⌈ TAIKO AUDIO was founded by Emile Bok, who built his first speaker at the age of twelve. In 2008, he designed and manufactured his first audio products. Today, the company primarily offers an audio file server/transport called OLYMPUS. It is one of the most advanced and most expensive products of its kind in the world. ⌋

RUSSIAN COSMONAUTS never landed on the moon. They planned to, but failed. The only people walking on the surface of the Silver Globe were Americans. Nonetheless, the years of my childhood passed in the worship of cosmonauts, those “aviators of the vacuum space”, remembering the flight of the first and so far only Pole in space, Mirosław Hermaszewski (Soyuz 30 mission, 1978), in the worship – finally - of toys related to the space the Earth flashes through, like a powerful spacecraft.

At the time, Poland was a forced part of the Eastern Bloc, so the horizon of my imagination was the language used, on the one hand, by official 'organs' like radio, television and the press, and, on the other, the one I heard at home. The former made me realize that the 'cosmonaut' was 'our' envoy to space and that he was the most important, implicitly: the only one. The second, on the other hand, offered an alternative vision in which the Americans have their own envoys who are referred to as 'astronauts.' Its confirmation was a photo of one of the Apollo mission expeditions, distributed by the American consulate in Krakow, Poland, and hidden by my parents at the bottom of the closet. Since it was tucked away, I often looked at it.

My imagination built on this basis lived to see a unique complement in the form of a tangible object. When I opened my eyes one morning, it turned out that my father had returned from a contract trip to the GDR (German Democratic Republic) and brought me a gift - the Lunochod (Russian: Луноход). Of the four versions of this vehicle built in the USSR, intended for lunar exploration, only two made it to the moon. I'm trying to remember, but can't, what it looked like. It had rubber tracks, so it was not a toy from the Soviet Union. Instead, I remember perfectly the excitement and emotions that almost blew up my brain at the time.

Even then we did not know that some time later astronauts and cosmonauts would be joined by representatives of other nations with ambitions for space exploration. Foremost among them were representatives of the People's Republic of China, named taikonauts. Their rover also landed on the Moon, and what’s more, on the dark side of our satellite (it was the Yutu rover (Chinese: 玉兔, i.e. “Jade Rabbit”). Which reminds me of the joke about the Soviets and the rockets they launched toward the moon. But that's a topic for another occasion...

All the more so because the company name Taiko Audio has a different genesis. While for me it will always be associated with the cosmos, ever since I saw its products in the Japanese quarterly Stereo Sound, to the rest of the world 'Taiko' will rather mean 'drum', (Japanese 太鼓), a Japanese percussion instrument. It gave rhythm to performances such as nō, kyōgen and kabuki, which influenced much of their development. The drum, or the one that sets the rhythm, creates a pattern on which successive layers can be applied.

▌ Taiko Audio

GIVING COMPANY A NAME originating from a foreign language is something absolutely natural. In Poland it is almost without exception English: Orange, 11 Bit Studios, Arctic Paper. Looking at the names of audio companies present in our cultural circle, one can say that others have the same: Avantgarde Acoustics, Circle Labs, Gold Note or Pro-Ject. Every now and then one encounters names referring to Latin, to cite Audio-Technica and Ferrum Audio. It's natural and completely legitimized by experience, that these types of companies use the resources of the lingua franca of their time.

English names have been adopted by many Asian companies, such as Japanese. Cases going the other way, however, are extremely rare. Let's recall in this context the Koda company, whose logos are Japanese language characters, or the Kiseki company, whose name in Japanese means “miracle.” Taiko Audio thus stands out right away with its name, sending us off into space.

The company was founded by Dutch IT engineer Emil Block and is based in Oldenzaal, a small town of 32,000 people in eastern Netherlands. In 2008 its first product was ready. Initially, it focused on products that eliminate vibrations and reduce noise in audio systems. The experience gathered at that time came in handy when, in 2015, after many years of trial and error, its first product, a file server (transport with hard drive), SGM 2015, was ready. It became the platform on which an even more advanced device, SGM Extreme, was built a few years later.

This device showed how far one can go to make files begin to be treated on a par with analog. And it also showed everyone for whom “bit means bit” that they are wrong. It used a dual Intel Xeon processor with Roon and modified Windows 10, which was paired with twelve 4GB DIMM memory modules. The processor was cooled with a passive cooling system. The next step was to replace the standard USB output with a chip of the company's own invention, characterized, as the manufacturer said at the time, by very low latency and low noise.

