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 was mailed out, next to each person for week 1 and week 2 having been contacted individually.

*Production Schedule Update*

Here’s a quick update on our production schedule:
Orders assigned to Week 1 (Mar 17–21) and Week 2 (Mar 24–28) are mostly completed. Two units are still in progress:
#80 – I/O is completed; Olympus is still being worked on.
#92 – Still in progress.
Both are expected to be completed and tested early next week. The remaining units are either with the dangerous goods specialists, en route to them, or undergoing final testing.

Emile visited the powder coating facility yesterday. So far, the black powder coating has shown a 100% success rate. That said, issues can still occur due to improper handling or packaging during shipping. The powder-coated chassis Emile reviewed are scheduled to arrive on Monday morning. Once they arrive, we’ll inspect them, assign them to order numbers, and send out an update.

A more detailed update will follow on Tuesday.

 

I wanted to provide a bit more clarity around the projections and current status.

All projections are done by me, based on data and updates provided by the Taiko team. This is a highly dynamic environment - I'm getting daily updates about factory visits (for anodizing and coating), chassis production, rejections, milling status, assembly progress, etc. It’s a constant stream of information, and recalculating projections is time-consuming - each update takes at least half a day. For that reason, I only recalculate once we have a meaningful update, like a good batch of chassis passing quality inspection and being allocated to order numbers.

As of now, we still don’t have chassis for Week 3 (Mar 31–Apr 4). They’re expected to arrive Monday morning. Once inspected, they’ll go straight to assembly. I expect to get the inspection results when I wake up Monday, then begin allocating chassis to order numbers and recalculating the projected dates. I’ll send the updated list to Julien by the end of the day, and he’ll share an email update on Tuesday. That’s the current plan.

When new chassis arrive, the Taiko team doesn’t know what to expect - success rates can range from 0% to 100%. Fortunately, Emile personally inspected this upcoming batch and it looked like a full pass, so unless there’s damage during shipping or handling, we expect to have sufficient quantity next week.

Here’s a preview of what I anticipate once I recalculate next week:

1. Silver orders may fall slightly behind initial projections due to a bad batch that lowered the average. But again, this is fluid - two good batches can bring silver back ahead of projections quickly.
2. Black anodized orders will likely face further delays.
3. Black powder-coated Olympus units without I/O are expected to move ahead of initial projections.

Each Olympus is hand-built, requiring significant labor and post-build testing. So if you see your unit scheduled in, say, Week 2 (Mar 24–28), that means it's entering the assembly line that week. Testing and final prep typically spill into the following week.

We’ve also implemented a process for managing shipping during travel. Around the time your unit enters assembly (or shortly after), Taiko will email you to confirm your specs and shipping address, and explain the final steps (including dangerous goods certification and customs). At that time, you’ll also be asked if you’ll be available to receive the shipment. This is your opportunity to place the shipment on hold if necessary.

My advice: avoid planning travel around the Olympus delivery window. Unexpected delays - especially with customs or FedEx - can and do happen, and some are beyond anyone’s control.

I’ve had to make my travel plans and my commitments to my paying customers already. Guess #92 will just have to sit in the rain till I can return. My customers are my priority, not this damn thing.

@Tuckia - you are in good hands. Besides putting the shipping on hold if you travel, we can also get it delivered to me, and I will drive to your house when you are back. I will reach out to you directly to discuss what the best option for you is. BTW, you did not get that email I mentioned above today (per my request), because I will handle this directly.

 

Wow Julien, you have some nerve. You made a promise you didn’t keep and I asked for additional information and the update we were all expecting. Way to just swoop in here, not simply take ownership, and make it sound like your long time customers are the ones that are being unreasonable.

This is not @JulienVermeiren posting.

 

When new chassis arrive, the Taiko team doesn’t know what to expect - success rates can range from 0% to 100%. Fortunately, Emile personally inspected this upcoming batch and it looked like a full pass, so unless there’s damage during shipping or handling, we expect to have sufficient quantity next week.

Let me elaborate on this a bit more in depth.

Transportation damage aside, the powder coating yield has indeed been 100%.

This is not standard powder coating though.

In Europe we have a rating system of 6-10 for decorative finishing. Powder coating is usually grade 6, as for example applied on wheel rims, household items etc, anything which needs to look decent to good and requires a durable finish.

