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".

 

XDMI > HORIZON, so far today 3 hours Roon, NAS library runtime, 3 x reboot....so I'd say not very smooth running.

Although I cannot translate your forum handle directly I do suspect your support call is the one I referred to as “1 out of 76” (Scandinavia?). This does not look like something we can fix remotely. We can have one of our crew fly out to you to repair on site if you’re willing to receive someone at home. This would be faster then return shipping or sending a replacement.

 

Hi @maxklchau ,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for your business!

I completely understand the confusion surrounding the information you have digged up so far. Let me address those one by one to clarify:

1) About the queue numbers.

The queue number idea was introduced by the new GM we hired early in 2024 to be able to improve clarity in communication. The idea was to have a webpage on which we could publish which numbers were under construction and which had shipped. He spend considerable time compiling a list in an as fair as possible manner. Although this seems easy enough, it actually wasn't, as up till then all of the Taiko team members were directly approachable by different means. A lot of customers have the personal phone numbers of our team members. With a large volume of orders / enquiries pooring in on whatsapp, by text messages, by e-mails, to different persons, this turned chaotic pretty quick, it took him a lot of time to sort through many thousands of messages and rank those fairly. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, he missed a bunch, which he had to add later while those queue numbers had already been communicated. He decided to insert those as .1 or .2 queue numbers. So you could have been order number #42 in time, but get #41.1 as your queue number. So there have been more orders then assigned queue numbers, and therefor more orders shipped then the current queue number.

Next while trying to go down the queue and ship in chronological order, this turned out not to work very well due to the varying yield of anodised server chassis and/or I/Os. Rejection rates on black were lower, and the I/O yield was low. Having 4 types of orders, silver Olympus, silver Olympus + I/O, black Olympus, black Olympus + I/O, we ran into a situation where we had orders finished and ready to ship, but couldn't ship as the queue was holding for for example a silver Olympus + I/O, where we didn't have a silver I/O. We then decided to abandon that strict queue order and just ship anything finished straight away, increasing shipping numbers but the irregularities of the numbers listed on that webpage led to so much anger and confusion we had no choice but to take it down. Since then we've only been listing queue numbers under construction and shipped on this forum enabling us to add context or explanations when needed. So this can cause you seeing for example #65 shipped and #50 arriving way later.

All together, these queue numbers may perhaps been a mistake, have created a lot of confusion and anger, but here we are, and you have one.

2) The last announced batch of numbers under construction are still under construction, at least some of the black ones. The hold up on those is those have been anodised by a new anodising company we've started working with, the quality is good, superb even, BUT the top to bottom colour matching is not perfect. The top is a deeper black then the bottom. Something you don't even notice until you put the top on the bottom, and then only in certain angles / different kinds of exposure to light. The anodising company is 100% confident they can fix this, in fact our new GM, @JulienVermeiren , is at their facility right now to work on this with them. @JulienVermeiren has been spending a lot of time visiting anodising / coating companies in western Europe for a while already btw trying to find additional suppliers. If they get this right, it will make a huge difference as they have at least twice the capacity as our current and only anodiser. This is also a dutch company which doesn't immediately close down for 2 weeks if someone has been infected with corona or a flu.

3) I will try to get an accurate status on that last under construction batch and revert back to that, @JulienVermeiren is out of office now and we send Ton/Ted on a 3 week holiday, they have been working 16/7 for over a year now and absolutely need the break.

Thanks Emile, these recent posts of yours are the clear and transparent communication I was waiting for.

Your latest manufacturing update post on 29 January led many to think that shipping for the units listed (including mine) was imminent. Disappointment ensued when more than a month lapsed without an update on the reasons for the delay. Not only so, we were informed by Taiko's staff on WBF of news that things were improving with a new anodizing company being engaged. It was only today that we received an explanation why little has progressed since the 29 January update and about the quality issues with the new anodizing company. This was certainly something we could have been told much earlier, with a revised estimate of production and delivery, before people started chasing for updates.

Speaking for myself, I am happy to wait for my unit but I need to arrange my affairs - I was planning an overhaul of my entire system around the arrival of the Olympus and multiple vendors had to be postponed because of the anticipated delivery and subsequent delay. Another poster from HK also mentioned having to change holiday / work plans because of the mixed messaging and delays.

 

Although I cannot translate your forum handle directly I do suspect your support call is the one I referred to as “1 out of 76” (Scandinavia?). This does not look like something we can fix remotely. We can have one of our crew fly out to you to repair on site if you’re willing to receive someone at home. This would be faster then return shipping or sending a replacement.

Yes, Scandinavia Sweden. I have been thinking about the logistic problem too, one of your crew is more than welcome. Thanks a lot for the very serious proposal!

 

All you folks waiting for your Olympuses should change your usernames to your queue numbers until you get it! Presto, easy communication here on WBF!

 

All you folks waiting for your Olympuses should change your usernames to your queue numbers until you get it! Presto, easy communication here on WBF!

The Ford Model T was originally available in a variety of colors, but from 1914 to 1925, Henry Ford famously standardized production to only black to streamline manufacturing and reduce costs. As often read:

"Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants, so long as it is black."

 

Hi @LR319 ,

I'm going to reply to your question from my own, personal, point of view.

I / we have spend so much time and resources in developing the Olympus that I really wanted the chassis / appearance to reflect all that effort, and not limit the performance of its contents. Of course we could have stayed with the Extreme chassis design, all we have to do to fit the Olympus in the Extreme chassis is increase its height by 3 centimeters. However there are rather substantial benefits in housing everything in a solid machined piece. The structural integrity allows for the "modular" internal approach where several sections are decoupled from each other, both vibrational as electrical. All leakage / ground / return current paths have been modeled, internal wiring included, heat distribution, a truly large effort. This also means we cannot just switch to that Extreme like chassis while retaining similar performance, even though that would be so much easier to produce, and probably very acceptable to part of our customers.

Next to this there's the optical aspect, this type of chassis requires a high quality finish. Compromise the surface finish and everything which is special about it disappears. Brushing for example, used for the vast majority of aluminium chassis finishes as it hides surface irregularities, is cheap, fast, uncritical, but straight out ugly when applied to the Olympus chassis. So we are "stuck" with a manual sanding and bead blasting surface finish and quality anodising.

The only reason to even consider (powder) coating is because of the large order volume which is incompatible with the amount of chassis which can be produced by this method, thus far at least. If it was strictly up to me, we would not offer this at all, and everybody would just have to await their turn, however long that is.

With that said, although all samples we have received from coating companies thus far have been completely unacceptable to me, I have to admit this last supplier has produced a true high-end finish, in actual black (not some kind of dark grey), on an I/O. They now have a whole batch of complete Olympus chassis they have been working on the past weeks, of course they underestimated the amount of work involved, like everybody else, but those should actually arrive today, including some in silver. We will share once they do of course!

This would then be an option, for you to choose, if it becomes viable, which we will know hopefully today, so to answer your question directly, yes you can just wait for anodised.

Hello Team Taiko, Thank you for taking time to respond with such indepth details. I share your concern in the manufacturing process and how you should not compromise on every single detail including the most prominant one - The finishing. Do let me know how we can opt for our prefered finishing. OTOH I am curious if power coat might have some impact on heat dissipation.