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

[Taiko Audio]

In fact I have not received any such update email up till now, despite I gave my email to Taiko's communication team last Thursday (6th March).

It appears the e-mail went to .com in stead of .com.hk , you should receive it now.

Please consider to update us regularly on WBF instead of sending info to dealers or individual customers.

Can Taiko estimate the time to clear the backlog?

@nenon has been working on a framework which predicts the expected ship date of each individual order number with input from @JulienVermeiren. This framework accepts input for the amount of chassis delivered each week which in turn updates the expected shipping dates of all order numbers. ETA this week!

 

[rocco1113]

It appears the e-mail went to .com in stead of .com.hk , you should receive it now.





@nenon has been working on a framework which predicts the expected ship date of each individual order number with input from @JulienVermeiren. This framework accepts input for the amount of chassis delivered each week which in turn updates the expected shipping dates of all order numbers. ETA this week!

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to give you all a quick update before the weekend rolls in! I think it's only fair to keep you in the loop.

We’ve just received a fresh batch from our new anodiser. I haven’t had the chance to inspect everything fully yet, but so far, it looks like a solid batch. We’ll be shipping out some servers to our dangerous goods specialist on Monday (Silver and Black), and then they'll head out for delivery. The Monday after, we’ll also be shipping at least 5 more, or more depending on how the rest of the batch checks out.

The reason I’m posting now is that I previously mentioned we were testing powder-coated versions of the Olympus model. Well, the first test run has come in, and it’s looking really promising! You can see the photos below. So far, we’ve only been able to test black, as we’re waiting for a specific type of coating to arrive for the silver version. That should be in after the weekend, and we’ll test it right away.

Personally (and I know Emile agrees), we’re really happy with how the test turned out. We actually prefer the coated version!

The best part about switching to powder coating is that it significantly boosts our yield, from about 50% to around 95%. I’d really appreciate your thoughts, especially from those of you waiting for a black Olympus. Let me know what you think based on the pictures (and feel free to share your personal preferences).

I totally understand if some of you prefer the anodised look, but if not, we’re open to moving forward with the coated version to speed up the process. This would shorten the wait for anodised versions since we’d have more options available.

I’m testing out different approaches to streamline things, but I’m not an audiophile (yet—Emile keeps teasing me), so I don’t have all the fine-tuned knowledge of what audiophiles might prefer. As a musician, my setup is a bit of a mix-and-match of what sounds best, with a splash of all the colours that exist. So, your input is super valuable, and with it, I can continue working to get everyone’s Olympus out as quickly as possible.

Right now, we’re able to build about 10–15 units a week (if the yield allows it), and we still have about 94 orders to go. So, my goal is to have everything shipped out within the next 10–15 weeks (I tend to be on the cautious side with these predictions).

I don’t usually check the forum (nothing personal, Steve! I’m just focused on the project at the moment), but I’ll make an effort to read your replies this weekend.

Thanks so much, everyone!

View attachment 146207View attachment 146208View attachment 146209View attachment 146210View attachment 146211View attachment 146212

@JulienVermeiren

Can you post the silver version of powder coated chassis pics? It's been almost a month and we havent received any update...

I ordered the silver Olympus and would very much like to see the result. Did Taiko confirm to go for powder coating for both black and silver versions?

Thanks and look forward to your update soon.

 

[wil]

Hi Emile,

Thanks for your long reply.
However I don't think all the Hong Kong customers are satisfied.

You have given us detailed explanation of the causes of the production delay.
However what the HK customers, and maybe all overseas customers really need is Taiko's plan to clear the backlogs!

Currently Volent Audio, the Taiko dealer in Hong Kong is subjected to tremendous pressure from the HK customers who had placed pre-orders & paid down-payment.
I guess Nenon will soon be in the same situation.

Communication by individual emails is inadequate.
In fact I have not received any such update email up till now, despite I gave my email to Taiko's communication team last Thursday (6th March).

IMO the communication must be fast, regular, open & transparent. It should preferably be directly from you or Edward because we trust only the two of you.
Please consider to update us regularly on WBF instead of sending info to dealers or individual customers.

Many thanks!

I think it’s reasonable to expect that the Taiko distributors can communicate order status to customers individually or on WBF.

I’m hoping Emile and Edward can spend most of their finite hours on further product development. (such as dac card v2!).

 

[Jpowell]

XLR uses a positive signal, a negative signal (inverted), and ground. To use a balanced input on a preamp with an unbalanced signal, the negative input pin of the preamp (usually pin 3, but it can be pin 2 on some equipment) needs to be connected to ground (pin 1). This can be done at the source end of the destination end, which, technically does not make a difference. It should also not make a difference whether an adapter connector is used at the source (along with a balanced cable), or at the destination (along with a single-ended cable). Obviously, the adapter connector does introduce a contact transition which in itself will be audible.

However, when using an RCA to XLR cable with the pin connection done at the source end, there are two conductors between the termination, and when done at the destination end, it is more like connecting with a single-ended cable. The properties of the cable that is used will have an influence on this and the audible effect can be different when used one way versus the other. Ultimately, this is a matter of personal preference.

