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".

 

...thank you for the explanation, Emile. From far away, this appeared (to me) to be a materials issue, rather than an anodizing issue, per se. Although balancing/distributing all that throughput among vendors is not easy. I still recall you posting that pic of Ton with the heavy gloves on...the new bead-blaster guy! That was a great pic! Good Luck! Olympus sounds great. Hope no anodizing issues on routers! ;^ )

 

Actually we have some evidence pointing towards this issue being (partially or not) exacerbated, or perhaps even caused by out of band artifacts, we have run some experiments where we made unlistenable digital remasters sounding pretty darn good! It is possible we may be able to address this in the future (no timeframe, sorry).

Great! My own experience is that much of the digital fatigue is caused by jitters (in a broad sense of the term) introduced by components and cables (including out-of-phase constructs most manufacturers either don't consider important or don't correct) rather than recordings. Once I have corrected some of these issues (by using, among other things, unique cables with optimized absolute phase direction) some of the jitters have disappeared. Of course, recording quality is still the most determinative factor, but once a server or other source has managed to remove much of the jitters and veils, the true quality of the recordings shines through. Please add a PHASE SWITCH in your next O version.

 

Great! My own experience is that much of the digital fatigue is caused by jitters (in a broad sense of the term) introduced by components and cables (including out-of-phase constructs most manufacturers either don't consider important or don't correct) rather than recordings. Once I have corrected some of these issues (by using, among other things, unique cables with optimized absolute phase direction) some of the jitters have disappeared. Of course, recording quality is still the most determinative factor, but once a server or other source has managed to remove much of the jitters and veils, the true quality of the recordings shines through.

You could indeed partially address this with low pass filters formed by cable / equipment LCR properties, in theory.

 

You could indeed partially address this with low pass filters formed by cable / equipment LCR properties, in theory.

Indeed, this might account for the proliferation of what I refer to as "digital de-crappifiers" -- boxes and devices put in-line somewhere in the digital path that are functioning as low-pass filters.

Unfortunately, as my digital front end has improved, the negative consequences of such devices started becoming audible as well. Nice to learn that you might have a cure for some of this.

Steve Z

 

I believe in utter, unfiltered transparency and linearity, warts and all. No filtering boxes or devices anywhere in the signal path. You can try making an awfully recorded recoding more beautiful or listenable via some form of filtering or tuning, but it always comes with a heavy penalty. Recording is what it is. A truly awful recording should come through Olympus as it is, truly awful, beyond redemption. Great recordings will come through with all veils and smearing removed, shining like never before. But much of the digital awfulness is in fact introduced by components with high jitters. I am particularly attracted to huge orchestral and choral works (which are most difficult to reproduce) and know from experience that filtering or tuning never works for me for such works. What enhances midrange (to get the "lush" from, e.g., the use of big-bottle tubes) is always accompanied by loss of sparkle in the treble and lumpiness in the bass.

 

Let me elaborate on that as we appear to have solved the anodising issues we have been experiencing initially.

The technical explanation:



Additionally there's an increase in recycling increasing the amount of contamination:



The solution to this problem is to purchase the complete ingots, cut blocks from the outside parts, and use those for anodising.

This is easier said then done as these ingots are large, 1.2*1.2*2 meters weighing around 8 tonnes.

However we have that process up and running now and the first 30 chassis produced with those blocks are at anodiser 3.

Anodiser 3 is also a significantly larger Anodiser willing to work on our products (most don't). They can even reserve one bath exclusively for us if we can supply enough to keep it "busy" enough. The main output rate limiting factor however is the mechanical surface finishing, nobody has a bead blasting robot large enough to treat our chassis, so this is a manual process taking up around 2 hours each chassis part (4 hours for an Olympus server, 2 hours for an I/O).

Anodiser 1 we've been using for a while now has let us down there as, as I posted before in this thread they had allocated overtime, 2 employees willing to spending 5 evenings and Saturdays to bead blast around 30 chassis parts a week. However they never reached that quantity, and their motivation seemingly dropped over time, understandably as a lot of their work was in vain due to the zebra striping issue. Our own crew here has not been unsensitive to working long hours in shifts to only see 60% of all that hard work go to waste.

We now have an external company machining chassis parts in parallel to us, they have been machining 10 a week for the past 3 weeks (the same 30 which shipped to Anodiser 3). They have indicated they have spare capacity for a larger volume, however again the remaining limiting factor is the necessity of manual bead blasting, the people doing the bead blasting need to be skilled as well, it's very easy to do this wrong resulting in a chassis reject.

Obviously we're exploring alternatives paths to anodising, which may become increasingly troublesome in the future as more then likely usage of recycled materials will only increase.

