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".

 

...great move. Thanks Emile.

 

Looking forward to the announcement of the North American distributor. Will the generous “trade in your Extreme for purchase price credit on an Olympus” offer continue under the new distribution arrangement? I am hoping to take advantage of that this year.

Undoubtedly this change is going to affect pricing and perhaps even trade in policies. But that was bound to happen anyway.

 

Congrats Emile and Taiko on this next phase!!!!! A testament to your growth, demand and reputation.

 

General announcement:

Realising we have outgrown the startup phase of our company we are changing our direction and focus.

Thus far we have been attempting to “do it all”, designing, manufacturing, providing, often lauded as the best customer support, offering our products through both direct as distributor and dealer sales channels.

This past year has made us realise that we are no longer able to perform all these tasks simultaneously at the level we’re aspiring to.

Therefore we are moving to supplying our products exclusively through distribution channels. Distributors will provide first line sales, service and customer support. We will provide second line support. This will allow us to focus on manufacturing and R&D.

Naturally nothing changes for those with unshipped orders, with the exception of receiving future support faster, in your own timezone! The North American distribution arrangement will present themselves here on WBF shortly.

WBF has always been, and will remain our primary news channel and resource. I will personally remain active here, will be able to be more active, to answer questions, engage in interesting discussions, provide insights, and to keep in touch with this amazing community, many of it’s members I consider to be friends.

I am thrilled to announce that I will be handling sales, service, and customer support for Taiko Audio in North America. More details will be shared soon with both Taiko dealers and customers. I am delighted to partner with Emile and the Taiko team, and I look forward to what we will achieve together.

 

You could indeed set those for both before, however for the “system” BPS those settings are non functional as it always charges. Therefore those options have been removed for a BPS which is configured to always charge.

Then put it into the update notes!!

 

Then put it into the update notes!!

It does say “simplified”

 

I am thrilled to announce that I will be handling sales, service, and customer support for Taiko Audio in North America. More details will be shared soon with both Taiko dealers and customers. I am delighted to partner with Emile and the Taiko team, and I look forward to what we will achieve together.

Big congratulations, Vassil!

 

Hello Emile,
@Taiko Audio: Yoga is excellent for relaxation! I'll get up with Vassil later as he is on Central Time. I'm not sure if this question was ever posed. The function of the IO: Does the IO contribute differently or distinguish it self with Analog Out Vs a stand alone DAC? I'm curious about the IO but TBH I'm not sure of its specific contributions now or for the future...Thanks...

 

Big congratulations, Vassil!

Thank you. I am super excited!

 

Hello Emile,
@Taiko Audio: Yoga is excellent for relaxation! I'll get up with Vassil later as he is on Central Time. I'm not sure if this question was ever posed. The function of the IO: Does the IO contribute differently or distinguish it self with Analog Out Vs a stand alone DAC? I'm curious about the IO but TBH I'm not sure of its specific contributions now or for the future...Thanks...

John - here is my initial impression when I added the I/O:
"Room boundaries completely disappear, sounds pop out of everywhere with explosive dynamics…"

Looking at this months later, my first impression was spot on. Or at least for my system/room. Soundstage gets bigger in every dimension.
The impact is similar for both XDMI analog and XDMI digital, so I do expect similar effect with the Lampizator DACs.

 

John - here is my initial impression when I added the I/O:
"Room boundaries completely disappear, sounds pop out of everywhere with explosive dynamics…"

Looking at this months later, my first impression was spot on. Or at least for my system/room. Soundstage gets bigger in every dimension.
The impact is similar for both XDMI analog and XDMI digital, so I do expect similar effect with the Lampizator DACs.

Thus gummies are no longer needed. Think of the savings John!
Back to work...

 

John - here is my initial impression when I added the I/O:
"Room boundaries completely disappear, sounds pop out of everywhere with explosive dynamics…"

Looking at this months later, my first impression was spot on. Or at least for my system/room. Soundstage gets bigger in every dimension.
The impact is similar for both XDMI analog and XDMI digital, so I do expect similar effect with the Lampizator DACs.

Totally agree. The IO makes everything so much "more" real and it makes me wonder if the IO contributes to my comparisons vs my analogue rig.

