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".

 

...my BMS was set to Dutch Time (which I always thought was time for beer), so in my case I preferred it to local NY/US. But the Taiko fellas are on the fix and it can't be much to resolve.

Oh really, they must've configured yours on a Friday afternoon then (beer time)

 

Indeed, there is (was) no issue with that. The issue is if you leave it playing unattended, it will (would) stop after somewhere between 6 and 12 hours of continuous playback.

In my case (OP), my interruptions do occur in the course of a session where I am regularly selecting new albums, always from Qobuz ( I have not set up my local files yet and I do not use Tidal). I do sometimes interrupt those albums, and change to another. I have noticed no correlation between what I am playing, or how long the playlist might be. My interruptions are not requiring 6-12 hour playlists. My Qubuz has the latest version.

 

Oh really, they must've configured yours on a Friday afternoon then (beer time)

Can it be (for some reason) Qobuz is arbitrarily timing you out based on a continuous use timer? When you break this timer for whatever reason, the time starts over? I have no idea..
I, occasionally, have this issue with the E...

I've experienced the same with my Statement and streaming radio in the past... music is on 24/7 in the house.
Since Innuos has had multiple updates, the issue seems to have resolved itself.

 

In case of interest, here is an extra data point on the Olympus. I have been experimenting with a selection of power cables. Irrespectively of the power cord, the Olympus sounds absolutely marvelous. For me the rubicon has been crossed in terms of realism. I had good success with the Extreme with the Shunyata Omega XC, the Extreme was really scaling well with raw power. Here, I found a pairing made in heaven with the recently upgraded Sablon Prince 2025. I have to say Mark has been really down playing the amplitude of the upgrade: his new cord brings an entire palette to the mid-range that combined with the Olympus agility is really to die for. I can’t imagine a better pairing and the Sablon Prince definitely is here to stay! Hopefully this may be helpful for others to experiment. My only point of comparison as to how power cords affect the Olympus is akin to the Taiko router, dynamics is always there, but the subtle balance between textures, timbre, and the tonal palette remains largely affected by the choice of cord. BTW Mark also has now an excellent DC cable for the router/switch combo that I had missed, another great pairing i am hoping that one day someone will provide an explanation of this elusive phenomenon, electrical wiring tuning the audible properties of a distant magnetic coil, I am scratching my head!

Wholly concur with you. My updated King cords double up the goodness that XDMS on the Extreme provides.
Realism taken up another few notches.

 

In my case (OP), my interruptions do occur in the course of a session where I am regularly selecting new albums, always from Qobuz ( I have not set up my local files yet and I do not use Tidal). I do sometimes interrupt those albums, and change to another. I have noticed no correlation between what I am playing, or how long the playlist might be. My interruptions are not requiring 6-12 hour playlists. My Qubuz has the latest version.

Can you try updating Roon to the latest version?

 

It can be plug&play, we pre-configure it to the timezone we ship to and configure it to charge between 0:00 and 7:00 AM. If that is ok for you there's nothing that needs to be changed. Besides that I don't think it will be very difficult to make it work on Samsung devices, we're on it.

If you leave the Olympus/IO always on there will never be issues or even have to look at the Taiko battery app

 

Can you try updating Roon to the latest version?

My Roon server and App are both latest version ( I checked on Roon "About" before the last post). Says 2.0 build 1483

 

My Roon server and App are both latest version ( I checked on Roon "About" before the last post). Says 2.0 build 1483

Ok, if that doesn’t help we can examine your Roon logs and see what’s causing the interruptions. Could you be so kind as to open a support call by emailing support@taikoaudio.com ? If you include your Olympus serial number and symptoms the crew can take a look.

 

Ok, if that doesn’t help we can examine your Roon logs and see what’s causing the interruptions. Could you be so kind as to open a support call by emailing support@taikoaudio.com ? If you include your Olympus serial number and symptoms the crew can take a look.