It took as much as four years to prepare a completely new device that builds on ideas gathered during the development of the Extreme platform, but goes even further in their implementation. The result of this work is Olympus. It's a device that can work as a file server, file transport and, with the installation of a suitable D/A converter card, a complete file player. Along with it, the Olympus I/U interface was proposed, with which you can upgrade your Extreme server or further improve the sound of the Olympus. And such is the system we are testing.

▌ Olympus – Server & I/O

TAIKO AUDIO, to quote the founder of the company, writes:

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.

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".

⸜ source: → www.WHATSBESTFORUM.com, accessed: 14.01.2025.

FEATURES • On the functional side, this powerful, weighing 85 kilograms (60 + 25), measuring 480×480×304 mm (Olympus – 190 mm + I/O – 105 mm) device that is simply an audio file server. That is, an audio file transport equipped with internal memory. And, in fact, it's a complete file player, since we get a D/A converter card included, although it's something extra. However, when you look at the description, contained in the 89-page manual, this simple picture shatters into a multitude of small pieces that have to be put together from scratch.

First the basics. Olympus can store on the internal disk or stream from the network PCM signal up to 32 bits, 768 kHz and DSD up to DSD512. Internally, we can install storage 4 to 60 (!) TB. We feed the signal to an SFP (Small Form-factor Pluggable) optical input; an adapter for an electrical Ethernet jack is also included. We send the signal either via analog or digital jacks. The company is also working on a volume control circuit to connect the unit directly to a power amplifier.

Olympus is a modular device (the company uses the names Olympus and Olympus Server), so it can work with different types of output cards, digital and analog. It can also be upgraded with an external device, Olympus I/O, an interface with digital output. The Server is sold from the factory with a digital card offering USB output, a spare card with AES/EBU and RCA (S/PDIF) outputs, and a DAC card. You can also buy one of three DAC company links: the Aries Cerat (USB), MBS (optical) and LampizatOr. The latter connects to the Olympus via a 4-pin XLR socket. In the server manual, the section on the LampizatOr card writes about an option in the form of a cable from another Polish company, KBL Sound.

The aforementioned I/O module can be equipped only with an AES/EBU output or with a D/A converter. The company considers the USB link a bug in the system and recommends using the AES/EBU output. The module costs more than 100,000 zlotys, so it is a really expensive accessory. And yet... I have not listened to these devices separately. However, experience teaches that professionals of this caliber do not want to “push” anything on us. It's “just” an output module that connects to the main one via two QSFP-DD (Quad Small Form Factor Pluggable in Doule-Density) cables, but also one in which the board that generates the digital signal is powered by a separate one.

TECHNOLOGY • The device is, in fact, a specialized computer, with a 24-core AMD processor (100.8 GHz) and 64 GB of memory. The processor runs a program written specifically for Taiko Audio and trimmed of almost all other functions. This was discussed years ago by Marcin Ostapowicz of JPLAY, and the point is that the more activities that are not related to sound reproduction the processor performs, the more noise it generates. And noise is the biggest enemy of digital (with analog devices it looks a bit different).

The processor is cooled passively, using coolant. It is moved through copper pipes and dispersed in large heat sinks. Copper, incidentally, is plentiful inside the device. The mighty chassis is made from a milled block of aluminum weighing 72 kg, and copper is used as heat sinks and shields in the individual modules.

One of Taiko Audio's major developments to combat this type of distortion is a system called XDMI. This is a rather complex development, designed to maximize the shortening of the data path and later the audio signal. It is supposed to reduce latency between 250 up to 2,000 times that of a classic USB connection. XDMI is similar to how USB audio works. XDMI replaces the USB controller, USB controller/card, USB cable and USB receiver. It is a modular system, consisting of 4 main parts:

1. Software.
2. Main board featuring the system core.
3. Slave boards that provide an interface to a DAC or preamplifier.
4. “Transparent” QFSP connection system to accommodate motherboard and expansion card in an external housing.

Let us recall the explanation of one of the participants in the Audiophilestyle forum:

On the hardware side, it's just a PCIe card that you plug into a computer. Inside the Olympus server, it plugs into the PCIe slot on the motherboard. Inside the Olympus I/O, it plugs to a very fancy, high-tech PCIe extender device. The other end of that PCIe extender connects to the PCIe slot on a computer - either a Taiko Extreme or an Olympus. So on the hardware (physical) side, you can think of it as something similar to the PCIe cards made by JCAT, PinkFaun, SOTM, etc.

