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

[CKKeung]

Hi all,

I'd like to start by stating i use headphones exclusively as i'm in an apartment with 2 kids under 3 so everything needs to be quiet. I have an MSB select 2 with a digital director connected to raal 1995 immanis headphones through a mass kobo 465. To connect the msb xdmi i have transparent opus xlr cables and for connecting the rca to my mass kobo i am using cardas audio clear sky interconnects (so $20k compared to $800).

Some test songs: (thanks to some members here) fleetwood mac - dreams, johnny cash - hurt, dave matthews band - crash into me, jacob gurevitsch - for your love, bozzio levin stevens - duende, mariah carey - hero, tiesto - boom, rachel podger - vivaldi l'estro armonico, herbert blomstedt - brahms 3&4.

I have been trying to take my time with reviewing the msb xdmi module compared to the taiko analog. Since the card swaps take a minimum of 3 minutes per swap its not always as easy or ideal as I would have liked but here goes:

When i first received my olympus it was relatively easy and quick to compare my msb pro isl to the taiko analog xdmi with a simple cable swap so the differences were very apparent immediately. The taiko card was much smoother sounding than the msb. it was easier to listen to but at the same time had stronger bass than the msb usb. It was easier to notice more details within songs. I couldn't shake the idea though that i was losing something from the msb and initially i wasn't sure i liked the taiko solution. After maybe 15 minutes of comparative listening it became clear the analog board was a hands down winner for me and i chalked up the "missing" portion to being familiarity with my msb dac.

Fast forward to receiving the msb xdmi board and giving it over 100 hours to burn in and the answer is less obvious but i think its still the same. Taking so long to do a card swap makes comparative listening a lot less ideal so i was hesitant about even posting but after swapping and comparing for the last 4+ hours its become clear that it boils down more to preference now. I still find pretty much everything better on the taiko xdmi but i was finally able to figure out what went missing, the msb does better instrument separation and a better job at filling the headphones making a classical performance like brahms symphony 3 feel more grandiose. I felt like i was in the concert hall vs with the analog it felt more intimate than it probably should have been. This might express itself even more in a 2 ch speaker setup. I'm not fluent in audiophile so i'm not sure how better to express what i'm hearing other than its clear that female vocals, violins etc sound "sweeter" and the bass just rumbles more. Its just a more pleasant sound than the msb. My favorite song for the bass was boom by tiesto. just makes my head thump in a good way.

Out of curiosity, and since the swap took so long, i wanted to have some confidence in what i was hearing so i decided to try the msb xdmi vs the msb usb. This is why i've come to the conclusion that its down to preference. The msb xdmi card makes everything better with the same sonic profile as their usb. Its cleaner sounding more detailed and better bass. I wouldn't say its a night and day difference like comparing the msb usb to taiko analog was when i originally did it but everything was just better. If you have an msb dac and an olympus but haven't had a chance to swap the card yet i think you can get a very good feel of what difference you're likely to get just doing msb usb to taiko xdmi.

I'd like to finish this by saying i'm generally a skeptical person and i didn't think there was any way in hell that a cheap off the rack dac chip would be able to compare to my $100k+ system. I also didn't want it to be anywhere close as i only recently bought this system and didn't want to have buyers remorse. I do think on the whole the taiko is just better for 90% of the things i want it to do. I had plans to go up the upgrade path with MSB to their new dac but that's very likely not happening. I don't know if i'll be selling the select 2 and digital director yet as i can see it possibly having some application in a speaker system in a dedicated audio room (which i'm hoping for in the next year to be built out) but i'm definitely leaning towards clearing up space on my rack. I'd also like to add i'm not a vendor or associated with any of the parties mentioned above. i'm just a guy with some buyers remorse. MSB has been great over the last couple years but i think taiko has made me a believer and its definitely the future for now.

Take it fwiw and have a good day

Many thanks tomas329 for your detailed report!

Your report has confirmed my suspension that the XDMI dac analog output card is a dac killer and giant killer！

I eagerly wait for the release of the V2 and sincerely hope that it will have two dac chips and xlr analog outputs on board.

BTW please test and tell us the effect of omitting the DD and not employing dac cables from Olympus to MSB.
Thanks you again!

 

[tomas329]

Many thanks tomas329 for your detailed report!

Your report has confirmed my suspension that the XDMI dac analog output card is a dac killer and giant killer！

I eagerly wait for the release of the V2 and sincerely hope that it will have two dac chips and xlr analog outputs on board.