I am interested in the resolution of this too, as in my first listening session with my Olympus (hooray!) last night, Roon would suddenly stop in mid-track for no apparent reason. I just had to hit play to continue. It happened several times in just an hour of listening.

With the same build (iPad 1480, server 1483), I had no such issue on the Extreme.

Quick question: where is the Olympus serial number? I think it was in the name of the Roon server when it first came up, but then it got overwritten when I restored from Roon backup.

 

For those of you Olympus owners who are restoring Roon from backup, here is a trick, perhaps already known to all, but just in case...

After the restore from backup is complete, you know that the Storage locations for you music in Settings > Storage are stale. For example in my case, my storage locations were pointing to my Extreme's local D drive.

The trick is this. Do NOT create new storage locations for your Olympus drive or NAS. Instead, cure the existing storage location by hitting Edit and then editing the path within the edit window. This seems to retain all the customizations and even the analysis (dynamic range, level, etc) you may have had on the Extreme. This made the import of my library finish in just a few minutes.

If you create a new storage location, and delete the old ones, then that I think (haven't done it in a long time) seems to trigger a full scan, and can take hours as you'd expect.

 

Ok, if that doesn’t help we can examine your Roon logs and see what’s causing the interruptions. Could you be so kind as to open a support call by emailing support@taikoaudio.com ? If you include your Olympus serial number and symptoms the crew can take a look.

I updated Roon yesterday on my Olympus, and left Roon Radio playing overnight. This morning when I checked the status play was stopped. Looking at the Roon Queue, the last song played about five hours previously.

I don't want to put more of a load on Taiko support, however if you care to take a look I'm certainly willing, at your convenience.

Steve Z

 

I updated Roon yesterday on my Olympus, and left Roon Radio playing overnight. This morning when I checked the status play was stopped. Looking at the Roon Queue, the last song played about five hours previously.

I don't want to put more of a load on Taiko support, however if you care to take a look I'm certainly willing, at your convenience.

Steve Z

That happened here repeatedly a few weeks ago as well when I was trying to burn in round the clock.

 

Not sure if this is helpful or not. Go into setup and clear cache/restart after each session...Not for Austinpop's isse but for stoppages while burning in the O

 

I am interested in the resolution of this too, as in my first listening session with my Olympus (hooray!) last night, Roon would suddenly stop in mid-track for no apparent reason. I just had to hit play to continue. It happened several times in just an hour of listening.

With the same build (iPad 1480, server 1483), I had no such issue on the Extreme.

Quick question: where is the Olympus serial number? I think it was in the name of the Roon server when it first came up, but then it got overwritten when I restored from Roon backup.

That is not the same issue as the “queue” issue. Do you have more then 1 output enabled by any chance?

 

I updated Roon yesterday on my Olympus, and left Roon Radio playing overnight. This morning when I checked the status play was stopped. Looking at the Roon Queue, the last song played about five hours previously.

I don't want to put more of a load on Taiko support, however if you care to take a look I'm certainly willing, at your convenience.

Steve Z

Ah bummer, yeah sure let’s take a look and see if we can compile a bug report for Roon support.

 

That is not the same issue as the “queue” issue. Do you have more then 1 output enabled by any chance?

Let me check. Yup, I did. Fixed that. This one below is not active, but can't be disabled. Should I just remove it?

 

Let me check. Yup, I did. Fixed that. This one below is not active, but can't be disabled. Should I just remove it?

View attachment 140468

That must be a remnant from your Roon restore, remove!

 

O+I/O #39 arrived on Friday. From the time I received the FedEx email that it had shipped to the time it was in my front door was just three days. I let them acclimate in the flight cases in my front hall over the weekend. Had some helping hands here yesterday to get it in the rack. I plugged it into the mains power and turned on the rear switches. Downloaded the BMS app and the O+I/O showed right up. I was able to set the charge cycle to my preferred timing. Super easy so far.