Decorative anodising can reach a 8-9 rating, highly depending on the type of aluminium alloy used, and pre-finishing, brushed and then anodised aluminium can be an 8, bead blasted then anodised can reach a 9 rating. On the Olympus we can actually never reach that 9 rating due to the physical size which in turn requires manual labour to finish, it can never be 100% consistent. We have one anodiser which can reach about a 8.5 rating on the Olympus, which does look really great.

The coating company we found recently can apply a powder coating finish at quality level 10. It’s basically flawless. This is rare, there just aren’t many companies doing this as it’s just much more profitable to fill your factory with level 6 lines, and you can get a level 10 finish with other types of coating, which however are not as durable and/or fragile (spray painting) or not suitable for, again, the object size.

So what we have is a coating, with similar durability to anodising, at the same (actually higher) quality level, with no process induced rejection rates.

What is the problem, well it does not look 100% like anodised, and you all have ordered anodised. Even though everyone who has seen it thus far prefers it over anodised, it’s not 100% the same. It’s a deeper black with slightly more surface texture and it reflects light just a bit more. It looks more “luxurious”. The other problem is, although we got black down now, it will take time to get silver right. There is no coating available which matches anodised silver within say 90%. This means we need to have a coating custom made, this takes a month, if an adjustment is necessary, another month. We’re at that “another month”.

What it means for you who have an Olympus on order is that you can choose between coating and anodised.

For NEW Olympus orders in black, we will ONLY supply black coated, anodised will not be an option.

For NEW Olympus orders in silver, we will accept anodised only until we have silver coating ready.

We will build up a stock of anodised chassis parts and I/Os to match your anodised Olympus if you need a chassis parts replaced or if you want to add an I/O to your Olympus.

But we are unfortunately seeing ourselves forced to abandoning anodising otherwise, we cannot produce the quantities required, and the process is just too wasteful.

First of all to have any sort of reasonable yield on the 6 chassis a week the only anodiser in Western Europe (yes we’ve approached them all) can or is willing to finish, we can only use the outter 1/6th of the raw aluminium ingots. This is likely to get even worse over time, by 2050 all aluminium will be 50/50 new/recycled, and this is a good example as the other 5/6th of the ingots can go straight to recycling.

Then we have CNC machining, 6 hours for an Olympus bottom, 4 hours for a top, 8 hours for an I/O.

Sanding / polishing, 1 hour each chassis part.

Then the bead-blasting and anodising, 4 hours each chassis part.

Re-anodising, 6 hours each part, we gave up on that as when our supplier needs to re-anodise they can only manage 4 chassis a week.

This means if we have to reject a chassis, we have wasted 20 hours of labour. Add an I/O and it’s 33 hours. On top of that we’ve added a 6ft tall tower of aluminium blocks with a 20*20” footprint to recycling.

If we stick to our current process, we’d be forced to double our prices, at least. An increase is unavoidable, but I’d like to keep this somewhat manageable, therefor we have no other choice than to switch to offering coating options exclusively for new orders.

 

Let me elaborate on this a bit more in depth.

Transportation damage aside, the powder coating yield has indeed been 100%.

This is not standard powder coating though.

In Europe we have a rating system of 6-10 for decorative finishing. Powder coating is usually grade 6, as for example applied on wheel rims, household items etc, anything which needs to look decent to good and requires a durable finish.

Decorative anodising can reach a 8-9 rating, highly depending on the type of aluminium alloy used, and pre-finishing, brushed and then anodised aluminium can be an 8, bead blasted then anodised can reach a 9 rating. On the Olympus we can actually never reach that 9 rating due to the physical size which in turn requires manual labour to finish, it can never be 100% consistent. We have one anodiser which can reach about a 8.5 rating on the Olympus, which does look really great.

The coating company we found recently can apply a powder coating finish at quality level 10. It’s basically flawless. This is rare, there just aren’t many companies doing this as it’s just much more profitable to fill your factory with level 6 lines, and you can get a level 10 finish with other types of coating, which however are not as durable and/or fragile (spray painting) or not suitable for, again, the object size.

So what we have is a coating, with similar durability to anodising, at the same (actually higher) quality level, with no process induced rejection rates.

What is the problem, well it does not look 100% like anodised, and you all have ordered anodised. Even though everyone who has seen it thus far prefers it over anodised, it’s not 100% the same. It’s a deeper black with slightly more surface texture and it reflects light just a bit more. It looks more “luxurious”. The other problem is, although we got black down now, it will take time to get silver right. There is no coating available which matches anodised silver within say 90%. This means we need to have a coating custom made, this takes a month, if an adjustment is necessary, another month. We’re at that “another month”.