BTW please test and tell us the effect of omitting the DD and not employing dac cables from Olympus to MSB.
Thanks you again!

Hi,

I think I posted a little back on removing the DD but the long and short is it seems like you get back some "sweetness" and bass but at the cost of instrument separation and the feeling that the sound inside my headphones is expansive vs more intimate. The taiko doesn't feel close it's just quite as expansive sounding. That said msb without the DD doesn't get back to the degree taiko does it. After all of today's listening I'm not sure that dac manufacturers are "killed" it's just that with my old select and DD it wasn't up to par with taiko. Their cascade might be better or the horizon might sound amazing and better to me (I haven't heard the horizon) but again I think it's more about the flavor now. I do whole heartedly believe that the xdmi adds more of whatever that flavor is. So I'd guess that if you liked the taiko analog over another dacs USB implementation you're still likely to like taiko above the dacs xdmi implementation. Conversely, if you think the dacs flavor is better then it'll only be better implementing xdmi vs USB. At least for my msb the xdmi cleaned everything up and improved everything.

I only connected the msb through their optical cable (which came along with their proisl solution) not the dac cable, unless I'm misunderstand what that is now.

 

[godofwealth]

As for me, the most important feature would be an analogue XLR out.

However, if a version with a preamp (and therefore volume control) were to be released, the preamp would need to surpass mine (the Soulution 727). But with Taiko Audio and its XDMI platform, anything is possible.

From a strategic point of view, though, I would say the most impactful commercially would probably be a DAC so good that it outclasses all competition (regardless of price).

By “so good,” I mean something really obvious, like the sun in the middle of the sky. Something anyone could perceive, even without trained ears. Something that would make even the most "anti boutique HiFi" or die-hard AirPod worshipper envious.

We wouldn’t buy the Olympus simply because it’s the best Roon server available; it would also become the best DAC on the market.

At that point, I believe @Taiko Audio would need to invest in new machinery and production facilities, because the product would sell like hot cakes

While I wish all of what you say will come true, my long 40 year experience in high end audio has taught me that nothing in this price range sells "like hot cakes". While all of us on WBF really care about how our system sounds, and are willing to go to Extreme lengths or Olympic lengths (no pun intended!), the average (even well-heeled) consumer is perfectly happy with their garden variety system.

It's not just in high end audio, but this drive for excellence is in any area. How much would you spend for a cappuccino machine? I know folks who spend more than 10 grand on one. Perhaps you are just happy with your Krups or Breville or something of that price range. It's just a cappuccino or espresso machine, you say! But, there are folks I know in the Bay Area (e.g., in a research lab I directed near Stanford for a while), who are so dedicated to making espresso or cappuccino that they invested in expensive state of the art spectrographic measurement tools that measure the refractive indices and who knows what in their cup of java, and then did Excel spreadsheets to compare the different brands and how to tweak their ultra high end cappuccino machine so that they get the perfect blend they are looking for. By the way, these machines need 220V, and a dedicated water system, and of course, you wouldn't just use tap water for such a machine, it has to be ultra pure, so you need a purification system etc. You see where this starts to look a lot like what folks are doing with their Taiko or Lampi DACs and so on.

In any area when you have folks who are absolutely committed to getting the WBF version of their product (be it a cappuccino machine or a media server), they spend enormous sums of money, but it never is something that will sell "like hot cakes". The average consumer is not going to spend this much effort and money on making their morning cup of java.

 

[Tuckia]

Currently there is enough individual wealth in the world for a target market in the many tens of thousands. Lifestyles increasingly focused on staying home, rather than foraging for entertainment elsewhere, point to increased spending in this area. However, there is competition.

The main thing holding Taiko back is their commodity vendors, not performance. There are other production centers in the world that can do quality work and do not take months long vacations all the time. Frankly, I’m personally offended at these excuses, as my customers would never ever put up with it. I’ve been working weekends, evenings, and holidays to meet their requests. Vacation? WTF is that.

Someday I’d love to have an I/O with v2/v3 dac, internal router, whatever. But I would not pay a nickel for it upfront with lead times measured in years.

I sincerely hope they figure out a way to sell and produce a thousand of these things a year. But production needs to be fixed first.

That was a nice break. Now back to work.

 

[ray-dude]

I think the boundaries of what we call a DAC are changing. A DAC today is a box with digital input, some digital processing, a chip or small circuit to turn digital into analog, an analog output stage, a reference clock, and something to power all this.