To answer your question:

For silver we're still at around a 60% rejection for what is/was at Anodiser 1. They shipped half btw with the other half "promised" for today.
Anodiser 2 is doing black, it will most likely be like a 10% rejection rate.
Anodiser 3, new blocks (cut from the outter parts of the ingots), new process, optimistic for a 5% rejection rate!

So, any chance some silver O's and I/O's will be shipping soon? It's sure been a long wait.

 

So, any chance some silver O's and I/O's will be shipping soon? It's sure been a long wait.

Yes, several are already being assembled.

 

Great! My own experience is that much of the digital fatigue is caused by jitters (in a broad sense of the term) introduced by components and cables (including out-of-phase constructs most manufacturers either don't consider important or don't correct) rather than recordings. Once I have corrected some of these issues (by using, among other things, unique cables with optimized absolute phase direction) some of the jitters have disappeared. Of course, recording quality is still the most determinative factor, but once a server or other source has managed to remove much of the jitters and veils, the true quality of the recordings shines through. Please add a PHASE SWITCH in your next O version.

Are these unique cables with optimized absolute phase direction available via a particular cable maker?

 

Are these unique cables with optimized absolute phase direction available via a particular cable maker?

Omega Mikro

 

Omega Mikro

Are these unique cables with optimized absolute phase direction available via a particular cable maker?

Not for the faint-hearted (because they are extremely thin, 200-microinch for ICs, practically naked (protected only by loosely fitting mesh) and extremely fragile but otherwise fine if you have learned how to handle) or for those who prioritize glossy appearance. There are 2 versions of each otherwise identical PC (30W, 100W, 300W, 900W, the thinner the better for a component not exceeding the power consumption for the relevant W) with the opposite absolute phase direction (marked Red and Blue) for power cables (e.g., Extreme is a Red, best with 100W, while H1 is a Blue, best with 300W). Not for those who constantly need to disconnect and connect. Nothing I have tried comes close (but I have not tried $20K+ cables in my own system to be fair). PM me if you want to learn more details.

 

Not for the faint-hearted (because they are extremely thin, 200-microinch for ICs, practically naked (protected only by loosely fitting mesh) and extremely fragile but otherwise fine if you have learned how to handle) or for those who prioritize glossy appearance. There are 2 versions of each otherwise identical PC (30W, 100W, 300W, 900W, the thinner the better for a component not exceeding the power consumption for the relevant W) with the opposite absolute phase direction (marked Red and Blue) for power cables (e.g., Extreme is a Red, best with 100W, while H1 is a Blue, best with 300W). Not for those who constantly need to disconnect and connect. Nothing I have tried comes close (but I have not tried $20K+ cables in my own system to be fair). PM me if you want to learn more details.

I know and use their cables here and there. When you said jitter caused by cables I thought you meant digital cables / USB, rather than power cords or analog interconnects.

 

I know and use their cables here and there. When you said jitter caused by cables I thought you meant digital cables / USB, rather than power cords or analog interconnects.

Even including digital cables. I said several times that the proprietary i2s connection between a modded DVD transport and DAC has given me more natural sound than Extreme to DAC via USB. Half of the contribution comes from the set of i2s cables (4 Omega Mikro 200-microinch cables for the 4 i2s signals, each with individualized impedance value, MCLK 550kΩ, BCLK 4420kΩ, Word 3200kΩ, and Data 3200kΩ). I had a DIY guy experiment making a USB cable (the weakest link) with the OM ribbons, but unfortunately it failed (because of USB's extraordinarily high current consumption or something like it). The OM ribbons bring me much closer to live music experience (with the skin and dielectric effects, which are jitters in the broad sense, reduced to the ultimate limit of feasibility). With live music experienced at close range as reference and the DVD i2s connection as comparison, every time I use the USB-connected sever the sound is so obviously veiled. Cannot wait to get rid of USB (which is inherently bad).

Addendum: the second-best digital connection in the modded DVD transport is the SPDIF digital. The DIY guy did a purist mod of the SPDIF via "direct coupling", bypassing all transformers etc. in the signal path of the DVD's circuit board, but neither of us was willing to customize the expensive DAC's SPIDF input. The OM 200-microinch cable was also used with customized maximum impedance value - even though the purist mod was only half of the equation (not including DAC's), it was so much and obviously better than anything else except the proprietary i2s, so much better than USB, HDMI/i2s, AES/EBU; I tried them all.

 

Just curious if any of the anodizes came through and you now have usable black chassis.

 

Just curious if any of the anodizes came through and you now have usable black chassis.

Yes, shipments arriving from 1&2 on Monday and Tuesday.

 

So do I need to wait to put an order in for a red chassis?