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 am using a DS224+ which pulls about 1A. It connects with a DC cable with barrel connectors on both sides. I am also powering the Taiko router and switch.

The DS423+ requires a lot more power so you would need a more powerful LPS connected to the DCD to power that.

Thank you that was very good information. Any ideas on a LPS that would power that NAS and the Taiko router and switch?

 

Thank you that was very good information. Any ideas on a LPS that would power that NAS and the Taiko router and switch?

The power supply for the 423+ is 90 watts. At 12V that is 7.5A. I am sure it doesn’t need that full time. Maybe that is the max when it powers up. My guess is that 6A would be enough. If you add the router and switch that gets you to 7A. Thus, you probably need a 12V / 7A LPS.

 

would it be possible to give MSB owners some insight into plans for finalizing the MSB connection. You mentioned the need to send MSB an Olympus so they can finish the process. Is that Olympus availability for the MSB unit going to have to wait until the end of the order catchup?

For the latest updates we got earlier in the month see here onward:

MSB and Taiko, let's go!

As I understand it I *think* you would need to add the I/O box to your Extreme to be able to use the XMDI card + daughterboards (like MSB ProISL, Lampi, AES, Taiko analog).

www.whatsbestforum.com

 

My experience would emphasize this and that it needs a very long burn in and it will not be an accurate comparison without enough time.

I thought I had enough run-in time on the Taiko Dac board at about 100-150 hrs. At that time I “concluded” it was somewhat slow and mid bass heavy sounding compared to the usb/Ithaka dac.

But now, I think I can safely say that sound signature has disappeared and the Taiko dac/Xdmi sounds quick and incisive. I don’t have any desire to go back and listen to the USB.

Maybe the Taiko dac needs 200+ hours? Curious what others have found?

Wil:
Are you saying you prefer the XDMI internal DAC to the USB connection to the Ithaka DAC?

 

Wil:
Are you saying you prefer the XDMI internal DAC to the USB connection to the Ithaka DAC?

I’ll do another comparison, now that the internal dac/Xdmi are thoroughly run-in.

 

Back to comparing USB/Ithaka DAC and XDMI/internal DAC:

I'm listening to Chick Corea, Trilogy 2 , with Christian McBride and Brian Blade. -- an excellent live recording which captures the energy of the live music.

The two presentations are very different, both with their relative strengths/weakness.

USB/Ithaka: Great energy, speed. More live sounding. Maybe more sense of space and harmonics.

XDMI/Internal DAC: More mid bass centric. More smooth. Less noise? Less likely to fatigue. Seems to lack some of the life force of the Ithaka.

I'm left thinking, and it shouldn't be a surprise, that the best of both worlds may come together for me with XDMI native to Ithaka DAC.

 

Back to comparing USB/Ithaka DAC and XDMI/internal DAC:

I'm listening to Chick Corea, Trilogy 2 , with Christian McBride and Brian Blade. -- an excellent live recording which captures the energy of the live music.

The two presentations are very different, both with their relative strengths/weakness.

USB/Ithaka: Great energy, speed. More live sounding. Maybe more sense of space and harmonics.

XDMI/Internal DAC: More mid bass centric. More smooth. Less noise? Less likely to fatigue. Seems to lack some of the life force of the Ithaka.

I'm left thinking, and it shouldn't be a surprise, that the best of both worlds may come together for me with XDMI native to Ithaka DAC.

Hi @wil ,

If you’re up for a little experiment; I suppose you don’t have a phase reversal switch on your preamp? If you do use it If you don’t try reversing your speaker cable polarity, simply swap plus/minus on the amplifier side. See if you notice a difference

 

Did Emile mention the Olympus is less fussy than the Extreme??

I did not mention that, it reacts differently though.

 

Emile/ray-dude, I’m assuming the quality of power cable for the external NAS will also make a difference to the signal quality feeding the Olympus - might you be able to say to what degree the effect might be, and more vitally, if regardless of quality of cable, sound quality will always be improved over that of the standard 4TB internal storage?

