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".

 

Wall to Wall?
This is not what I look for.
I already have 2x bigger Soundstage than my room is, with Extreme making it happen.
So the good news is you don't need a bigger room. You might need a better electronics, speakers or cables to open Extreme potential.

Did you see the words " Tongue in cheek" in the quoted comment from me? You were the second who failed to see my disclaimer with this emoji . Sorry for not capitalizing and boldfacing the phrase: "TONGUE IN CHEEK". Case closed.

 

I’m awaiting my Taiko switch, router and DCD and looking at rack space for the placement of these pieces.

Is anybody stacking the switch and router? Or the switch, router and DCD on top? If you’re stacking, are you using footers of some sort in between?

 

Indeed, same for 2x+ soundstage. My room is 17x 16 x 9'. I already have wall-to-wall soundstage from the Extreme-Horizon combo. 2x soundstage would tear down the boundary of my room and fill up the whole house? I need to work 10x hard to get a much bigger room/house for the 10x explosion of soundstage. Tongue in cheek

Love it!

If my stage width increases 300%, that will extend past the front wall of my house. Will I then hear people on the sidewalk appearing within my soundstage, or is the increased width only unidirectional? Will I be able to hear my music outside on the sidewalk if the soundstage reaches that far?

Without these discussions, how will we ever determine (never mind predict) how many angels Emile can fit on to the head of a pin?

 

Love it!

If my stage width increases 300%, that will extend past the front wall of my house. Will I then hear people on the sidewalk appearing within my soundstage, or is the increased width only unidirectional? Will I be able to hear my music outside on the sidewalk if the soundstage reaches that far?

Without these discussions, how will we ever determine (never mind predict) how many angels Emile can fit on to the head of a pin?

You should have used a disclaimer in BOLD FACE and UPPER CASE for your postings like this - to avoid another round of percentage number and other hifi talks and primer lessoning from "scientifically minded" people and "gurus". 300% must be guaranteed and verifiable or accepted as a matter of gospel faith or tell yourself 300 times to be convinced yourself - otherwise what? One should always try to obtain 30-day-no-question-asked return terms? TONGUE IN CHEEK

 

If one reads the quoted improvement percentage language literally, VPN's rather than Kris' interpretation appears to be a bit more logical: 275% (Olympus) and 300% (+ I/O) XDMI improvement compared to Extreme's 100% (USB) logically (in terms of semantics) does not read 25% improvement of I/O over Olympus. It may be, but the way it was phrased does not entail it. Emile has not stated in writing on a public forum (not to my knowledge) that I/O addition would result in 25% improvement over Olympus. (He wrote that it was very difficult to compare XDMI with USB presumably because of the very different sound signatures.) Would love to hear from the "horse's mouth." I doubt either guy's math is "accurate" and suspect the "truth" is somewhere in between 9% and 25%. The percentages were mere estimates, quite subjective, somewhat "wild" and not readily verifiable. SQ is more often than not or mostly in the ears of the listener. I tried to estimate each of my component's contribution to the system's SQ but did not have much faith in my own estimates (even though I am intimately familiar with the system). It is always subjective whether an upgrade is worth the cost (there are people spending $100K just to get 5%-10% SQ improvement). For my Horizon, as an example, the costs of using a set of new tubes were similar to the cost of having the Router, but the new tubes have transformed my Horizon (resulting in vastly improved transparency, naturalness and dynamics) - I have not heard it in its full glory until recently. If you think you know the sound of the Horizon with stock tubes, you owe yourself to listen to the "new" Horizon with the kind of NOS tubes discussed on the Horizon tube rolling forum since last June. $7K or so (roughly including the T&P adapters) cost in my case is very worthwhile in my experience (in consideration of the 46K euro retail price with stock tubes, $7K tube upgrade resulting in roughly 50% jump in Horizon's SQ is definitely worthwhile), again subjective (to my ears and in my system; some did not find such tubes working for them). Cannot wait if my retubed Horizon reaches Mount Olympus with the native XDMI connection with Olympus, at the cost of roughly $40K+ (with Extreme trade-in, not including the I/O). Worth it? Only time can tell and even so the view would be personal. One has to be tempered by the realization that the metaphoric Mount Olympus is a path or journey rather than a destination of sonic nirvana; there will be another yonder mount to reach, a realm without end as is the universe.