On a related note, we are working on an output stage with Balanced XLR connections. It will be modular, so easy to swap later.

Christiaan, many thanks for the detailed reply. That's very helpful--and more or less confirms my current understanding and thinking about the issue. Obviously, if that balanced output stage dac had a timeline, it would be helpful--but I KNOW that you can't predict that (especially with everything else going on right now). So I'll just make sure that, if I use an adapter rather than custom cable, that it's pinned 'correctly.'
Thanks again.

 

[LR319]

Dear Team Taiko, I am one of the 15 in Hong Kong wait list. I would like to know if you have decided on powder coat finishing or the option still open. Given a choice I would prefer anodizing, I don't mind the extra leadtime, afterall I still have my Extreme .

 

[CKKeung]

Any close-up photos of both the anodized silver/black and powder-coat silver/black for comparison?

More importantly please announce openly the newest backlog-clearing plan ASAP.

Many thanks!

 

[maxklchau]

Hi, I am one of the 1/15 HK buyer for the Olympus server. I really appreciated the SGM server but when I heard that Taiko got new Olympus server, I immediately order thru local agent VOLENT without a second thought. It has been exciting for a while, however, it is a bit disappointing to wait for such a long time. So I started to check the status from Ben and he suggest me to follow on wtb forum. After I read this few pages reply. What Taiko doing is now is totally NOT in a fair and open manner. I have got a friend he said that he got reply from Ted and company got the chassis for assembly on 29/Jan and 7/Feb for re-confirm, but suddenly disappeared. I also read thru here the threads that another few can be dispatched on 27/Feb , but CANNOT disclose the order numbered. Can you tell us what that shipment's queue number ? and why this few suddenly can jump the queue and take 86 and 87 chassis , if YOU are OUT of chassis. I hope that every order can be treated at a fair and open manner.

 

[Bioeasy]

Hi, I am one of the 1/15 HK buyer for the Olympus server. I really appreciated the SGM server but when I heard that Taiko got new Olympus server, I immediately order thru local agent VOLENT without a second thought. It has been exciting for a while, however, it is a bit disappointing to wait for such a long time. So I started to check the status from Ben and he suggest me to follow on wtb forum. After I read this few pages reply. What Taiko doing is now is totally NOT in a fair and open manner. I have got a friend he said that he got reply from Ted and company got the chassis for assembly on 29/Jan and 7/Feb for re-confirm, but suddenly disappeared. I also read thru here the threads that another few can be dispatched on 27/Feb , but CANNOT disclose the order numbered. Can you tell us what that shipment's queue number ? and why this few suddenly can jump the queue and take 86 and 87 chassis , if YOU are OUT of chassis. I hope that every order can be treated at a fair and open manner.

Me too, I received confirmation from Ted on the 6th February and after that no new update from Taiko. I was asked to wait for the next 10 days at the end of February by Julien and now 10days has passed. I have contacted my dealer but he can't do anything. He also didn't receive my update from Taiko about my shipment. I also wonder what happened to that batch of 12 # promised on the 29th January.
I agree with you. Taiko should be more transparent about the queue. What I asked for is just a fairness.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Dear Team Taiko, I am one of the 15 in Hong Kong wait list. I would like to know if you have decided on powder coat finishing or the option still open. Given a choice I would prefer anodizing, I don't mind the extra leadtime, afterall I still have my Extreme .

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.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Any close-up photos of both the anodized silver/black and powder-coat silver/black for comparison?

Coming up as soon as we have them!

More importantly please announce openly the newest backlog-clearing plan ASAP.

We are and have been sharing what we are doing, always have been, which apparently goes unnoticed for some in the bulk of the thread. Hence we are adding e-mail communication, available to everyone who has an Olympus on order.

We do need some understanding of the sheer bulk of communication we are and have been engaged in, it takes almost 5 (!) people, full time, just to answer all incoming e-mails/texts/calls etc, we are actually just starting to catch up in that area. This is not just about status enquiries, which footers or power cords to use, but also about the technical complexities of all the new technology in the Olympus. This is time intensive to explain, so we have also been working on improving the understandability of online information, coming soon as well.

A very in depth backlog-clearing plan is coming by e-mail to everyone subscribed, including a ship date for each and all order numbers.

 

[MOTU]

I think that the key crux of what could be changed in the communication is that when an estimated date for a certain progress has been communicated, that as soon as something happens to make that date likely to be delayed, to say so with a new best guess estimate and if none can be made, say that none can be made atm but at what date a new estimate can be made.

I think this is roughly what Taiko has been trying to do, but for the few misses in communication when a date has been communicated and then that date goes by and nothing happens without explanation and no answer is given when asked about this, it tenfold increases the frustration.

