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".

 

I appreciate that suggestion. I already have a very reliable and outstanding dealer in Bob at Rhapsody, who has volunteered to do exactly that. I'm hoping that the two of us can take the Extreme down from the shelf, transfer the memory boards from the Extreme, install the Olympus, and not wind up in the orthopedic ward of the hospital. But it still doesn't address the concern of getting what may be a wonderful XDMI analog RCA/AES board with the Olympus that I may not use for the long term. My guess is that I'm not alone having that concern. Surely there's a path forward to address this concern?

if you are an early adopter , you get both boards

 

I think Marty has a darn good point. Why release a product announcement on Dec 2023 and before the month is out, tell the audience the product is obsolete. Or that something that is supposedly much better is only 6 months down the road.

I don't get you last comment Marty.

Did you mean to say, may not be used for a long time. As in your won't update the Horizon for a while.

Rex, I meant that I may not use it at all if the preferred long term solution is an XDMI digital out going into an XDMI digital in from a DAC manufacturer such as Lampizator.

 

I'm still tripping over "tapes recorded using . . . top digital recordings." What would an analog tape copy tell you about a digital recording? (...)

I think it would tell a lot about the intrinsic sound of the TAIKO XDMI/DAC for our personnel evaluations. I have recorded a few excerpts in the past using a few of the best DACs I hav e owned or borrowed with the Studer A80 and some differences were enlightening. Mike Lavigne could also easily get a flavor of it very easily. Before you ask, no, I do not have any tape recording carried with the WADAX!

 

Indeed, in case of AES/SPDIF the most expensive part is the unpopulated circuitboard, followed by the XLR plug and RCA socket. AES/SPDIF is really very cheap, it was designed to be just that. Obviously the DAC / analogue stage is not cheap, but we really want people to hear what XDMI is capable of without the existing external interface limitations, so we supply that for free as well for this introduction.

My remaining doubt is why a AES/EBU card using a separate input clock in synchronous mode, that does not have DAC intrinsic data related jitter interference is not supposed to sound a lot better in systems with an external clock.

 

I think it would tell a lot about the intrinsic sound of the TAIKO XDMI/DAC for our personnel evaluations. I have recorded a few excerpts in the past using a few of the best DACs I hav e owned or borrowed with the Studer A80 and some differences were enlightening. Mike Lavigne could also easily get a flavor of it very easily. Before you ask, no, I do not have any tape recording carried with the WADAX!

Appreciate the idea but I’m going to pass on this one, that goes for both youtube and tape recordings. There will be plenty of feedback coming in from the ~80 people who’ve ordered XDMI so far.

This also means the end of the introduction discount is closing in, we originally planned to limit this to 50 units but have now extended the offer to 100.

If you’re reading this and contacted us to enquire about a purchase but have not received a reply yet, do not worry, this is strictly due to the overwhelming volume of questions / enquiries, we are trying to catch up as fast as we can.

 

My remaining doubt is why a AES/EBU card using a separate input clock in synchronous mode, that does not have DAC intrinsic data related jitter interference is not supposed to sound a lot better in systems with an external clock.

You don’t need to doubt that. But again, ideally the master clock is as close to the DAC chip as possible, imho

 

You don’t need to doubt that. But again, ideally the master clock is as close to the DAC chip as possible, imho

Can we guess that in the future XDMI interfaces the clock must be generated by the DAC and sent to the Olympus?

 

Sorry that sounds like a total waste of time/resource imho, even more so than YT videos. To ask Taiko to take the time to make analog tapes and send them to you and others?

Even more so I would vote in Taiko not doing this vs. working on Olympus/I/O, XDMS and the other 30+ projects that they have going on.

I dunno. It's not like Emile is doing anything between 2-5am.

 

