody a few times this year to listen to the extreme and olympus.

over the past few years, my tests with the extreme had convincingly showed me (plus Ed and assorted friends) that WAV was superior to FLAC or qobuz, using my totaldac rigs. this is not the case for every track but on many, it is very obvious to hear.
setup: extreme--usb to sotm reclock/convert to aes/ebu--totaldac reclocker--totaldac triunity
(no live clock upgrade yet)

my first visit this year we compared: (with his wonderful allsyvox speakers, xdmi analog with about 7-10 days burn in)
1. extreme--usb-esoteric dac (WAV)
2. olympus+io--xdmi analog (qobuz)

in comparing 1 and 2, it was unexpectedly close with 2 having a wider soundstage but not blowing extreme+wav out of the water. i'd give 2 a SQ gain of 20-30%, not at all what i had expected. because now we know the xdmi-analog needs more time to break in, plus qobuz requires flac decoding, i can't really assess how much the olympus+io was limited by burn in time versus flac decoding.

my second visit (same speakers) was olympus+io only, comparing WAV local files and the same music on qobuz, but now there had been over a month of burn in time for the xdmi analog. here the WAV was, as BobV said, "night and day" better. my objective for the visit to rhapsody was to determine if the WAV/FLAC SQ delta still existed in the Olympus and it clearly did. since the olympus is so very low noise, i'm quite surprised the added computation processing to decode flac could be audible. my guess is something else is going on. or is it somehow system dependent?

after this, we all went downstairs to listen to bobV's wonderful SET driven horns, using the xdmi-analog output and only listening to local WAV files. this was alsolutely EXQUISITE, just stunning. we didn't even try streaming and went into pure listening (not analyzing) mode. as steve williams has said, 'you can't unring the bell'. the sound was so good that i found myself wanting an olympus even though it is way out of my price comfort zone. i can't wait for some of that trickle down goodness to come to the extreme.

i've since done a little bit screwing around with various music converter programs but really have not been able to draw useful conclusions and i do not have the requisite skills (or patience?) or tools to dig into the formatting of music files, bit level comparisons, decoding and buffering strategies in software etc. Ed et taiko are aware of this and are looking into it. i trust they will get to the bottom of this. i've been in the background on this for a while and hope that since the cat is now out of the bag, we'll have some patience while taiko digs themselves out from under a pile of silver anodization. i expect 2025 to bring even better SQ, particularly for streaming.

miscellaneous:
--a great track to use is the Weaver's "guantanamera" from their live concert at carnegie hall (Red Book version, i don't like the 24-96 version)
--my default music converter has always been dbpoweramp which, after fixing metadata in a tag editor, i use to convert flac sources to wav.
--my dac is limited to 24-192 so higher bit rates are a non-issue here.
--all my SQ evaluations of WAV/FLAC have been red book only, which is the vast majority of the music i listen to.
--if everyone had ordered a black olympus, by now we'd probably have them all shipped AND the wav/flac fix available!!!!

Not surprised that it confirms my experience all these years (even with Extreme). Thanks. All the reports regarding superior streaming SQ (compared to local playback) appeared to be based on FLAC. Qobus streams compressed PCM. That is why I remain skeptical of the claimed streaming SQ superiority in comparison to local WAV playback. How can a FLAC file compressed to 1/3 or even 1/4 (the maximum compression ratio) of WAV size retain the same SQ when heavy-duty de-compression happens in real time? Too good to be true.

 

So here’s my next fun question of the day. My wife told me that my NAS which was in the downstairs bedroom had to go. It was functioning perfectly wired into my home router. My original goal was to have my NAS in my sound room powered via the Taiko DCD but my LPS did not have enough power to drive the DCD Taiko router and switch and now my 4 bay Qnap TS-464 with 4 x 4 TB HDD I reached out to Alex Crespi from Uptone Audio to inquire about doing all of the above with his JS-2 LPS. He said there were no doubts in his mind it would be up to the task and suggested either powering the NAS via the DCD or via the 2nd rail on the JS-2. I was interested in using the DCD for no other reason than seeing what sonic change if any would be imparted using different outputs on the DCD.

So here’s my question. Who is powering their NAS via the DCD and which out put are you using and have you tried different outlets with their different filters. If so what difference if any are you hearing

Presently I am using DEFAULT 2 and things sound terrific. Has anyone tried different other than DEFAULT. If so which ones and what was the difference.