What it means for you who have an Olympus on order is that you can choose between coating and anodised.

For NEW Olympus orders in black, we will ONLY supply black coated, anodised will not be an option.

For NEW Olympus orders in silver, we will accept anodised only until we have silver coating ready.

We will build up a stock of anodised chassis parts and I/Os to match your anodised Olympus if you need a chassis parts replaced or if you want to add an I/O to your Olympus.

But we are unfortunately seeing ourselves forced to abandoning anodising otherwise, we cannot produce the quantities required, and the process is just too wasteful.

First of all to have any sort of reasonable yield on the 6 chassis a week the only anodiser in Western Europe (yes we’ve approached them all) can or is willing to finish, we can only use the outter 1/6th of the raw aluminium ingots. This is likely to get even worse over time, by 2050 all aluminium will be 50/50 new/recycled, and this is a good example as the other 5/6th of the ingots can go straight to recycling.

Then we have CNC machining, 6 hours for an Olympus bottom, 4 hours for a top, 8 hours for an I/O.

Sanding / polishing, 1 hour each chassis part.

Then the bead-blasting and anodising, 4 hours each chassis part.

Re-anodising, 6 hours each part, we gave up on that as when our supplier needs to re-anodise they can only manage 4 chassis a week.

This means if we have to reject a chassis, we have wasted 20 hours of labour. Add an I/O and it’s 33 hours. On top of that we’ve added a 6ft tall tower of aluminium blocks with a 20*20” footprint to recycling.

If we stick to our current process, we’d be forced to double our prices, at least. An increase is unavoidable, but I’d like to keep this somewhat manageable, therefor we have no other choice than to switch to offering coating options exclusively for new orders.

There are so many unforeseen aspects to this, it's difficult at best to comprehend. This explains many and I'm sure not all of the many obstacles Taiko is faced with. No doubt this is frustrating for all of us. If I can offer any advice to all parties concerned, lets try to stay positive. From all reports this is one Hell of a fine piece of gear. I'm not some friggen cheerleader, far from it, just attempting to cool things down a bit. We got onboard because we have confidence in @Taiko Audio and Emile's knowledge/ability's. I know for a fact the crew at Taiko reads WBF. I hope they understand much of what is said here is not directed at them. Firstly we are audiophiles! Our circuitry is not normal on a good day. Then throw in a forum in which we can voice our opinions. What could possibly go wrong in this scenario! Hang in there fellows, and Taiko. We shall reach the promised land. I hope this helps in some miniscule way...John

 

I thought the intention going forwards based on @nenon’s message 2 weeks ago was for the production schedule to be shared via personal emails rather than posted in this thread? If that isn’t happening it would make sense to do any follow up directly with Taiko support or whomever Taiko nominates just to avoid everyone having to read about a person’s order / delivery. Just my 2c FWIW

 

In other news...
The latest build appears to be the best sq I've heard from Roon.
Ymmv

 

As a change of pace, here is some good news about a very satisfactory service assignment carried out by Taiko employees Eelco and Julien on site at Olympus's home. My problem with Olympus was that contact with Roon was lost several times a day, resulting in a restart, which was of course very annoying and not something expected from a device of this magnitude.
After contacting Taiko support, I was asked if I could imagine having the service carried out on site, something I could hardly believe was true, but apparently that is how I understand it, so most Olympus service cases will have to be carried out as shipping back to the factory involves a lot of complications.
In the picture, Eelco can be seen about to open up the Olympus to then reach the motherboard, which was replaced with a new one that solved the problem. The operation took less than two hours and since then the Olympus has been working flawlessly. To all frustrated and waiting Olympus customers, keep waiting, it is worth it.

 

Well you kick the beehive and all sorts of stuff comes out. Some is worthwhile, some isn’t.

Multiple topics here. As I’ve been following the production challenges from early on, and I understand the dependent nature of this, it is what it is now. My comments are about something entirely independent and under full control by Taiko and associates - communication.

I understand that the high end audio culture and communication to customers/end users is often of the customer service type - low resolution and manipulative. Got to control the narrative. Over the years I’ve enjoyed Taiko’s open discussions which are contrary to the norm. Quite a sales point for me.

My challenges in receiving a completed unit are uniquely mine, not Taiko’s. What gives me a chance in making it happen is knowing when the unit is likely to ship. With a projection cone of 15 to zero units completed per week (think hurricane tracking), it’s impossible to know without short term corrections. I did ask privately for an update. None came. Nothing malicious, just a miss. I waited for Julien’s weekly update. None came, until Thursday. By this time I’m pregnant with my commitments. First world problem.