 

[John T]

Regarding production of the Olympus; I'm attempting to "roll with the punches'' I sold my Horizon last year thinking the Olympus XDMI was eminent. I lost a nice little chunk of money on that deal. Yes, it's frustrating for all parties. Nothing like stating the obvious. Setting that aspect aside. This is just a general question for those who are using Analog Out and Native XDMI with the Horizon/360. How is functionality? Does restarting the Olympus have to be done often, regarding losing connection with Roon. Or does this only happen once in a while? I'm attempting to get a clear overall understanding if functionality is working problem free. I do understand stoppages occur with continual run time for break in. I'm more interested in 5-6 hour listening sessions...Is everything running smoothly???

 

[Taiko Audio]

Hi, I am one of the 1/15 HK buyer for the Olympus server. I really appreciated the SGM server but when I heard that Taiko got new Olympus server, I immediately order thru local agent VOLENT without a second thought. It has been exciting for a while, however, it is a bit disappointing to wait for such a long time. So I started to check the status from Ben and he suggest me to follow on wtb forum. After I read this few pages reply. What Taiko doing is now is totally NOT in a fair and open manner. I have got a friend he said that he got reply from Ted and company got the chassis for assembly on 29/Jan and 7/Feb for re-confirm, but suddenly disappeared. I also read thru here the threads that another few can be dispatched on 27/Feb , but CANNOT disclose the order numbered. Can you tell us what that shipment's queue number ? and why this few suddenly can jump the queue and take 86 and 87 chassis , if YOU are OUT of chassis. I hope that every order can be treated at a fair and open manner.

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.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Regarding production of the Olympus; I'm attempting to "roll with the punches'' I sold my Horizon last year thinking the Olympus XDMI was eminent. I lost a nice little chunk of money on that deal. Yes, it's frustrating for all parties. Nothing like stating the obvious. Setting that aspect aside. This is just a general question for those who are using Analog Out and Native XDMI with the Horizon/360. How is functionality? Does restarting the Olympus have to be done often, regarding losing connection with Roon. Or does this only happen once in a while? I'm attempting to get a clear overall understanding if functionality is working problem free. I do understand stoppages occur with continual run time for break in. I'm more interested in 5-6 hour listening sessions...Is everything running smoothly???

1) Does restarting the Olympus have to be done often, regarding losing connection with Roon. <-- 1 out of 76, under investigation
2) "Roon lost control of the audio device" <---- 3 out of 76, 1 now appears to be solved, monitoring and will apply to the remaining 2 if it holds
3) Playback stopping 1-2 times a day on long queue or "track/album on repeat" based playback, varies from Roon to Roon release and varies over time, aka resolves itself for one, then starts for another. We have an alternative playback application operational (UPNP based) which we are going to test with on the few people who are currently experiencing this. Unfortunately this no longer occurs here, and no longer occurs for @nenon either. This does however appear to have something to do with the most recent Roon builds which we have no influence on.

 

[Taiko Audio]

Me too, I received confirmation from Ted on the 6th February and after that no new update from Taiko. I was asked to wait for the next 10 days at the end of February by Julien and now 10days has passed. I have contacted my dealer but he can't do anything. He also didn't receive my update from Taiko about my shipment. I also wonder what happened to that batch of 12 # promised on the 29th January.
I agree with you. Taiko should be more transparent about the queue. What I asked for is just a fairness.

Manufacturing update:

Shipped (to dangerous goods specialist) : 31, 44.1, 48, 53, 54

Under construction: 66, 67, 69, 74, 75, 76, 77, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87

Of these the following did not ship yet:

67, 77, 82, 84, 86, 87

As mentioned already, the upcoming e-mail will show all remaining orders numbers with expected shipping dates based on currently available information. The reason it has not gone out yet is because we are waiting on this weeks shipments/results of both anodising companies (hopefully we'll have two now) and the coating company.

 

[Taiko Audio]

If anything remains unclear and/or if I missed a question please tag me / let me know. It’s not always easy for me to keep up with / read all posts carefully.

 

[Kingsrule]

Regarding production of the Olympus; I'm attempting to "roll with the punches'' I sold my Horizon last year thinking the Olympus XDMI was eminent. I lost a nice little chunk of money on that deal. Yes, it's frustrating for all parties. Nothing like stating the obvious. Setting that aspect aside. This is just a general question for those who are using Analog Out and Native XDMI with the Horizon/360. How is functionality? Does restarting the Olympus have to be done often, regarding losing connection with Roon. Or does this only happen once in a while? I'm attempting to get a clear overall understanding if functionality is working problem free. I do understand stoppages occur with continual run time for break in. I'm more interested in 5-6 hour listening sessions...Is everything running smoothly???

I have MSB XDMI running continuously 15 hours/day mostly shuffling my various Roon libraries(195,000 tracks) since my Olympus arrived (70 days). One reboot very early on...so I'd say very smooth running

 

[Stbo]

I have MSB XDMI running continuously 15 hours/day mostly shuffling my various Roon libraries since my Olympus arrived (70 days). One reboot...so I'd say very smooth running

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

 

[maxklchau]

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 for your precise clarification. I hope you can backtrack the current messy situation very soon and I am looking forward to receive the Masterpiece from you. For me, the SGM is already really good and I believe the my new Olympus would be even better. Thanks again.

 

[Taiko Audio]

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.