High end DACs invest heavily in improving all these areas, but many just use stock chips for the digital to analog stage (all the heavy lifting is around it). Some go upstream to manage the digital music (streamers) but most are at the mercy of the digital source.

With Olympus, large parts of this are removed because of XDMI, and power is handled by ultra low noise and high speed with BPS. The net of it is that XDMI Analog is the xdmi digital to analog chip and analog output, with BPS power

The “simplification” is not a slur I don’t think, but the reason it performs so amazingly well.

The crazy thing is that this is the baseline. Improvements in the digital to analog step or analog output could significantly improve sound quality.

I think with v2 we’ll get a really good sense of how steep the slope is up Mt Olympus, but we’re only in the foothills right now

 

[CKKeung]

Olympus doesn't only open a new paradigm in CAS because of the XDMI, the BPS is an excellent platform for preamp, phonoamp ...etc too.
Nearly infinite possibilities！


BTW I think the Taiko BPS may have surpassed similar accessories such as Stromtank.
Taiko's battery management is not inferior and there isn't a troublesome dc-ac inverter.

 

[ctydwn]

Currently there is enough individual wealth in the world for a target market in the many tens of thousands. Lifestyles increasingly focused on staying home, rather than foraging for entertainment elsewhere, point to increased spending in this area. However, there is competition.

The main thing holding Taiko back is their commodity vendors, not performance. There are other production centers in the world that can do quality work and do not take months long vacations all the time. Frankly, I’m personally offended at these excuses, as my customers would never ever put up with it. I’ve been working weekends, evenings, and holidays to meet their requests. Vacation? WTF is that.

Someday I’d love to have an I/O with v2/v3 dac, internal router, whatever. But I would not pay a nickel for it upfront with lead times measured in years.

I sincerely hope they figure out a way to sell and produce a thousand of these things a year. But production needs to be fixed first.

That was a nice break. Now back to work.

definitely did not expect this post from @Tuckia who usually is providing comic relief as often as sharing invaluable technical insights.

question i keep hearing is if US orders that have been made over 12 months ago will be potentially susceptible to a 20% increase due to potential tariffs? assurances on that front will be very helpful to inform past orders and any potential future orders, as speculative as it may be

 

[pleroma]

I only meant that the actual dac chip inside the olympus was an off the shelf, mass produced and "cheap" by industry standards, chip. It's not some custom proprietary chip with in house design done by taiko like many other dac manufacturers do. I'm also not implying that the Olympus is cheap at all but if you're not going to use their chip and instead opt for the new msb cascade, for example, you can throw another $100k or so on top of it. During my journey I started with the select added the digital director and used a nucleus as the source. The extreme with xdms was a big step up. The Olympus is better than the extreme in every way and a big step up this time (although I feel like if you're only going to use USB and care about value the extreme is likely better since Olympus USB isn' light years ahead). So i think for me if I was doing this all over again right now I'd just opt for the Olympus and likely skip a dac manufacturer (obviously I haven't heard them all and some might be amazing with the new taiko implementation and I do still plan to keep options open and hear other dacs regardless since the journey never ends).

Apologies if I came off like the Olympus is a cheap option I just thought having a $100k+, at the time, dac would add more than something off the shelf and mass produced but I was wrong even though I really didn't want to be

Hi Tomas, no need to apologize. I just hate for someone to feel badly because something else may be better. A similar thing happened when MSB launched the Cascade, devaluing the Select last year, and their response was "the Select is still a great DAC, and digital moves on." Human nature is never satisfied, and everyone fantasizes about do-overs

I haven't looked at the other posts yet, but it certainly appears there is some redundancy in design goals with separate components. I observed some of the same improvements you've posted when comparing the Cascade to the Select. That said, good as the Olympus reports have been, there are limits to an integrated approach. Given the time lapse from concept to market, I'm sure Taiko's mind is already on it.

 

[John T]

IMO Greg's @Tuckia post is spot on. If someone is doing work for me I expect service to be rendered in a timely professional manner. This isn't some new professional concept or a gripe over Taiko's Direction, Commitment, or Performance. If anything I believe most have been very retrained regarding delays. I just love the mention of V2 when many of us haven't seen nor heard V1...