As an aside Alex was dead on re the JS-2. He said I might see some flickering red lights on the rear of the unit which would mean I’m close to maxing out on power. If I ss a solid red light it means the JS-2 could not power all of the above. I’m happy to report that I don’t even see any flickering red light as the JS-2 is up to the task. What a neat little unit for the price. I also purchased two of his DC cables and am very happy either sound.

So who’s done the experiment and what output are you using.

 

Not surprised that it confirms my experience all these years (even with Extreme). Thanks. All the reports regarding superior streaming SQ (compared to local playback) appeared to be based on FLAC. Qobus streams compressed PCM. That is why I remain skeptical of the claimed streaming SQ superiority in comparison to local WAV playback. How can a FLAC file compressed to 1/3 or even 1/4 (the maximum compression ratio) of WAV size retain the same SQ when heavy-duty de-compression happens in real time? Too good to be true.

i personally have no problem imagining that flac could sound as good as wav. emile-et-al have all shown the ability to lower various noise sources and since flac is lossless, that should be the case here as well. we're just not there yet but i see no fundamental reason that we can't get there.

 

i personally have no problem imagining that flac could sound as good as wav. emile-et-al have all shown the ability to lower various noise sources and since flac is lossless, that should be the case here as well. we're just not there yet but i see no fundamental reason that we can't get there.

FLAC is lossless, but de-compression or de-coding in real time invariably introduces jitters. I suspect that Olympus with its lower noise floor and higher transparency makes the FLAC-WAV difference clearer than Extreme. It has been reported that hi-res files in excess of 24/96 sound worse via Olympus because of the higher computing processing demand (also why on earth we need to have such high-density files well in excess of human hearing). I will do an experiment when I get mine. But, as I reported above, I heard an improvement in clarity via Extreme when I converted two 24/192 albums to 24/44.1 a few days ago. WAV always sounds better to my ears. If a remastered album in 24/96 or 24/192 (many classic analog recordings have been remastered several times) sounds better than the earlier remastered album in redbook format, it is because of the more careful re-remastering process (going thru the original tapes). Think of Solti's classic Wagner Ring cycle (first redbook, then 24/96, now 24/192 with the belated revelation that the earlier 24/96 was not based on the original tapes). I just converted the new 24/192 to 24/88.2 (and wait for Olympus to confirm the superiority over 24/192; I could convert to 24/44.1 and probably it sounds better or no different than 24/88.2). When I use dbpowseramp to decomprss a highly compressed FLAC album, I can see that the computer takes a significantly longer time in decompression. Extreme/Olympus is a computer doing such decompression in real time if fed with FLAC. The extra processing and resulting time-domain difference (no matter how slight if I use the term correctly) would introduce jitters.

 

It has been reported that hi-res files in excess of 24/96 sound worse via Olympus because of the higher computing processing demand

Hmmm. I haven’t read that but I’m not hearing what you’re saying when I play 24/192 in my system. How about 24 /352 files. They sound darn good in my system.

 

That would have been my report when listening to XDMI Analog Steve. I took various test tracks and down/upsampled them from 1fs to 16fs and compared them. SQ for me seemed to peak between 96k and 192k tracks (qualitative assessment)

Your system is obviously different with the XDMI digital link to your Horizon 360

 

my personal thoughts , and Ive said it here before that listening to my O/IO with XDMI digital, all files to my ears sound fantastic, I really just play the music now and have stopped listening to the format in which they were recorded. The one thing I can also say for certain is the apparent volume on a DSD file when compared to a PCM file hi Rez file of the same song at the same gain, is lower and my gain has to be adjusted upwards accordingly

 

So here’s my next fun question of the day. My wife told me that my NAS which was in the downstairs bedroom had to go. It was functioning perfectly wired into my home router. My original goal was to have my NAS in my sound room powered via the Taiko DCD but my LPS did not have enough power to drive the DCD Taiko router and switch and now my 4 bay Qnap TS-464 with 4 x 4 TB HDD I reached out to Alex Crespi from Uptone Audio to inquire about doing all of the above with his JS-2 LPS. He said there were no doubts in his mind it would be up to the task and suggested either powering the NAS via the DCD or via the 2nd rail on the JS-2. I was interested in using the DCD for no other reason than seeing what sonic change if any would be imparted using different outputs on the DCD.

So here’s my question. Who is powering their NAS via the DCD and which out put are you using and have you tried different outlets with their different filters. If so what difference if any are you hearing

Presently I am using DEFAULT 2 and things sound terrific. Has anyone tried different other than DEFAULT. If so which ones and what was the difference.