It's not mandatory but I wanted to let the O+I/O charge overnight before wiring into my system. Enjoying my Extreme for one more day.

This morning, I powered down the Extreme, router and switch. Wired the O+I/O into my system, powered up the router, and waited a few minutes. Powered up the switch, waited a minute. Then powered up the O with its front switch. Restarted my Ipad, signed into Roon, then Quobuz and Tidal. Selected the Olympus as the Roon server and selected the Taiko USB output. I queued up one of my favorite recordings both musically and sonically (Chick Corea - Trilogy - live from 2013, 96/24) and VOILA I was listening to sweet music again! That was super easy!

What was with all the trepidation on my end? I find that I almost go into panic attack mode when my stereo system is down. So, I put on a CD to break the silence when the Extreme was offline, and the O+I/O was being wired. Just the possibility of removing the Extreme from my system and then not being able to get the O+I/O working had me sweating throughout the process. As it turned out the worrying was for no reason. The whole unwiring of the Extreme, rewiring of the O+I/O and O setup process took less than a half hour.

I’m starting out using USB to the DAC. It will take me at least a few days of listening to get a good idea of the difference in sound between the Extreme and O+I/O. Even though it has only been running for about an hour, I can already say there is a significant improvement in definition, imaging, transient response, dynamics and detail. The imaging is much larger in every dimension which tells me that the Dac is receiving even more detailed and accurate information than it was previously. I remember the Extreme improving in sound quality for about a month or so when it was new. So, I expect a similar burn in period for the O+I/O. Once I’ve spent some time listening to the USB output, I’ll give a listen to the I/O XDMI analog out. After reading the comments that others have posted, I’m really looking forward to that!

Fun times ahead for sure!

 

O+I/O #39 arrived on Friday. From the time I received the FedEx email that it had shipped to the time it was in my front door was just three days. I let them acclimate in the flight cases in my front hall over the weekend. Had some helping hands here yesterday to get it in the rack. I plugged it into the mains power and turned on the rear switches. Downloaded the BMS app and the O+I/O showed right up. I was able to set the charge cycle to my preferred timing. Super easy so far.

It's not mandatory but I wanted to let the O+I/O charge overnight before wiring into my system. Enjoying my Extreme for one more day.

This morning, I powered down the Extreme, router and switch. Wired the O+I/O into my system, powered up the router, and waited a few minutes. Powered up the switch, waited a minute. Then powered up the O with its front switch. Restarted my Ipad, signed into Roon, then Quobuz and Tidal. Selected the Olympus as the Roon server and selected the Taiko USB output. I queued up one of my favorite recordings both musically and sonically (Chick Corea - Trilogy - live from 2013, 96/24) and VOILA I was listening to sweet music again! That was super easy!

What was with all the trepidation on my end? I find that I almost go into panic attack mode when my stereo system is down. So, I put on a CD to break the silence when the Extreme was offline, and the O+I/O was being wired. Just the possibility of removing the Extreme from my system and then not being able to get the O+I/O working had me sweating throughout the process. As it turned out the worrying was for no reason. The whole unwiring of the Extreme, rewiring of the O+I/O and O setup process took less than a half hour.

I’m starting out using USB to the DAC. It will take me at least a few days of listening to get a good idea of the difference in sound between the Extreme and O+I/O. Even though it has only been running for about an hour, I can already say there is a significant improvement in definition, imaging, transient response, dynamics and detail. The imaging is much larger in every dimension which tells me that the Dac is receiving even more detailed and accurate information than it was previously. I remember the Extreme improving in sound quality for about a month or so when it was new. So, I expect a similar burn in period for the O+I/O. Once I’ve spent some time listening to the USB output, I’ll give a listen to the I/O XDMI analog out. After reading the comments that others have posted, I’m really looking forward to that!

Fun times ahead for sure!

Your Psychoanalysis part rings so true!

 

Found on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1760146194920794