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".

 

The E pushed me to further improve my room(thank you @Nenon). I've a feeling the big O will do same.
My own experience has taught me the room and mains are instrumental to success.

For me, mains and grounding are the key of SQ in the first place.

 

Understood, for sure. I think the crux of the point that Tom made and I whole heartedly agree with, is that there are many variables in sonic interpretation that could sway. For example NAS along with all the bells and whistles may present a sonic improvement in say Emile's listening space. That doesn't automatically present the same across the board in all listening spaces/systems...

For me, the key statement was that when using the Taiko router (+/- DCD and switch) there is essentially no sonic difference between streaming vs the remote use of stored library files on an NAS, so much so that there might even be a slight decrease in SQ when using a library stored inside the Olympus

The other key statement I thought was very meaningful came yesterday when Emile stated not to have connected out from the Olympus to one's DAC is both USB and XDMI cables allowing one to easily switch inputs via the DAC remote control. The degradation in SQ to do that would be as much as 50% PLUS he also said that when switching back from USB to XDMI, always restart your Olympus.

MY bet is once I hear NATIVE XDMI out from Olympus to my Horizon Taiko XDMI input I wont ever be using my USB cable again other than should someone want to hear the difference between the two.

I'm also betting that many users of the analogue card will find the sound so good that they will sell their DACs and should a Volume control ever find it's way as an option to the Olympus those same members will also be selling their preamps and go Olympus direct to amp

 

For me, mains and grounding are the key of SQ in the first place.

Jeff
What, if any, switchgear/outside mains grounding do you enjoy?
Marc

 

For me, the key statement was that when using the Taiko router (+/- DCD and switch) there is essentially no sonic difference between streaming vs the remote use of stored library files on an NAS, so much so that there might even be a slight decrease in SQ when using a library stored inside the Olympus

The other key statement I thought was very meaningful came yesterday when Emile stated not to have connected out from the Olympus to one's DAC is both USB and XDMI cables allowing one to easily switch inputs via the DAC remote control. The degradation in SQ to do that would be as much as 50% PLUS he also said that when switching back from USB to XDMI, always restart your Olympus.

MY bet is once I hear NATIVE XDMI out from Olympus to my Horizon Taiko XDMI input I wont ever be using my USB cable again other than should someone want to hear the difference between the two.

I'm also betting that many users of the analogue card will find the sound so good that they will sell their DACs and should a Volume control ever find it's way as an option to the Olympus those same members will also be selling their preamps and go Olympus direct to amp

After going through all of this, I could care less about USB. I have my limitations in regard to self inflicted pain! I have no inkling to compare...My ears hopefully will be over the moon with delight listening to XDMI...

 

Correct!
______________________________________

@Taiko Audio Emile, I am confused by your apparently different responses. (I got PMs from others who were similarly confused.) Earlier (including 2 days ago), you posted that local storage is for those for who do not want to bother with the use of an additional router (which could be difficult even for an IT pro) and that for streaming one would need to get Router, Switch and DCD to achieve the same SQ (or perhaps 1-2% better SQ) as local storage (which I always understood as not using Router, Switch and DCD). Now your latest view is that even for playback from local storage, one should get an additional router to achieve the best SQ? (Your latest view is also that Switch and DCD are optional, for those who want to get some kind of "tuning"). Could you please clarify? Thanks.

Perhaps you missed my earlier reply to your questions here? :

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/introducing-olympus-olympus-i-o-a-new-perspective-on-modern-music-playback.37939/post-974985

 

Perhaps you missed my earlier reply to your questions here? :

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/introducing-olympus-olympus-i-o-a-new-perspective-on-modern-music-playback.37939/post-974985

I did not miss it, but it was not clear to me; I did not know how to understand it. Could you kindly clarify your view (because others were similarly confused from PMs I got from them earlier today) - in your view do you think one should get an additional router (preferably Taiko Router) even for local playback from O's internal storage for best SQ? Thanks

 

I did not miss it, but it was not clear to me; I did not know how to understand it. Could you kindly clarify your view (because others were similarly confused from PMs I got from them earlier today) - in your view do you think one should get an additional router (preferably Taiko Router) even for local playback from O's internal storage for best SQ? Thanks

No. Local playback unaffected by router, streaming / nas playback affected by router.

 

No. Local playback unaffected by router, streaming / nas playback affected by router.

That's it! The answer I need - that was your earlier view (confusion came from your "Correct" to Wil's question earlier today). No brainer for me to get local storage (especially with my music taste and habit). Thanks!

 

@Taiko Audio any (even very rough) idea of timeline for @Aries Cerat XDMI implementation?

 

I have zero issues with answering any questions that may arise, as far as possible

Indeed there are so many possible permutations to try that I simply lack the time to test everything personally.

Addressing storage attached to the router:
1) There are 2 internal m.2 ports which can accommodate storage drives. Unfortunately this appears to suffer from a similar degradation as using m.2 drives in the Olympus. The router draws around 5-6 watts but these drives can easily double power consumption, and perhaps even worse draw several amps of current as they run off 3v3 rails. This sortoff wastes all that’s good about the router being a fixed continuous current draw which does not vary at all when loaded, where the drives vary allover the place.

2) That leaves storage connected to the USB port, powering it from the USB port creates similar issues as 1), its a bit more benign as it runs off 5V in stead of 3V3, but still very much audible.

