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".

 

What will happen with all the traded in Extremes?

 

What will happen with all the traded in Extremes?

Factory check / refresh and back into the wild! If you're interested in one you can reach out to us.

 

Factory check / refresh and back into the wild! If you're interested in one you can reach out to us.

Any idea on pricing of those? Interested indeed!

 

It would actually be possible to design an output module with both analogue and spdif/aes outputs but there would need to be some interest for that, aka more then a handful, as it would be cost prohibitive to do for a small batch of boards.

Aes/spdif and Analogue suits me better than any USB

 

You can have:

1) USB + SPDIF + AES/EBU as 3 operational outputs
2) USB + analogue out as 2 operational outputs

You can switch between those 2 options but that requires swapping an XDMI output module.

Then I guess we can think up something that allows more simultaneous outputs but that will either be very expensive or significantly compromise performance.

I don't think I will use USB as it is more noise in that in my Olympus XDMI.
So I believe I will be swapping between the AES and Analog and stay with one of the formats.

Ultimately Analog balanced XLR with some kind of volume regulation will be the final solution to my disease.

I am sure Emile will design it the best possible way.

 

I had several customers asking the question about adding the I/O XDMI to the Olympus/XDMI. I went through the thread and this is all that has been said, mostly by Emile and then Nenon as well. It's a good summary of the benefits of what adding the I/O XDMI to Olympus/XDMI.


It moves the I/O cards to an external chassis powered by separate batteries

Advantages:
-lower operating temperatures
-lower rfi/emi environment

Aka increased isolation
It does give another audible improvement for those who want the absolute max

When you add the I/O to the Olympus you increase isolation levels a bit more, no rfi/emi pickup from other hardware, a few degrees lower operating temperatures, doubled up battery power/isolation, it does improve things a but further but not as much as it does for the Extreme.

thank you for all the information you've been providing us. I wanted to understand how adding the i/o to the olympus would bring a benefit over the olympus alone. Is it just in the isolation of components? As i understand it the 3 batteries inside the olympus are powering all the peripherals and lps is powering the motherboard which has the cpu ram etc. If you're removing the peripherals and powering them via the 2 isolated bps in the i/o what is left in the olympus that will be powered by the 3 bps?

I'm asking because i'm interested in knowing if the olympus' 100% increase over the extreme + i/o is from the new components (motherboard cpu etc) or if the gains are from the BPS being internal.

thanks again
Click to expand...

The 2 spare Olympus battery supplies will then power the interface cards. The I/O cards will then be situated in the I/O chassis. Altogether you’ll have an increased level of isolation in a reduced EMI/RFI environment.

The 3rd Olympus battery supply powers the OS / music drives.

The improved performance of Olympus over Extreme + I/O is larger for XDMI then for USB as USB has a relatively high noise level itself. Where XDMI noise levels have to be measured on a nanovolt scale, a best effort USB implementation is more in the micro/millivolt range, aka thousands of times higher.

it's nice that an Extreme owner can upgrade to Olympus IO now, then later upgrade to full Olympus and still have use for the IO box, but what is it about Olympus IO that also improves Olympus? Something about battery power focused exclusively on interface cards (like we used to plug an external LPS into an external DC input on a PCIe card)?

Plenty of benefits to be gained there.
1. You are keeping your cards cooler by moving them to a different chassis. You are also keeping the server cooler by removing the cards. Temperature is a big factor in the Extreme. I suspect that will still be a factor on the Olympus server.
2. A server is a noisy environment. You have a lot of noise, EMI, etc. Removing the cards out of that environment can be beneficial.
3. We are adding extra vibration isolation control. DACs usually respond really good to vibration control.
4. We have more space - that opens up the capabilities for bigger and better analog section on the DAC for example... or whatever other creative things Taiko can come up with.
5. We have more power isolation, more batteries, more things are "floating" and not connected to each other. That's almost always beneficial in digital audio.
The list goes on...

 

Hi Emile, on the Olympus, is the difference between NSM and Roon the same as what we are currently hearing with the Extreme, where NSM sounds much better?

 

Any idea on pricing of those? Interested indeed!

Undecided and it will depend on age, condition etc. It would be best to contact us directly for this.

 

I had several customers asking the question about adding the I/O XDMI to the Olympus/XDMI. I went through the thread and this is all that has been said, mostly by Emile and then Nenon as well. It's a good summary of the benefits of what adding the I/O XDMI to Olympus/XDMI.


It moves the I/O cards to an external chassis powered by separate batteries

Advantages:
-lower operating temperatures
-lower rfi/emi environment

Aka increased isolation
It does give another audible improvement for those who want the absolute max

When you add the I/O to the Olympus you increase isolation levels a bit more, no rfi/emi pickup from other hardware, a few degrees lower operating temperatures, doubled up battery power/isolation, it does improve things a but further but not as much as it does for the Extreme.


The 2 spare Olympus battery supplies will then power the interface cards. The I/O cards will then be situated in the I/O chassis. Altogether you’ll have an increased level of isolation in a reduced EMI/RFI environment.