Some of us benefit from accurate short term projections. No hyperbole, bragging about success, or excuses about how the world is unfair, is necessary - just a couple quick data points. Simple, low effort, uncolored information.

Compiling and maintaining high resolution, long-term production schedules is very time intensive. I’ve done it. Then I realized it isn’t worthwhile for me and the stakeholders of my projects. Just my $.02.

Taiko, do what you do best. Apologies to Julien for the misidentification. Your weekly updates will be useful.

Private communication is best for private issues. If it spills into this forum it becomes something it shouldn’t.

Someday this queue stuff will be done, thankfully.

Cheers.

 

In other news...
The latest build appears to be the best sq I've heard from Roon.
Ymmv

Interesting
I am thinking the opposite
The new build is dull, slow and sluggish sounding. No dynamics. Sounds like a major step backwards.
The previous build was dynamic, dimensional, spacious......

 

As a change of pace, here is some good news about a very satisfactory service assignment carried out by Taiko employees Eelco and Julien on site at Olympus's home. My problem with Olympus was that contact with Roon was lost several times a day, resulting in a restart, which was of course very annoying and not something expected from a device of this magnitude.
After contacting Taiko support, I was asked if I could imagine having the service carried out on site, something I could hardly believe was true, but apparently that is how I understand it, so most Olympus service cases will have to be carried out as shipping back to the factory involves a lot of complications.
In the picture, Eelco can be seen about to open up the Olympus to then reach the motherboard, which was replaced with a new one that solved the problem. The operation took less than two hours and since then the Olympus has been working flawlessly. To all frustrated and waiting Olympus customers, keep waiting, it is worth it.View attachment 148216

This is priceless...
Taiko, good on you!

 

As a change of pace, here is some good news about a very satisfactory service assignment carried out by Taiko employees Eelco and Julien on site at Olympus's home. My problem with Olympus was that contact with Roon was lost several times a day, resulting in a restart, which was of course very annoying and not something expected from a device of this magnitude.
After contacting Taiko support, I was asked if I could imagine having the service carried out on site, something I could hardly believe was true, but apparently that is how I understand it, so most Olympus service cases will have to be carried out as shipping back to the factory involves a lot of complications.
In the picture, Eelco can be seen about to open up the Olympus to then reach the motherboard, which was replaced with a new one that solved the problem. The operation took less than two hours and since then the Olympus has been working flawlessly. To all frustrated and waiting Olympus customers, keep waiting, it is worth it.View attachment 148216

Wow! Full mobo replacement—I’m going to guess that is the one of very few instances where that has been needed, maybe a first. Mobos are pretty reliable these days as a general rule. As a geek who has assembled quite a few computers over the last few decades I’m curious to know how the prognosis was arrived at? And team Taiko arrived with a spare mobo in their pocket?

 

Wow! Full mobo replacement—I’m going to guess that is the one of very few instances where that has been needed, maybe a first. Mobos are pretty reliable these days as a general rule. As a geek who has assembled quite a few computers over the last few decades I’m curious to know how the prognosis was arrived at? And team Taiko arrived with a spare mobo in their pocket?

How the prognosis was arrived I don't know, I have just told them that the Roon connection was lost occasionally.
Yes, they arrived in their car with a spare MB and some more spare I would think, the MB is simply too big for the pocket.

 

How the prognosis was arrived I don't know, I have just told them that the Roon connection was lost occasionally.
Yes, they arrived in their car with a spare MB and some more spare I would think, the MB is simply too big for the pocket.

Losing room contact several times a day is a somewhat common issue. I definitely experience it in my system on a daily basis. So the solution to the Roon signal loss is replacing the MB? @Stbo, Are you in the U.S./Europe?

 

Well you kick the beehive and all sorts of stuff comes out. Some is worthwhile, some isn’t.

Multiple topics here. As I’ve been following the production challenges from early on, and I understand the dependent nature of this, it is what it is now. My comments are about something entirely independent and under full control by Taiko and associates - communication.

I understand that the high end audio culture and communication to customers/end users is often of the customer service type - low resolution and manipulative. Got to control the narrative. Over the years I’ve enjoyed Taiko’s open discussions which are contrary to the norm. Quite a sales point for me.