Things start to get quite more complicated from here. The card is connected directly to the CPU via the PCIe lanes on the computer. The music player (Roon or XDMS in this case) outputs music directly to the card. In a very simplistic way, you can think of it as music software --> CPU --> XDMI. That requires a custom driver that Taiko created for Windows. So the card receives all the bits that contain the music being played in real time.

⸜ source: → AUDIOPHILESTYLE.com, accessed: 14.01.2025.

Taiko Audio's new transport differs from its predecessor not only in terms of the CPU, RAM, and mechanical design, but also in power supply. The unit is powered entirely by internal lithium batteries; the company says of their effect on sound: “magical.” The system is called BPS (Battery Power Supply) and is charged by three power supplies - one large and complex power supply and two smaller ones. There are two independent groups of power supplies in the Server, and another two in the I/O - and that's one reason why it can be a valuable addition to the system.

The power supply is one of the most important components of the Olympus and is controlled by a computerized system - it too has a name of its own, the BMS (BatteryManagement System). It can be set to charge manually, but it works best with charging set to “Auto,” that is, at night, between midnight and seven in the morning. Even then, the device is powered only by the cells. All this is intended to reduce noise.

Although we're talking about battery power, and therefore independent of the mains supply, the manual contains recommendations on power cables. As we read, they affect the sound. Which makes sense, and I've talked about this many times when testing turntables. The power cable acts like an antenna and introduces noise into the system The better it is, the fewer such problems.

Both devices stand on feet made of acrylic. The feet fit into a recess equipped with an M6 (6 mm) thread, and the diameter of the cutout is 90 mm. So they can be easily replaced with any other anti-vibration feet.

Playback is controlled via Roon - no other control program is compatible with Olympus. The company is working on its own XDMI app, but so far it is not ready. Separately, you need to download the Taiko BMS App for yourself. It is used to monitor the battery charge. The manufacturer assures that the device will play for ten hours after only an hour and a half of charging.

But at the same time, it informs users that it sounds best when they are heavily charged. Even though the whole device could play on a single battery, with rapidly fluctuating current draws, which is what we are dealing with, the impedance of the source and how it behaves over time matters a lot. Which shows what an incredibly transparent device Olympus is.

Never before have I known such an advanced audio device. Perhaps only the products of another company from the Netherlands, Aavik, could compare. However, they are based on completely different technologies.

▌ SOUND

HOW WE LISTENED • The Taiko Audio Olympus audio file server stood on a Finite Elemente Pagode Edition Mk II rack. Since there was no space next to each other we stacked the Server and I/O modules on top of each other. Its sound was compared to the Ayon Audio CD-35 HF Edition SACD player. During the test, I listened to both files from the Lumin L2's NAS drive and from Tidal and Qobuz services, using the Roon system installed on the server. The DAC section in the Ayon was used as the DAC - thus the only variable was the transport - SACD and files. The signal was routed via Concept Chimæra's AES/EBU Stage III cable.

With the router, the player was connected via my system consisting of a SILENT ANGEL N16 LPS dual LAN switch, with its two modules in series, powered by a TIGLON TPL-2000A cable. The signal from the switch to the two players was carried by a LAN Quadrant Triple-C cable with RLI-1GB Triple-C filters at both ends. The Server module was powered by a cable, Harmonix X-DC350M2R Improved-Version, and the I/O was powered by Acrolink 8N-PC8100 Performante Nero Edizione (№ 1/15).

» RECORDINGS USED FOR THE TEST ⸜ a selection

⸜ FRANK SINATRA, Nice’N’Easy, Qobuz 24/44,1
⸜ JOHN COLTRANE, Blue Train, FLAC 24/192
⸜ THE BEALTES, Abbey Road,
⸜ DOMONIC MILLER, Meeting Point, Tidal, FLAC 16/44,1
⸜ SHELBY LINNE, Just A Little Lovin’, The Look Of Love FLAC 16/44,1
⸜ ARCHIE SHEEP & HORACE PARLAN Trouble in Mind, FLAC 16/44,1
⸜ THE MILLS BROTHERS, Lulus Back in Town (Original Recordings 1934-1935), Qobuz, FLAC 16/44,1
⸜ COUNT BASIE & MILLS BROTHERS, The Board of Directors, Qobuz, FLAC 16/44,1 (1968/?).
⸜ ICE CUBE, Man Down, Tidal, FLAC 16/44,1 (2024).
⸜ LEONARD COHEN, You ant It Darker, Tidal, FLAC 24/44,1

I WONDERED HOW WOULD IT SOUND LIKE, oh, how curious I was! I have had the opportunity to listen to music through the Extreme model many times at Munich Shows, but any show presentations are peculiar. And that's because you are listening to the system in a room with unfamiliar music in unfamiliar versions, with the participation of many people around you, with sounds coming from behind the wall and doors opening every now and then. I'm not complaining, that's not the point. I'm just saying that although I heard the Taiko Audio transport, it was as if I had never heard it before.