3) Naturally you can use an externally powered USB drive, that solves that particular problem, but we currently only have ext4 filesystem support (linux), and not all drives work. So we’re currently working on adding support for multiple filesystems like AFS (apple), FAT32, NTFS (windows). This is not very difficult to do and I expect this to work pretty soon, aka TBC It’s an interesting option for sure, your music collection will always be at \\192.168.100.1\usb and you can just plug the drive into your mac or windows desktop to copy additional music files to it or create backups etc.

I really, really like the idea of using an externally powered USB drive that plugs directly into the Taiko Router as a different kind of network attached storage. There would seem to be a number of advantages:

- It is very simple and easy to implement by anyone who owns a Taiko Router (even compared to a very basic traditional NAS); Taiko's support role would be minimal

- External USB hard drives are very cost-effective on a per-TB basis and easily available

- A good quality LPS can power the USB drive

- As you pointed out, a USB drive is easily portable and can be moved around the house where you can plug it into various devices to create backups and/or delete, add or copy files

I can see two issues that would need to be resolved:

- Taiko will need to update the Router so that it supports popular file systems (as you noted above, this should not be especially difficult and work on this may begin soon)

- A USB drive may create noise (mechanical) that could be audible at the listening position; this might be addressed by finding USB drives that are very quiet or it might be addressed through placement of the USB drive in the listening area and/or physical shielding of the drive to reduce noise at the listening position

Maybe there are other downsides that I am not aware of, but I would encourage Taiko to make this option available for those of us who desire simplicity and want to save some money.

 

@Taiko Audio any (even very rough) idea of timeline for @Aries Cerat XDMI implementation?

We don’t have a fixed timeline, Stavros has some unique ideas on how he wants to implement XDMI, what I can share is he wants to go for an external add-on chassis utilising his own power supply design. This type of implementation would most likely require no modification of his DACs in the field btw!

 

We don’t have a fixed timeline, Stavros has some unique ideas on how he wants to implement XDMI, what I can share is he wants to go for an external add-on chassis utilising his own power supply design. This type of implementation would most likely require no modification of his DACs in the field btw!

Then I am just curious which input he will use for his DACs in the field. AES?

 

Then I am just curious which input he will use for his DACs in the field. AES?

No.

 

We don’t have a fixed timeline, Stavros has some unique ideas on how he wants to implement XDMI, what I can share is he wants to go for an external add-on chassis utilising his own power supply design. This type of implementation would most likely require no modification of his DACs in the field btw!

Thanks Emile! Can’t wait to see what that looks like.

 

Yeah unfortunately it’s not 100% predictable how things turn out unless you actually test each specific scenario, which would be quite a project on its own. Based on hearing zero difference between downloaded Qobuz files stored on a NAS versus streaming those same files directly from Qobuz you would expect there to not be any significant differences to where the NAS is located.

Thanks Emile! Can’t wait to see what that looks like.

Proprietary connection would be my guess

 

Maybe highlight changed documents with a different color or in bold or with an update date...

The documents are all updated continuously. We'd run out of color options very soon!
The docs have a version number that increments with one for every update.

I could add a date added to the document names, if that helps?

 

Proprietary connection would be my guess

Maybe, but Emile mentioned that his implementation would most likely require no modification of his DACs in the field.

 

The documents are all updated continuously. We'd run out of color options very soon!
The docs have a version number that increments with one for every update.

I could add a date added to the document names, if that helps?

Thanks, Christiaan for all of the effort. Keeping track of this is a bit like herding cats.

 

Emile,

For those of us that are technically challenged, I’d like to learn more about how internal storage will be transferred to the Olympus when we receive it. I understand that there will be some sort of Wizard software coming. I assume one would hook up one’s Olympus to the Taiko router, and in some idiot-proof manner, initiate the Wizard software (which is resident where? And downloaded from what?). Once the transfer is done, you remove your Extreme. I am so bad at these things that I would pay for a TeamViewer assist to help me with this task that appears so easy, any idiot should be able to do it. But I am no ordinary idiot. Just ask my daughter. I still haven’t figured out how to use my iPhone completely.

There are 2 more options I’d be curious about. Could there be an opportunity to “park” one’s music files somewhere in the cloud now, such that you can upload the files to my new Olympus so that it would come complete with the internal storage already loaded. (I have 8 TB of files and ordered the 15TB SSD). Dropbox comes to mind, but these are usually for MB files, not TB files. Is there something similar available for short-term use that is reasonable priced? Would pre-loading be a possible service Taiko would consider? That would be wonderful, even for a modest cost. Or, is there somebody out there in Taikoland who might wish to offer such a service for those who desire it? (if someone is interested, PM me please)

The third option might be something like this. I’d consider ordering this 12TB HDD
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1657452-REG/seagate_stlc12000400_12tb_one_touch_desktop.html
I could load my Extreme files on this drive now, await the arrival of the Olympus, load the Olympus, and then probably never use this drive again although I would probably keep it since it contains a back-up of my files at the time of transfer to the Olympus. (I will probably not download new files, ever but if I do, I have plenty of room on the internal Olympus SSD.)

Marty

 

I am not Emile but this is a great opportunity to back up the music on your Extreme hard drive to an external drive or NAS. Once you do that you can simply attach the drive to your Olympus and copy the files to its internal drive. Win win.