Thanks for your patience with this : ) - kevin

I did not spend a lot of time on this, hearing no difference between Qobuz and files downloaded from Qobuz on to my NAS gives this a “to investigate further, when I really can’t think of anything better to do” priority.

 

I think Emile meant to say that the internal music drive of the Extreme won’t fit in the Olympus. The internal Extreme drives are m.2 SSDs in a PCIe Hyper card.

They do fit actually, but the SQ hit is absolutely unacceptable.

 

Hi @wil ,

If you’re up for a little experiment; I suppose you don’t have a phase reversal switch on your preamp? If you do use it If you don’t try reversing your speaker cable polarity, simply swap plus/minus on the amplifier side. See if you notice a difference

OCD among us most definitely should not do this experiment

 

Down-Sampling

To make the most of the Taiko XDMI DAC daughterboard, I'm planning to down-sample some of my music from 24/352.8 and 24/192 down to 24/96, or even 16/44.1.

However, I'd like to ensure I do it correctly.

I've found three pieces of software that look promising:

• SoX
• iZotope RX
• PGGB

iZotope RX seems to stand out, but which one do you think would be the most suitable for high-quality down-sampling?

Also, what are your experiences with these programs?

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,

Thomas

If you’re asking me, I wouldn’t bother. These things can change, in which case you’ll have wasted your time.

 

Emile,
Please, can you inform the specifications of the hardware needed to install the internal drive? I mean, does it need a certain processor and motherboard?
My NAS is a ATX PSU from Pink Faun, and I could try to assemble a processor and motherboard where I, maybe, could install the Taiko Olympus internal SSD.
Also, the double PCiE adapter for the OS disk and files disk, is changed to a single PCiE adapter if only the OS disk is present when a Taiko Olympus customer doesn’t order any internal storage?
Thank you.

The hardware does need to support NVME drives. The music drive used in the Olympus is an U.3 drive, but it’s backwards compatible with U.2 (only the nvme type)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.2

We only made a dual drive PCIe adapter which we use for both single as dual drive deployments. Aka if you order without a music drive, you can always retrofit it yourself.

 

I'll echo what Emile mentioned above about downsampling. I'm using Roon downsampling as a bridge. For PCM, it is quite efficient and effective (I was comparing SQ to PGGB downsampled files)

 

Hi @wil ,

If you’re up for a little experiment; I suppose you don’t have a phase reversal switch on your preamp? If you do use it If you don’t try reversing your speaker cable polarity, simply swap plus/minus on the amplifier side. See if you notice a difference

Hmm…. So you’re thinking Internal Olympus Dac may have reversed polarity relative my Aries Cerat Ageto pre? I’ll give it a try.

I do already have normal polarity reversed because (as I vaguely understand) the Areis Cerat Ianus Triodfet components are single stage and so need to be reversed before the speakers to be in correct polarity to the speakers.

 

Back to comparing USB/Ithaka DAC and XDMI/internal DAC:

I'm listening to Chick Corea, Trilogy 2 , with Christian McBride and Brian Blade. -- an excellent live recording which captures the energy of the live music.

The two presentations are very different, both with their relative strengths/weakness.

USB/Ithaka: Great energy, speed. More live sounding. Maybe more sense of space and harmonics.

XDMI/Internal DAC: More mid bass centric. More smooth. Less noise? Less likely to fatigue. Seems to lack some of the life force of the Ithaka.

I'm left thinking, and it shouldn't be a surprise, that the best of both worlds may come together for me with XDMI native to Ithaka DAC.

Thanks very much, Wil for revisiting this.

I've been letting my Olympus play silently for the most part with my amp off to get some hours on the XDMI analog card. However, I finally broke down and snuck a little listen yesterday, just to hear how things were going.

Three hours later, I can say they are going very, very well.