And indeed - all the preconceptions I had about this device, both those resulting from my previous experiences and those formed from reading reviews, descriptions, as well as those I assimilated from conversations with other fans of good sound did not prepare me for what I heard at home. Not even close. Because, you see, I had never heard anything like this before.

When FRANK SINATRA finished singing the last line from the song That Old Feeling, when in his perfection he endured the “t” in the word “heart” ending the phrase “For that old feeling, is still in my heart,” when he takes a slight breath ending the word “burning” at 1:42, it sounded like I was sitting in the control room and watching the recording through the glass. In other words, it was incredibly natural and non-mechanical. The same, by the way, was true immediately afterwards of JOHN COLTRANE's Blue Train, for when, in the intro, the snare drum in the right channel strikes at 0:36 while acquiring a slow “tam-tam,” I heard the real instrument, not its re production.

To be clear - I exaggerate, and I exaggerate big time. But it's the hyperbolization inherent in our industry that says more than just: “Oh my gosh!”. For when we say that something is like “live” we do not, absolutely not mean the “live-like” sound, but the emotions we experience at the time. And these can be just as if we were sitting in front of a real performer. The sound is irreversibly altered by the recording, the medium and the playback - this is how it was, is and will be. But this is the art, the art of being able to arrange all the components of the sound in such a way that we experience it in a similar way to people sitting - for example - in the Capitol Studio A room with Sinatra and his orchestra.

I remember that I had a similar feeling, that is, an immediate understanding that something special was happening in my system, only a few times in my life. I remember it best from listening to the TechDAS Air Force One turntable (more → HERE). Yes, that's exactly how I remember it. As a sort of inner certainty that I was hearing something SPECTACULAR. I used capital letters - in print they would be in verse - because Olympus deserves them. It was, aside from the experience with the Japanese turntable and my SACD player with the top Master CD-Rs, the most exciting experience of my life.

That's why trying to listen to music in the way I codified years ago, and then only supplemented, that is, with multiple repetitions, with reference to my own system and sound sources, proved to be not very satisfying with the Olympus. I preferred to simply surf through Tidal and Qobuz, recalling songs I often listen to and enjoy. After a while, I realized that this was a better way to understand what this device is and is not. And a stronger appreciation of what the designer managed to achieve with it.

I recalled the turntable a while ago for two reasons. One I have already mentioned, and that was to repeat the excitement and surprise that the machine brought with it by playing records that I thought I knew inside out. The second reason was of a different nature and went deeper. At that time I heard things that defined my perception of reproduced sound. I had a similar experience only one more time later, with the Ayon Audio CD-35 HF Edition SACD player, and to a large extent also with Siltech Triple Crown and more recently Master Crown cables.

Both of these experiences were spectacular, but significantly different. Because, let me remind you, recording and sound reproduction belong to the field of art. The latter is not a representation of reality, but of our perceptions of it. And they differed in the reference which they referred to, and therefore in the vision of the “worlds” they created. The TechDAS turntable sounded like... a top-of-the-line turntable, the best that had played in my house up to that point. The Ayon player, on the other hand, sounded like a master tape. Both reference points are analog, yet they differ in fundamental ways.

The Taiko Audio Olympus with the Olympus I/O module sounded just like the SACD player, but - better. It was exactly the same direction, the same vector in which the replay energy was going. I invoked Sinatra at the beginning when talking about details, and that's because they were, to me, shockingly believable. In the same way, by the way, as when, in Coltrane's case, Lee Morgan starts playing the trumpet, when you can hear strong, really strong “pops,” that is, overdrive of the diaphragm.

Or when DOMINIC MILLER plays guitar, first on the New Dawn album, with NEIL STACEY, and then solo on the Meeting Point album. That was years ago, but the body remembers - remembers the sound of this musician's guitars from an intimate concert in Bielsko Biala, during which I sat with Tomek, the host of the Krakow Sonic Society meetings, in the front row of the audience. As I say, this is about an impression, not real memories. But that impression of being in the midst of a real performance was riveting and all-encompassing.

