Introducing Olympus & Olympus I/O - A new perspective on modern music playback

[seatrope]

In the second room (not the YG), any preamp here? Which one?

It’s the Westminster Quest v2 preamp with bridged REI monoblocks…

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...while we're waiting for The Californians to wake up, here's a little power cable anecdote re: Olympus.

Thursday, I finally got my new platform in place, and with help from "Jake" shuttled the server a couple of feet back to its new home.

I was hoping I could abandon the massive Shunyata Omega X kielbasa I have been using for Taiko servers since the Extreme. I have fat-cable fatigue after five years with all these fatties threaded everywhere.

I left the Fatty OX on the couch and swapped a very short vanilla pc for my Quest pre, and a nice TWL Obsession for the Olympus.

It sounded pretty good. But not superbly good, per usual. I left it overnight and all day Friday, listening in from time to time. Still missing that little bit of extra "smells like teen spirit" funk.

So, fatty is off the couch (not me, the other fatty) and I'm back to feeding the Olympus from the firehose. The Obsession is back on the Quest and harmony has been restored. Sound is fabulous.

Bonus: part of the hifi beautification project moving the Olympus made room for my Luxman SACD spinner.

Another tasty way to extract digital goodness here in the bothy.

SoCal: please report in when you get fully caffeinated!

 

[Steve Williams]

In my quick run through yesterday ( I will return today as well) I thought the best I heard was Vassil's set up on the big YG speakers with the matching bass towers. My second favorite was Evolution Acoustics in a larger room this year and I had to ask Kevin if it was the same speaker as last year (which they were) as I thought the sound was terrific.

 

[Steve Williams]

as another very interesting room I also thought Eddie Sudz from the Audio Association was playing a speaker our of France which I have never heard before , DIPTYQUE, which was a panel speaker. The sound was extremely good and definitely worth a visit to the room. Besides , Eddy is a wonderful host

 

[TheAudioAssociation]

as another very interesting room I also thought Eddy Sudz from the Audio Association was playing a speaker our of France which I have never heard before , DIPTYQUE, which was a panel speaker. The sound was extremely good and definitely worth a visit to the room. Besides , Eddy is a wonderful host

Thanks Steve! We're in Bristol 1 with Diptyque, Balboa 1 with Evolution Acoustics and Soulution and 269 with Grimm Audio and the LS1c Integrated Speaker System. Come by and say "hi!"

 

[nenon]

Just got back from Day 1 of THE Show and one of the highlights of the day was to meet Vassil. Not only is he a great guy and a wonderful representative for the brand we all lobve but I have to say of all the rooms I heard today Vassil's was number 1 . He was showing with the big YG Acoustics and the matching bass towers. Music coming out was superb and good to see it was being fed by an Olympus/IO , Taiko router, switch and DCD

It was great to finally meet you in person, Steve. Glad you liked the room!


In addition to the 2 Olympus servers mentioned in my previous post, we also have Taiko Extreme servers in 4 other rooms. You can see some of them here:

Taiko Audio At T.H.E. Show SoCal 2025 – M & S | Ultimate High-Fidelity

www.monoandstereo.com

 

[nenon]

 

[ALF]

…my brand new, uncrated, Black Olympus + Olympus I/O + HDMI + the preferred Analog outputs is now up for sale in the classified section…tremendous savings over the new pricing.

VBW,
ALF

 

[ray-dude]

After way too much car drama, enjoying Costa Mesa today. So far, YG + O big system is definitely the room to be in. @Ron Resnick ’s room delightful as well. Very low key today, easy to enjoy the music and conversation

 

[ray-dude]

Extremes everywhere…well done Vassil!

 

[ray-dude]

Ok we have a new best room of the weekend! Many thanks to Steve and his lovely wife hosting us for some delightful music and conversation this evening!

Had crazy high expectations for the Zellaton Plurals and they exceeded them. Can’t wait to hear the big Zells when they arrive!

 

[Steve Williams]

It was a fun evening. Some great music for sure. I’ll have some thoughts tomorrow that I’m going to post in my Zellaton thread

The End Of A 35 Year Journey ---Zellaton -The Reference Ultra Final Frontier

It was a long time ago in a Galaxy far away when my audiophile journey began. Ive been in this hobby now for probably more years than the age of most readers of this thread. Over the years I have owned many, many different speakers but about 35 years ago I developed a fixation for Wilson Audio...

whatsbestforum.com

 

[dminches]

I had a friend over today who hasn’t heard the system in a year (pre-Olympus and and a couple other less impactful changes). He works for Overture in Wilmington, DE and has a very nice setup at his home. Thus, he has heard a lot of good equipment/music.