 

[pleroma]

Currently there is enough individual wealth in the world for a target market in the many tens of thousands. Lifestyles increasingly focused on staying home, rather than foraging for entertainment elsewhere, point to increased spending in this area. However, there is competition.

The main thing holding Taiko back is their commodity vendors, not performance. There are other production centers in the world that can do quality work and do not take months long vacations all the time. Frankly, I’m personally offended at these excuses, as my customers would never ever put up with it. I’ve been working weekends, evenings, and holidays to meet their requests. Vacation? WTF is that.

Someday I’d love to have an I/O with v2/v3 dac, internal router, whatever. But I would not pay a nickel for it upfront with lead times measured in years.

I sincerely hope they figure out a way to sell and produce a thousand of these things a year. But production needs to be fixed first.

That was a nice break. Now back to work.

Taiko should move its chassis fabrication and finishing, and final assembly to Texas. Very business-friendly, and the state economy alone is ranked #8 among the nations. There will be incentives next year.

 

[soarsz]

I wonder if anyone out there can help me. I have approached Taiko but they seem to be too busy, and with the weekend fast approaching, I'm becoming a little desperate. I replaced my analog card with the MSB module two days ago, and while the Olympus was open, I attempted to remove the music storage drive. I inadvertently removed the wrong drive and need to undo this error. when I went to prepare the Olympus for re-opening by placing the BMS's in shipping mode, my System BMS would respond, will not pair with my app. I am thus at the moment stuck unable to get the system BMS into shipping mode. I am assuming it would be deadly dangerous for me to enter the Olympus when not in shipping mode. Does anyone know a workaround for my dilemma?

 

[Stbo]

I wonder if anyone out there can help me. I have approached Taiko but they seem to be too busy, and with the weekend fast approaching, I'm becoming a little desperate. I replaced my analog card with the MSB module two days ago, and while the Olympus was open, I attempted to remove the music storage drive. I inadvertently removed the wrong drive and need to undo this error. when I went to prepare the Olympus for re-opening by placing the BMS's in shipping mode, my System BMS would respond, will not pair with my app. I am thus at the moment stuck unable to get the system BMS into shipping mode. I am assuming it would be deadly dangerous for me to enter the Olympus when not in shipping mode. Does anyone know a workaround for my dilemma?

Stupid question, have you tried to reboot the Ipad? Sometimes when I tried to go to shipping mode I had to restart more than once for the connection to take place.

 

[dminches]

Stupid question, have you tried to reboot the Ipad? Sometimes when I tried to go to shipping mode I had to restart more than once for the connection to take place.

No questions in tech support are stupid.

I would also try a different device. Install the app and try to connect.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...and over here, I have to have iPad almost touching the server.

 

[Stbo]

...and over here, I have to have iPad almost touching the server.

Me too.

 

[soarsz]

Me too.

I have done all of the above. I have the app on iPhone and iPad. I have re-booted both. I have rebooted the Olympus multiple times. I have removed the app and re-installed it. I too experience the need to be quite close to the Olympus for the app to respond, but I am consistently able to connect the XDMI BMS but not the System BMS

 

[dminches]

I have done all of the above. I have the app on iPhone and iPad. I have re-booted both. I have rebooted the Olympus multiple times. I have removed the app and re-installed it. I too experience the need to be quite close to the Olympus for the app to respond, but I am consistently able to connect the XDMI BMS but not the System BMS

Were you told you shouldn’t put the Optane back in without it being in shipping mode?

 

[Stbo]

Were you told you shouldn’t put the Optane back in without it being in shipping mode?

Probably the Optane drive belong to the System and need to be installed to reach the BMS.

 

[nenon]

I wonder if anyone out there can help me. I have approached Taiko but they seem to be too busy, and with the weekend fast approaching, I'm becoming a little desperate. I replaced my analog card with the MSB module two days ago, and while the Olympus was open, I attempted to remove the music storage drive. I inadvertently removed the wrong drive and need to undo this error. when I went to prepare the Olympus for re-opening by placing the BMS's in shipping mode, my System BMS would respond, will not pair with my app. I am thus at the moment stuck unable to get the system BMS into shipping mode. I am assuming it would be deadly dangerous for me to enter the Olympus when not in shipping mode. Does anyone know a workaround for my dilemma?

Send me a PM with the best way to call you.

 

[dminches]

Probably the Optane drive belong to the System and need to be installed to reach the BMS.

Could be. I am wondering why soarsz feels the Olympus needs to be in shipping mode to put the optane back in.