Makes me wonder if the addition of the IO also contributes to my strong affinity to the Taiko XDMI digital board.IIRC at the start of this thread Emile suggested the IO add another 25% to the overall SQ. My bet is that as the dust settles and all orders are fulfilled there will be many existing Olympus users who submit orders for an IO

 

Hi all,

I'd like to start by stating i use headphones exclusively as i'm in an apartment with 2 kids under 3 so everything needs to be quiet. I have an MSB select 2 with a digital director connected to raal 1995 immanis headphones through a mass kobo 465. To connect the msb xdmi i have transparent opus xlr cables and for connecting the rca to my mass kobo i am using cardas audio clear sky interconnects (so $20k compared to $800).

Some test songs: (thanks to some members here) fleetwood mac - dreams, johnny cash - hurt, dave matthews band - crash into me, jacob gurevitsch - for your love, bozzio levin stevens - duende, mariah carey - hero, tiesto - boom, rachel podger - vivaldi l'estro armonico, herbert blomstedt - brahms 3&4.

I have been trying to take my time with reviewing the msb xdmi module compared to the taiko analog. Since the card swaps take a minimum of 3 minutes per swap its not always as easy or ideal as I would have liked but here goes:

When i first received my olympus it was relatively easy and quick to compare my msb pro isl to the taiko analog xdmi with a simple cable swap so the differences were very apparent immediately. The taiko card was much smoother sounding than the msb. it was easier to listen to but at the same time had stronger bass than the msb usb. It was easier to notice more details within songs. I couldn't shake the idea though that i was losing something from the msb and initially i wasn't sure i liked the taiko solution. After maybe 15 minutes of comparative listening it became clear the analog board was a hands down winner for me and i chalked up the "missing" portion to being familiarity with my msb dac.

Fast forward to receiving the msb xdmi board and giving it over 100 hours to burn in and the answer is less obvious but i think its still the same. Taking so long to do a card swap makes comparative listening a lot less ideal so i was hesitant about even posting but after swapping and comparing for the last 4+ hours its become clear that it boils down more to preference now. I still find pretty much everything better on the taiko xdmi but i was finally able to figure out what went missing, the msb does better instrument separation and a better job at filling the headphones making a classical performance like brahms symphony 3 feel more grandiose. I felt like i was in the concert hall vs with the analog it felt more intimate than it probably should have been. This might express itself even more in a 2 ch speaker setup. I'm not fluent in audiophile so i'm not sure how better to express what i'm hearing other than its clear that female vocals, violins etc sound "sweeter" and the bass just rumbles more. Its just a more pleasant sound than the msb. My favorite song for the bass was boom by tiesto. just makes my head thump in a good way.

Out of curiosity, and since the swap took so long, i wanted to have some confidence in what i was hearing so i decided to try the msb xdmi vs the msb usb. This is why i've come to the conclusion that its down to preference. The msb xdmi card makes everything better with the same sonic profile as their usb. Its cleaner sounding more detailed and better bass. I wouldn't say its a night and day difference like comparing the msb usb to taiko analog was when i originally did it but everything was just better. If you have an msb dac and an olympus but haven't had a chance to swap the card yet i think you can get a very good feel of what difference you're likely to get just doing msb usb to taiko xdmi.

I'd like to finish this by saying i'm generally a skeptical person and i didn't think there was any way in hell that a cheap off the rack dac chip would be able to compare to my $100k+ system. I also didn't want it to be anywhere close as i only recently bought this system and didn't want to have buyers remorse. I do think on the whole the taiko is just better for 90% of the things i want it to do. I had plans to go up the upgrade path with MSB to their new dac but that's very likely not happening. I don't know if i'll be selling the select 2 and digital director yet as i can see it possibly having some application in a speaker system in a dedicated audio room (which i'm hoping for in the next year to be built out) but i'm definitely leaning towards clearing up space on my rack. I'd also like to add i'm not a vendor or associated with any of the parties mentioned above. i'm just a guy with some buyers remorse. MSB has been great over the last couple years but i think taiko has made me a believer and its definitely the future for now.

Take it fwiw and have a good day

Great report, Tomas!

Just wanted to pop up and say it's nice to see a fellow headphone user with the Olympus. I am curious about your Mass Kobo amp, but will hit you up on DM.