Just for add a historical annecdote on assigning a number to a sound quality uplift, eight years ago Emile and I used to use the "Regen" yardstick. Regen was the grand daddy of USB devices, and we could all hear a differnce. When some was realy good, it would be 3 Regens or 5 Regens


So XDMS-NSM over XDMS-Classic would be something like 10 Regens = Holy Guacamole

 

Just for add a historical annecdote on assigning a number to a sound quality uplift, eight years ago Emile and I used to use the "Regen" yardstick. Regen was the grand daddy of USB devices, and we could all hear a differnce. When some was realy good, it would be 3 Regens or 5 Regens


So XDMS-NSM over XDMS-Classic would be something like 10 Regens = Holy Guacamole

Ed, that was what I thought. 300% over 100% baseline (2x better in my reading, meant for me only a HUGE SQ jump (with which 99% of end users would agree) in comparison to the SQ uptick from Switch (as an example). I play files locally exclusively (no streaming). If Emile said the Switch used this way would roughly contribute to 20-25% SQ uptick over the Extreme baseline (with which I would agree from my experience), the estimated 175% improvement of Olympus (not including I/O) over Extreme baseline (at 0%) meant only for me multiples of Regens over the Switch, HUGE HUGE HUGE..., x Regens in SQ uptick. Numbers are often stupid, but we often can't help using or have to use numbers to make reference points (at least for other people). CHEERS!

 

Some people including myself simply need perspective and justification for such a big expense.
Especially current Extreme sounds amazing.

If a panel of few people did that % difference judgement and we have a reference point ( switch and router in % ) we can easily say that this very big and painful price will be matching Olympus increase in SQ performance.
That's all we need to know at this point of time.
Being able to return it after audition in your own system is also here so there is zero risk.
Based on that Emile collected 200 + orders.
I believe everyone will be happy here including those who love "stupid numbers" .

 

Will Olympus be at the Florida hifi show this weekend ? Lampi room?
Mn

 

Will Olympus be at the Florida hifi show this weekend ? Lampi room?
Mn

No, they’re not shipping yet for atleast another month.

 

Will Olympus be at the Florida hifi show this weekend ? Lampi room?
Mn

Just a reminder that I remain hopeful that our fearless leader Emile will be able to see the end of the tunnel and find time to put the event together at my house. FWIW I am 100% confidant that when we can put this weekend event together Native XDMI will also be heard. Also co-ordinating schedules is also difficult as I know Lukasz and Fred want to attend and Lukasz has given me the windows of opportunity that he can attend. As before, stay tuned but I am stoked about having native XDMI at the event

 

Will Olympus be at the Florida hifi show this weekend ? Lampi room?
Mn

Unfortunately not, but we are hoping to demonstrate an Olympus XDMI at AXPONA paired natively with either a Poseidon or Horizon DAC.

 

Unfortunately not, but we are hoping to demonstrate an Olympus XDMI at AXPONA paired natively with either a Poseidon or Horizon DAC.

That would be a major event with introduction to a new technology that could become a meaningful improvement in SOA digital playback. I may have to re-consider going to AXPONA! Keep us posted please. I'm also presuming this will be shown at Munich?

 

That would be a major event with introduction to a new technology that could become a meaningful improvement in SOA digital playback. I may have to re-consider going to AXPONA! Keep us posted please. I'm also presuming this will be shown at Munich?

I’m quite sure it will be at Munich!

 

@Taiko Audio

Hi Emile,

I hope everything is going well at Oldenzaal and that our much anticipated Olympus is on the rails

I'm following up on one of your comments on the old thread.

Entry : #20,935

" we did actually manage to improve the Olympus USB performance a bit more, it was much further behind priorly "

Does USB optimisation now matches XDMI/AES-EBU output?

Cheers,

Thomas

 

Entry : #20,935

" we did actually manage to improve the Olympus USB performance a bit more, it was much further behind priorly "

Does USB optimisation now matches XDMI/AES-EBU output?

Cheers,

Thomas

No, it is now a sizeable upgrade over USB from the Extreme but still way behind XDMI - AES/EBU. I don’t see how that gap could ever be closed due to technical limitations of the USB audio protocol.

 

any preliminary thoughts as to when shipping might commence

 

any preliminary thoughts as to when shipping might commence

Looks like we can start shipping in about 4 weeks!

 

Will black finish ship without delay?
Mn

 

With first shipments beginning in ~4 weeks (!) per Emile's note above, the silence here no doubt speaks to the all hands on deck round the clock work I imagine at Taiko (and partners like Lukasz) coupled with our own quiet anticipation. Word continuing to spread. Can't wait to see additional pics of the Olympus as they become available and anything on the DAC xdmi side! Good luck to Taiko on this home stretch of this next chapter.

 

With first shipments beginning in ~4 weeks (!) per Emile's note above, the silence here no doubt speaks to the all hands on deck round the clock work I imagine at Taiko (and partners like Lukasz) coupled with our own quiet anticipation. Word continuing to spread. Can't wait to see additional pics of the Olympus as they become available and anything on the DAC xdmi side! Good luck to Taiko on this home stretch of this next chapter.

Indeed things are quite hectic here currently, bordering on undoable, but we have reinforcements arriving this week with 3 new people joining the team! All will be well