The 3rd Olympus battery supply powers the OS / music drives.

The improved performance of Olympus over Extreme + I/O is larger for XDMI then for USB as USB has a relatively high noise level itself. Where XDMI noise levels have to be measured on a nanovolt scale, a best effort USB implementation is more in the micro/millivolt range, aka thousands of times higher.


Plenty of benefits to be gained there.
1. You are keeping your cards cooler by moving them to a different chassis. You are also keeping the server cooler by removing the cards. Temperature is a big factor in the Extreme. I suspect that will still be a factor on the Olympus server.
2. A server is a noisy environment. You have a lot of noise, EMI, etc. Removing the cards out of that environment can be beneficial.
3. We are adding extra vibration isolation control. DACs usually respond really good to vibration control.
4. We have more space - that opens up the capabilities for bigger and better analog section on the DAC for example... or whatever other creative things Taiko can come up with.
5. We have more power isolation, more batteries, more things are "floating" and not connected to each other. That's almost always beneficial in digital audio.
The list goes on...

Thanks for validating my decision to order the Olympus +I/O! I cannot wait to here these and XDMI with my Select DAC.

 

Hi Emile, on the Olympus, is the difference between NSM and Roon the same as what we are currently hearing with the Extreme, where NSM sounds much better?

No it’s not the same difference. Several of the noise reduction techniques employed by XDMS are no longer relevant with the Olympus. But they do sound different, once again more a matter of taste then of absolute performance. What that means is that we have some coding to do on XDMS for the Olympus

 

@Taiko Audio I know this question has been asked re XDMI but I don't think there has been a response. Id like to ask the question a different way.

If the XDMI + aes/ebu output from Extreme to my Horizon is worth $1, what value would it be worth if XDMI interface is at both Extreme and Horizon and i2s is used

 

$1.7365

 

Steve if Lukas put an XDMI card in his Horizon then he wouldn't use the i2s input, he would use the XDMI card input. Then the Olympus motherboard would have a daughter card with the XDMI interface, instead of an aes/ebu daughter card. The connection would be with a cable that I don't know if Emile has disclosed.

 

@Taiko Audio I know this question has been asked re XDMI but I don't think there has been a response. Id like to ask the question a different way.

If the XDMI + aes/ebu output from Extreme to my Horizon is worth $1, what value would it be worth if XDMI interface is at both Extreme and Horizon and i2s is used

Somewhere between $2 and $5 ? As this is untested I cannot give a reliable answer.

 

Steve if Lukas put an XDMI card in his Horizon then he wouldn't use the i2s input, he would use the XDMI card input. Then the Olympus motherboard would have a daughter card with the XDMI interface, instead of an aes/ebu daughter card. The connection would be with a cable that I don't know if Emile has disclosed.

QFSP.

 

Steve if Lukas put an XDMI card in his Horizon then he wouldn't use the i2s input, he would use the XDMI card input. Then the Olympus motherboard would have a daughter card with the XDMI interface, instead of an aes/ebu daughter card. The connection would be with a cable that I don't know if Emile has disclosed.

thanks for the clarification. This is all Greek to me. It was my understanding that Lampi would use i2s. Im a slow learner but I have to say that for me to give up the Taiko USB card which brought so much enjoyment to me and go to XDMI with aes/ebu should speak volumes for the faith and trust I put in Emile

 

I would use i2s if Emile designs a daughter card for the Olympus XDMI that is specific for the Horizon i2s since i2s is not standard. Then you would have all the advantages of transporting the signal from the Olympus processor to the output of the XDMI card, but not the advantages of the XDMI interface (that's why Emile talks about going with the handbrake on) since this requires a card XDMI on Server and DAC.

 

I would use i2s if Emile designs a daughter card for the Olympus XDMI that is specific for the Horizon i2s since i2s is not standard. Then you would have all the advantages of transporting the signal from the Olympus processor to the output of the XDMI card, but not the advantages of the XDMS interface (that's why Emile talks about going with the handbrake on) since this requires a card XDMI on Server and DAC.

Francisco

your last 2 posts have finally brought me to a level of understanding this entire thing. TY for enlightening this simple mind of mine

 

Glad to hear it.
As Emile has just indicated, both XDMI cards (in Dac and Server) would be connected with a QFSP cable

 

I would use i2s if Emile designs a daughter card for the Olympus XDMI that is specific for the Horizon i2s since i2s is not standard. Then you would have all the advantages of transporting the signal from the Olympus processor to the output of the XDMI card, but not the advantages of the XDMI interface (that's why Emile talks about going with the handbrake on) since this requires a card XDMI on Server and DAC.

I2S is less non standard than most seem to think, pin layout and connector (HDMI or RJ45) are not standardized and a few other specs (Emile mentioned those) may differ, yet manufacturers of DDC units handle this by using dipswitches. Surely this can be dealt with provided the volume is large enough, perhaps even in software rather than using the clumsy dip switches. The bigger issue is likely to get the DAC manufacturer to cooperate if the I2S output of XDMI differs from the format they chose (there might be valid reasons to do so).

I²S - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org