As an aside Alex was dead on re the JS-2. He said I might see some flickering red lights on the rear of the unit which would mean I’m close to maxing out on power. If I ss a solid red light it means the JS-2 could not power all of the above. I’m happy to report that I don’t even see any flickering red light as the JS-2 is up to the task. What a neat little unit for the price. I also purchased two of his DC cables and am very happy either sound.

So who’s done the experiment and what output are you using.

Steve, I am feeding the Taiko Router (alt 2), Taiko switch (default), Synology 923+ 4-bay with two SSDs (alt 1), and the audio fiber modem (default), all with the Taiko DCD with a Zayin Suprareg LPS 12V/6A.

In terms of the DCD outputs, I prioritized the router, then switch, then cable modem, then Nas. I confess that I selected alt2 for the router when I had the Extreme. I have to test again now with the Olympus

I also have a Plixir Statement with two outputs. I have to get a NAS dc cable for it and check if having the Plixir power the NAS (and fiber modem), and thus reducing the load on the Zayin, improves the sound, or not.

 

Steve, I am feeding the Taiko Router (alt 2), Taiko switch (default), Synology 923+ 4-bay with two SSDs (alt 1), and the audio fiber modem (default), all with the Taiko DCD with a Zayin Suprareg LPS 12V/6A.

In terms of the DCD outputs, I prioritized the router, then switch, then cable modem, then Nas. I confess that I selected alt2 for the router when I had the Extreme. I have to test again now with the Olympus.

Those are the same settings for router and switch. I’m using default so far from DCD to my NAS Is that an arbitrary setting by you from DCD to NAS or does it sound better

 

Those are the same settings for router and switch. I’m using default so far from DCD to my NAS Is that an arbitrary setting by you from DCD to NAS or does it sound better

Arbitrary. I just used the two filtered outputs that were left, one for the Nas, and one for the fiber modem. I never switched the outputs used for nas/fiber modem to hear which sounded better.

 

It also has been my experience that format in excess of 24/96 invariably sounds dull (I have many 24/192 albums; none sounds good). I converted 2 albums (of big symphonies) from 24/192 to 24/44.1 via dbpoweramp software and heard an audible improvement (more transparent or less congested). I intend to convert all 24/192 files to 24/44.1 going forward. Also my experience that WAV sounds better than DSD (WAV more vivid, vibrant, sharper) even for a sigma-delta DAC like Horizon. Albums with the best sound are mostly in red book format (even with Extreme). I am amazed that some albums recorded in the mid- or late-1950s sound more vivid or immediate than albums recorded recently in native 24/192 or 24/96 (e.g., Monteux's RCA Tchaikovsky symphonies, otherwise dated, compared to the latest hi-res ones which all sound lumpy, including Honeck's recordings on Reference label).

I've found it's impossible to generalize based on format. Too many variables, esp. with classical. But I've often found the retail format most native to the master sounds best. There's much more to unpack here, but since it comes up often, and it's slightly off-topic, I won't go on.

 

Ive heard Marty's .wav files and the compared flac files and they really are a big uptick

something is sticking out in my aging mind. I somehow remember Marty bringing .wav to the attention of the XDMS developers and beta testers on Discord. I seem to remember that at some point there was a backend up date where there was a huge uptick in SQ and rumor had it that XDMS wa converting files to .wav, or is that just a fabric of my aging mind. It's been a while since I have used XDMS but somehow this sits in my mind

Not your "aging mind" Steve. I've seen my flacs change to wav in the XDMS queue.

Unless that's my aging mind

 

It’s coming in the future, Q2 or Q3 2025.

I recall reading it couldn't happen because of the integration of software and hardware.

 

I've found it's impossible to generalize based on format. Too many variables, esp. with classical. But I've often found the retail format most native to the master sounds best. There's much more to unpack here, but since it comes up often, and it's slightly off-topic, I won't go on.

Obviously, it may be the result of different systems or sound preferences. So far my ears prefer red book or files lower than 24/96, PCM over DSD, in my system. But I will determine again when I have the Olympus. Have to rely on my ears in the end and let generality or theory go to hell. I converted 2 24/192 albums to 24/44.1 2 days ago because I was not happy with the sound with the 24/192 albums (finding it lumpy) but managed to finish listening to the converted 24/44.1 albums, liking the improved transparency (subtle improvement to which the ears are sensitive). So far, I have not liked a single album in excess of 24/96 in terms of SQ in my big library, which I have many from new or remastered recordings.