I already can say with confidence that the quick comparison I did between Olympus USB and Extreme USB was no contest and based on that brief trial I've already sold my USB cable without a second thought.

However, as good as Olympus USB might be, when I started listening to Olympus XDMI analog it was game over for any thoughts of using Olympus USB for anything other than file transfers, not that I have any internal storage in my Olympus.

Olympus XDMI analog is doing everything better than I ever heard from Extreme USB > dCS Vivaldi APEX + Vivaldi Clock + Cybershaft OP21 master clock. Less noise, more clarity, nuance, space, imaging, ambience, the "three Ts" -- texture, tonality and timbre, articulation. And yes, even dynamics. Basically, any parameter a person would care to name is better, sometimes shockingly so, via Olympus XDMI analog.

I don't find it hard to believe that you find better dynamics with your Aires Cerat DAC. I don't have any experience with AC DACs but I do have an AC Incito S preamp here on long term loan through the generosity of Vassil (@nenon) and I what I hear and what I gather from reading about AC products in general is that dynamics are one of AC's fortes. However, I would also take Emile up on the experiment of reversing phase just to rule that out as a confounding factor.

It could be that the money shot for me might be Olympus XDMI AES/EBU into Vivaldi APEX, an experiment I will be getting to soon. I haven't heard anything about dCS being willing to work with Taiko on XDMI, so I'm not holding my breath on that one.

In the meantime, I'd have to say based on what I'm hearing with Olympus XDMI analog that no one who has posted rave reviews so far is exaggerating in the least. I couldn't be happier.

Steve Z

 

I'm left thinking, and it shouldn't be a surprise, that the best of both worlds may come together for me with XDMI native to Ithaka DAC.

I am talking out of only one side of my mouth as I have yet to listen to the Analogue board but for my ears Native XDMI via the digital board into my Horizon 360 os so good that I am hard pressed to even think about trying the analogue card in my system. I’m sure it's excellent but the sound I hear now is so good that for me this has become a set it and forget it type thing.. You've made me a happy camper @Taiko Audio .

Like Ray-dude I have no further use for my USB cable but have kept it for purposes of comparison at my LampizatOr open house this weekend for those who want to hear the difference

 

Hi @wil ,

If you’re up for a little experiment; I suppose you don’t have a phase reversal switch on your preamp? If you do use it If you don’t try reversing your speaker cable polarity, simply swap plus/minus on the amplifier side. See if you notice a difference

Hi Emile @Taiko Audio = When reversing polarity is it better for SQ to do it at the amp rather than the speaker? Thanks!

 

Hi @wil ,

If you’re up for a little experiment; I suppose you don’t have a phase reversal switch on your preamp? If you do use it If you don’t try reversing your speaker cable polarity, simply swap plus/minus on the amplifier side. See if you notice a difference

Getting the correct absolute phase output is way more important than streaming vs local storage (playback via streaming and highly compressed music files invariably introduce their own jitters, not 100% eliminated via the best accessories). I often wonder why absolute phase issue is hardly discussed (the PCs I use have 2 versions with opposite phase; correct version varies from component to component). Certain tube preamps and DACs output out of phase (180 degrees) from their input (necessarily so from their design, but often the manufacturers did not disclose the fact). Rule of thumb: 2 out-of-phase components cancel each other out, but a lone component's out-of-phase needs to be corrected (which I did once to a DAC by reversing the direction of ICs and switching the polarity of the speaker cables at the amp side - SQ improved hugely; if not corrected, the sound is muffled or choked; unfortunately most cables are not capable of reversing out of phase; only those cables with phase direction optimized are capable). Ideally, the server or the DAC should have a well-designed phase switch.

 

Hi Emile @Taiko Audio = When reversing polarity is it better for SQ to do it at the amp rather than the speaker? Thanks!

Emile may have a different view, but my experience is that it does not matter, either at the amp side or at the speaker side, but not both, in order to switch polarity.