This is because the Dutch file transport plays in a way that is very raw on the one hand, and incredibly rich on the other. Raw because it doesn't embellish anything, doesn't warm or open anything up, doesn't deepen or spice anything up, doesn't emphasize or hide anything. And rich, because it presents so much information in such an orderly way that we “enter” a given recording in a pleasant, good, natural way. There is no “wall” between us and the recording. At the same time, this is not an “easy” sound. Many times I have seen listeners who choose the sound of the turntable, even though they have previously heard the “master” tape from which the record was made. The Olympus offers a sound a similar to the tape.

But not because you can't hear the differences. You can hear it, oh you can hear it! But they are not exclusionary differences. Taiko Audio plays in a way that incorporates into our circle of interest recordings that we wouldn't have listened to before. Or ones that define an entire era, and with a transport from the Netherlands allow you to bridge the gap between distant worlds. In my case, for example, this was the case with THE MILLS BROTHERS' collection of songs, entitled Lulus Back in Town (Original Recordings 1934-1935), and the album they recorded in 1968 with COUNT BASIE, The Board of Directors.

That's because Olympus plays with extraordinary resolution. And it is selective. And detailed. Usually these three elements compete with each other for our attention, and the resolution is the most important, because it implies both accurate drawing and clear details. Here, however, we could hear that these are different categories and each is responsible for a slightly different part of reality. Perhaps that's why we know right away that this is a device that offers a remarkably wide bandwidth, without smoothing the attack at its extremes, without softening and without emphasizing the attack phase.

And I've never heard bass like this at my place before. Maybe except for, already cited, the TechDAS. My Ayon with music played from CDs and SACDs does not go so low. And yet I listened to music using its D/A converter. Which shows how much more potential there is in this design. But here and now it was the stream from Tidal that sounded better. In fact, better than the same files I played from my NAS drive. Sometimes I had the impression that the SHM-CDs and Master CD-Rs went a little deeper into the sound, that they conveyed the inner softness of vocals, bass, guitars, etc. even better. After a while, I wasn't so sure anymore, although the impression remained.

The Taiko also builds an incredibly vast space. It is very precise in what it does, this is not a “romantic” sounding device. When the choruses on the sides of You Want It Darker, a track from LEONARD COHEN's album of the same title, ring out, they are perfectly distant in space, but also brilliantly combined with the reverb in which the other instruments operate.

Vocals, from a completely different category of quality, could be heard here wonderfully. Admittedly, they were not better than usual, not so. The emotional charge they conveyed, however, “glued” together with the music, creating a seamless fullness. It was perfect. When Cohen says “I'm ready, my Lord” - we believe him. This is not simply a song lyric, but a personal, heart-felt confession from the artist.

▌ Summary

I AM ALSO READY, although my readiness is about the “here and now.” And I am ready to say that the Taiko Audio Olympus, in the version I tested, is one of the best audio products I have ever heard. So different from other excellent file players that I'll recall the even more accurate and even more energetic sound of the Aavik SD-880 (though without as much wonderful naturalness), that it's difficult to recommend outright. The tested transport is distinguished by the fact that everything it does, it does perfectly, and it can put it all together.

It deliver amazingly low and deep bass, there is also an almost warm but really natural midrange, and there is also an outstandingly resolving, accurate, saturated treble. Dynamics seem to have no limits, although in this case it's mostly about micro-dynamics. The latter reminds me of what I know from analog tapes. The space is huge, but precisely organized. It is created by all elements, even the tape noise, which is placed in a different plane (physically) than the recording.

Once it was said that this company's Extreme model was “top of the line,” now I say that Olympus is “top of the line.” So I'm sure it can be pushed even harder in the direction I remember from listening to the Air Force One turntable. But that's in the past. Today, Taiko Audio's file transport is one of the best digital sources I know. And one of the best audio sources in general. The ˻ GOLD FINGERPRINT ˺ award is a small tribute we can pay to the designer and his work. ●

»«

THIS TEST HAS BEEN DESIGNED ACCORDING TO THE GUIDELINES adopted by the Association of International Audiophile Publications, an international audio press association concerned with ethical and professional standards in our industry, of which HIGH FIDELITY is a founding member. More about the association and its constituent titles → HERE.

→ www.AIAP-online.org