He could not believe how great the Olympus and Horizon sounded. He immediately noticed the change and remarked accordingly. We also listened to tape for a while and then back to digital. While the tape has its own characteristics, there was nothing he heard on the digital side that made him want to go back to tape.

I can also say that in past 2 weeks I have been listening to a lot of different music and I am truly amazed at the realism produced by the Olympus. And since I listen to a lot of tape and LPs I have other sources floating around in my brain memory. At this point it is no longer about the source but instead about the quality of the recording. This is how it should be.

 

[ray-dude]

Well said. Lovely to not pay attention to that aspect of music playback any more

 

[Steve Williams]

I had a friend over today who hasn’t heard the system in a year (pre-Olympus and and a couple other less impactful changes). He works for Overture in Wilmington, DE and has a very nice setup at his home. Thus, he has heard a lot of good equipment/music.

He could not believe how great the Olympus and Horizon sounded. He immediately noticed the change and remarked accordingly. We also listened to tape for a while and then back to digital. While the tape has its own characteristics, there was nothing he heard on the digital side that made him want to go back to tape.

I can also say that in past 2 weeks I have been listening to a lot of different music and I am truly amazed at the realism produced by the Olympus. And since I listen to a lot of tape and LPs I have other sources floating around in my brain memory. At this point it is no longer about the source but instead about the quality of the recording. This is how it should be.

When Ray and Vassil visited last night literally said the exact same thing. Streaming is so good that I just don’t look any more what format the track is. I love XDMI and you all know my entire system is tubes so I’m still partial to the XDMI digital card into my Horizon. It’s as good as it gets My turntable and Studer were on last night but all we listened to was digital streaming.

 

[dminches]

When Ray and Vassil visited last night literally said the exact same thing. Streaming is so good that I just don’t look any more what format the track is. I love XDMI and you all know my entire system is tubes so I’m still partial to the XDMI digital card into my Horizon. It’s as good as it gets My turntable and Studer were on last night but all we listened to was digital streaming.

All true but I was referring more to different sources (LP, tape, digital) than digital format. I do agree that bit depth and resolution are not critical anymore if the recording is done right.

 

[John T]

Between what both Steve and David shared, very exciting...Perhaps my O will finally leave Dangerous Goods tomorrow...

 

[Steve Williams]

All true but I was referring more to different sources (LP, tape, digital) than digital format. I do agree that bit depth and resolution are not critical anymore if the recording is done right.

I know exactly what you meant. My reply from my sound room is that tape and Vinyl which used to be 95% is now under 10%. Streaming with O/IO via XDMI to my Horizon is so good and so easy that everything else is now in the rear mirror

 

[2ndLiner]

I had a friend over today who hasn’t heard the system in a year (pre-Olympus and and a couple other less impactful changes). He works for Overture in Wilmington, DE and has a very nice setup at his home. Thus, he has heard a lot of good equipment/music.

He could not believe how great the Olympus and Horizon sounded. He immediately noticed the change and remarked accordingly. We also listened to tape for a while and then back to digital. While the tape has its own characteristics, there was nothing he heard on the digital side that made him want to go back to tape.

I can also say that in past 2 weeks I have been listening to a lot of different music and I am truly amazed at the realism produced by the Olympus. And since I listen to a lot of tape and LPs I have other sources floating around in my brain memory. At this point it is no longer about the source but instead about the quality of the recording. This is how it should be.

Great to hear, Dave! I may have missed it but have you compared XDMI into your Horizon vs. the analogue card?

 

[dminches]

I know exactly what you meant. My reply from my sound room is that tape and Vinyl which used to be 95% is now under 10%. Streaming with O/IO via XDMI to my Horizon is so good and so easy that everything else is now in the rear mirror

My only issue with digital music is that there are so many albums that I like that don’t have good representation in the digital domain. Many of these are rock and jazz (I don’t listen to much classical). Many of my top 2-300 jazz albums have been reissued in the past decade on LP but not in digital. This points me to either tape or LP. Similar for rock. A lot of rock albums have been reissued but cut with digital files which isn’t my preference. But for anything that has been reissued in digital I am 100% satisfied with that.