 

Totally agree. The IO makes everything so much "more" real and it makes me wonder if the IO contributes to my comparisons vs my analogue rig.

Makes me wonder if the addition of the IO also contributes to my strong affinity to the Taiko XDMI digital board.IIRC at the start of this thread Emile suggested the IO add another 25% to the overall SQ. My bet is that as the dust settles and all orders are fulfilled there will be many existing Olympus users who submit orders for an IO

I'm a little ahead of the game with this question, but I'm wondering if IO will be required for the pre/volume version, if additional space were needed.

 

Totally agree. The IO makes everything so much "more" real and it makes me wonder if the IO contributes to my comparisons vs my analogue rig.

Makes me wonder if the addition of the IO also contributes to my strong affinity to the Taiko XDMI digital board.IIRC at the start of this thread Emile suggested the IO add another 25% to the overall SQ. My bet is that as the dust settles and all orders are fulfilled there will be many existing Olympus users who submit orders for an IO

For all the I/O undecided customers just want to give you a heads up:
There is a significant price difference when ordering O+I/O vs adding I/O later.
So if you are thinking about adding I/O later, make sure to check the price difference asap, before your O order is finished.

I have already changed my order for the combo as there is no penalty when doing it while the order is still not delivered.

 

Need some explanation from @Taiko Audio and/or @nenon - When Emile announced the O and IO last year, the introductory euro 5K discount was offered only for O, not IO and there was no O + IO combo discount. Why is there now a "significant price difference" or "penalty" if one opts to purchase IO later (aside from possible price increase) as mentioned by @StefanK above? I recalled Emile mentioned IO improving SQ for about 15%; he did not mention 25% himself. We all know that such % SQ improvement is often a wild guess or varies from person to person. Emile, since you have been using such percentages, could you provide your latest estimate?

 

he did not mention 25% himself.

Hi Moladiego,

I hope you don't mind me pointing this out, but I believe there might be a misunderstanding.

Emile (@Taiko Audio ) actually mentioned this in post #114.

And it was in relation to a specific stage in the completion of the Olympus.

It’s even possible that the Olympus I/O brings something superior to that.

On a related note, I appreciate that Emile tends to avoid exaggeration or hyperbole, which is a refreshing quality in the audio world.

Cheers,

Thomas

 

Hi Moladiego,

I hope you don't mind me pointing this out, but I believe there might be a misunderstanding.

Emile (@Taiko Audio ) actually mentioned this in post #114.

And it was in relation to a specific stage in the completion of the Olympus.

It’s even possible that the Olympus I/O brings something superior to that.

On a related note, I appreciate that Emile tends to avoid exaggeration or hyperbole, which is a refreshing quality in the audio world.

Cheers,

Thomas

We all know that the numbers are often stupid. Emile's numbers are only useful to me when I put them in the overall context, say the #114 post. If O improves Extreme by 175% (remember that the 275% is compared to Extreme 100% baseline, not a 0% baseline), all it means to me that it would be a HUGE improvement (in comparison to the Switch's 20% or so improvement). The 25% (extracted from the joint O + IO over Extreme compared to O over Extreme) was computed by somebody as around 9% improvement over the 0% baseline (compared to 25% over the 100%). I recall clearly that Emile mentioned an about 15% improvement of IO over O in a post from him months later. I am not good at finding that post, but you should be able to find it. Again, since we are indulging in this number game, I just want to point it out. The actual improvement surely varies from person to person.

 

...I think the rankings are, at best, relative positioning. The percentage thing is wobbly, to me. Is apple pie 3.14 times better than pecan?

 

Since we are talking about the words or numbers from the "source of truth" (aka the "horse's mouth" no negative connotation from me; just for the fun of it), I respect Emile's numbers and honesty. For example, I took it to heart that in his estimation the improvement of streaming over local storage playback in O is only around 1-2% (which in his view one need not fuss about and which in my view may not be so if one compares uncompressed file local playback with compressed file streaming) ONLY IF you use the Router and (possibly) Switch; otherwise, streaming is clearly much inferior to local playback (which does not benefit from the use of a Router). This statement from him may have lost some sales of the expensive Router, but I appreciate his honesty. His number estimates do matter from a sale or marketing perspective.