My challenges in receiving a completed unit are uniquely mine, not Taiko’s. What gives me a chance in making it happen is knowing when the unit is likely to ship. With a projection cone of 15 to zero units completed per week (think hurricane tracking), it’s impossible to know without short term corrections. I did ask privately for an update. None came. Nothing malicious, just a miss. I waited for Julien’s weekly update. None came, until Thursday. By this time I’m pregnant with my commitments. First world problem.

Some of us benefit from accurate short term projections. No hyperbole, bragging about success, or excuses about how the world is unfair, is necessary - just a couple quick data points. Simple, low effort, uncolored information.

Compiling and maintaining high resolution, long-term production schedules is very time intensive. I’ve done it. Then I realized it isn’t worthwhile for me and the stakeholders of my projects. Just my $.02.

Taiko, do what you do best. Apologies to Julien for the misidentification. Your weekly updates will be useful.

Private communication is best for private issues. If it spills into this forum it becomes something it shouldn’t.

Someday this queue stuff will be done, thankfully.

Cheers.

Every cloud has a silver lining

 

Wow! Full mobo replacement—I’m going to guess that is the one of very few instances where that has been needed, maybe a first. Mobos are pretty reliable these days as a general rule. As a geek who has assembled quite a few computers over the last few decades I’m curious to know how the prognosis was arrived at? And team Taiko arrived with a spare mobo in their pocket?

Yeah that is quite an uncommon occurrence, this one took us quite some time to figure out, there’s a batch of early Asus motherboards which have a stability issue, it appears we have received some of those which were used in a few Olympus servers somewhere in the 30-40 order number mark. We have replaced one in the UK, now in Sweden, there’s one in Switzerland we’re going to replace soon, and we have one in Italy and one in the US.

Servicing on site simply makes sense as shipping of the Olympus is at least as expensive as travelling and it saves the customer a lot of hassle, it’s seriously challenging for most people to handle the weight, strap it on a pallet etc, and shipping itself is not always smooth sailing.

The improved customer satisfaction over being serviced this way is obviously a nice plus.

 

@Taiko Audio are there any proactive steps an owner in the order range noted can take for you (I am number 38 IIRC)? I am thinking serial numbers, etc. on mobo, if visible...along those lines.

Related item: if a server has to be shipped back home, must the customer get a haz-mat company to certify and ship? That alone might make the in-home solution necessary/preferable.

Thank you, Emile.

 

@Taiko Audio are there any proactive steps an owner in the order range noted can take for you (I am number 38 IIRC)? I am thinking serial numbers, etc. on mobo, if visible...along those lines.
.

No unfortunately it’s not visible but we can identify it based on your problem description and system logs.

Related item: if a server has to be shipped back home, must the customer get a haz-mat company to certify and ship? That alone might make the in-home solution necessary/preferable.

Thank you, Emile.

Airplane shipping is indeed somewhat tricky, which is indeed why local service or ground shipping is preferable.

Obviously one of the reasons @nenon will be taking over the helm from us in the US. And don’t be surprised if manufacturing (for US sales) will move there aswell.

In the EU we have Dream Audio willing to fill a similar role in the entity as distributors for Europe. They are willing to drive up to a 1000km radius (from Bratislava) for service / demos or home installations. And ofcourse we can still assist.

 

@Taiko Audio are there any proactive steps an owner in the order range noted can take for you (I am number 38 IIRC)? I am thinking serial numbers, etc. on mobo, if visible...along those lines.

Related item: if a server has to be shipped back home, must the customer get a haz-mat company to certify and ship? That alone might make the in-home solution necessary/preferable.

Thank you, Emile.

I'm interested in this question also, Emile. As a rule, I always have to cycle the front button off/on every morning in order to reestablish Roon connection, but (generally) it will play Roon all day with no interruptions at all (once or twice this has occurred, but very seldom--and perhaps due to something else, like a loss of servie/internet connection as happened the other day). I was #50, fwiw, but curious if there's a S/N or mobo check also. Thanks.

 

I'm interested in this question also, Emile. As a rule, I always have to cycle the front button off/on every morning in order to reestablish Roon connection, but (generally) it will play Roon all day with no interruptions at all (once or twice this has occurred, but very seldom--and perhaps due to something else, like a loss of servie/internet connection as happened the other day). I was #50, fwiw, but curious if there's a S/N or mobo check also. Thanks.

Hmm that does indeed sound like a network connection loss. We can see that in your system logs. Can you open a support ticket @ support@taikoaudio.com so we can take a look?

There’s no S/N check, no way for you to identify them, but you’ll know, you would’ve opened a support call a long time ago.