I will add a polarizing, possibly disturbing logical corollary, that follows Emile and Taiko’s team findings. I am being purely rational here: if really the uptick in audio reproduction follows from the chain behind the DAC, and stems from the many signal conversions and electrical routing through the memory access, PCI bus, MB, all the way to the controller and USB card, and there is a simple way to assess this (remove the mid-chain conversions and observe delta, as the Taiko team successfully pioneered and I have absolutely no doubt on both their capabilities to break boundaries and in their honesty), then : 1) it is utmost likely than any differences between DACs lies with the DAC handling of the data stream and is mostly coincidental, leveling the field across top-tier and off-shelf offering, 2) tubes/valves are a good patch to make up for detriments done to data stream, now semi-corrected with experience and craftsman shift (we already accepted here that the incoming data stream isn’t trustworthy and needs ‘patching’ with added harmonics), 3) we may have never experienced a faithful process of delivering what’s actually contained in a recording (vinyl introduces its own characteristics to the recording, notwithstanding many vinyls are obtained after digital recording/processing, that defeats any objective representation of reality), 4) the Taiko team may be for good reasons coi about all the above, but heck they just landed a moonshot . Following a logical sequence of observations, I sold my DAC ( above meant to be provocative to stimulate a surely heated discussion ). One final assumption that I may have, is whether a more accurate reproduction is to everyone’s liking, on this I am quite convinced that it will be the case, based on logic again, as the alternative would be that we all scatter our tastes along more than a handfull of tier offerings, like our taste for wine for instance or chocolate. I think psycho acoustic studies have demonstrated that the brain gets a hard time being tricked in an audio representation, more so than a visual one.

Happy winter celebrations to the Taiko team and everyone here!

 

I dunno. It's not like Emile is doing anything between 2-5am.

If he needs addtional help, he might just look right outside his shop and find very capable candidates. Here are 2 chaps that were walking around Oldenzaal recently looking for work. You may know that Novo Nordisk is the 3rd largest employer in Denmark, with a market cap that exceeds the yearly GDP of the country. But I think it's obvious who Emile should hire.

 

3) that we may have never experienced a faithful process of delivering what’s actually contained in a recording (vinyl introduces its own characteristics to the recording, notwithstanding many vinyls are obtained after digital recording/processing, that defeats any objective representation of reality. Following a logical sequence of observation, I sold my DAC ( above meant to be provocative to stimulate a surely heated discussion ). Happy winter celebrations to the Taiko team and everyone here!

What about reel to reel?

 

If you mean live performance, that’s the entire point, it is not an audio reproduction. Go figure, it seems the brain takes pleasure in being tricked into believing something is real when it isn’t. According to the little I read, not an expert! I personally enjoy both live and recordings, but in very different ways. If you mean ‘reel’ as a mastering medium or format, I didn’t come across it.

 

.. going back to chocolate, don’t get me started on Hershey … CLEARLY our tastes don’t align on everything

 

Can we guess that in the future XDMI interfaces the clock must be generated by the DAC and sent to the Olympus?

Yes that is most certainly possible when you use I2S and how for example MSB Pro ISL works. I’d go a for a more modern way to transport data for a native XDMI implementation though.

 

Q RE USB on Olympus. Is it the same card as currently used in the Extreme? Understand that the whole point of the Olympus is to sidestep limitations of USB but - as we wait for definitive XDMI connection to DAC - am wondering how USB output from Olympus performs relative to USB output from Extreme…

 

Q RE USB on Olympus. Is it the same card as currently used in the Extreme? Understand that the whole point of the Olympus is to sidestep limitations of USB but - as we wait for definitive XDMI connection to DAC - am wondering how USB output from Olympus performs relative to USB output from Extreme…

Yes, same card, USB performance from the Olympus is similar to adding this to your Extreme:

Olympus I/O to add to an Extreme server: € 20.800 (return your old USB and Network card)

 

Understood but means going from one-box to two-box server…

 

Understood but means going from one-box to two-box server…

Indeed!

 

XDMI -> I2S -> USB -> USB -> I2S will be inferior to USB -> I2S

MSB will not be Olympus/XDMI ---- XDMI/DAC, but Olympus/XDMI/Pro ISL --- DAC

Totaldac will be Olympus/XDMI/AESEBU --- DAC

DCS will be Olympus/XDMI/dual AESEBU -- DAC with perhaps external clocking options (unless they're interested in adopting XDMI natively, which I doubt)

Aries Cerat and Lampizator are interested in adopting XDMI natively

For the rest we'll have to see how things develop. There's a limit to what we can handle simultaneously.

Emile hi, if Aries Cerat and Lampizator eventually adopt XDMI natively, should we owners of their DACs postpone buying now the XDMI card/AESEBU SPDIF until this issue clears up because the final digital connection might be different and we will need to buy the XDMI digital output card again in the future ??

 

Emile hi, if Aries Cerat and Lampizator eventually adopt XDMI natively, should we owners of their DACs postpone buying now the XDMI card/AESEBU SPDIF until this issue clears up because the final digital connection might be different and we will need to buy the XDMI digital output card again in the future ??

On the server side it would only entail swapping the AES/EBU daughterboard.