New Olive CD-to-Lossless Harddisk-based Audiophile Player

[bordins]

Very professional look, Olive Opus holds 1,100 CDs in a lossless format, priced at $2,999 !

Some spec: 24bit/192k, 4 8x oversampling DACs, temperature-compensated crystal, linear PSU, etc....

Full information at http://www.olive.us

Are we moving to lossless audiophile players ?

I wonder this kind of player is just to have one additional stage for converting RedBook data into compressed "files". While playing, the exact copy of RedBook data will be restored first ?

[I_Forgot]

If you have a computer (most of us do) you can put Squeezeboxes in every room in your house for $3k. If you only want audio in one location, you can do that for $250-300 depending on whether you want wired or wireless networking.

The squeezebox lets you store music in lossless compressed (or uncompressed) formats. It is streamed in compressed format to the player which decompresses it in real time as it is played back.

Squeezeboxes aren't expensive enough to be considered high-end, and the box isn't nearly as pretty as the Opus (though I note the Opus face plate isn't >1/2" thick - a strike against it being a high-end device). The Opus has a very small display (I can't even read it in the pictures on their web page), and doesn't appear to come with a remote control, so you have to deal with that yourself. You'll need a PDA or laptop with a web browser to use as a remote control (an option with the Squeezebox).

Opus automatically rips, tags, and stores CDs which is a big plus, though I would have to experience it to believe it works very well. I ripped and stored 600+ discs in my collection and hope I never have to do THAT again. There are a lot of errors in the internet databases that require editing if you want the tags to come out uniformly and accurately populated. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to deal with classical discs. My 600+ discs fit on a 250 GB HDD that I back up with an external 250GB HDD so that I won't have to rip the discs again. A lot of people using squeezeboxes just set up a cheap PC with a pair of discs in RAID1 configuration as an audio server.

I_F

[jean-paul]

Originally posted by I_Forgot
though I note the Opus face plate isn't >1/2" thick - a strike against it being a high-end device

Are you being serious ?

BTW of course it has remote control. I own its predecessor and I can tell it works better than any other computer solution I know simply because it is a one button affair.

I advise you to judge it only when you've tried it.

[I_Forgot]

Originally posted by jean-paul

I advise you to judge it only when you've tried it.

When you send me one, I will try it. Until then, I will simply have to read about it, consider it, and make up my mind.

I_F

[bordins]

I had a chance to audition Ayre C-5xe Universal Stereo Disc Player, playing CDs. This player can play CD, SACD, DVD-A, and MP3 formats and costs around US$ 6,000 !!

Should I do MP3 rip my collection with EAC software to play on the C-5xe, instead of the Olive Opus? Does the Squeezebox sound similar to them ? I look forward to seeing this line of review comming to the public. I believe engineers can make MP3 players at a level of real hi-fidelity.

Audiophiles hope to be able to find the "best" sonic quality at the lowest price. MP3 players are being upgraded.

[b-square]

Originally posted by bordins
I had a chance to audition Ayre C-5xe Universal Stereo Disc Player, playing CDs. This player can play CD, SACD, DVD-A, and MP3 formats and costs around US$ 6,000 !!

Should I do MP3 rip my collection with EAC software to play on the C-5xe, instead of the Olive Opus? Does the Squeezebox sound similar to them ? I look forward to seeing this line of review comming to the public. I believe engineers can make MP3 players at a level of real hi-fidelity.

Audiophiles hope to be able to find the "best" sonic quality at the lowest price. MP3 players are being upgraded.

lossless formats like flac are supported by the squeezebox and sound fantastic as, when properly ripped, lossless formats allow bit perfect playback. visit the forums at http://www.slimdevices.com for lots of good information on what a stock squeezebox can do and how people are modifying them.

at this point i almost never use any source except my squeezebox. for under $300, it's the best deal in audio, imo.


bb

[jean-paul]

Originally posted by I_Forgot


When you send me one, I will try it. Until then, I will simply have to read about it, consider it, and make up my mind.

I_F

Sorry, I do not see any reason why I would have to send you one. I do not own stocks of this company or whatsoever so I do not have any attachment with this company. They manufacture good products that are a joy to work with compared to nerdy pc solutions. There is no substitute for one button operation without the need for a keyboard, mouse, screen, generated heat and noise.

Even if I did send one I do not think it will make any difference, you formed an opinion from paper/screen/internet. That is killing for clear judgement.

[I_Forgot]

Originally posted by bordins

Should I do MP3 rip my collection with EAC software to play on the C-5xe, instead of the Olive Opus? Does the Squeezebox sound similar to them ? I look forward to seeing this line of review comming to the public. I believe engineers can make MP3 players at a level of real hi-fidelity.

It doesn't look like the C-5XE is anything but a glorified disc player. You still have to put the disc in the player every time you want to listen to it. What would be the point of ripping your collection to MP3? MP3 is a lossy format, inherently inferior to either uncompressed or lossless compressed formats like .flac. You can only make an MP3 player sound as good as the MP3 encoder and that is NEVER as good as a lossless format.

There are three main reasons why many people using the squeezebox rip to flac. First, it is lossless compression. Playback is exactly the same as playing back the original disc. Second, the storage requirements are about 60% of that for the raw pcm (.wav) files. This is rapidly disappearing as a reason - disk drives are getting really big and really cheap. The third reason is because you can use tags with the .flac files and can't with .wav files. The tags are where you store the artist, titles, etc.

According to what I have read at the squeezebox forums, some people have been modifying squeezeboxes for "better" quality output. Most of them don't know what they are doing and simply follow the advice of others who mostly don't know what they are doing either (sort of like what goes on at the DIY Audio forums). I have never seen anyone claiming to even have a schematic diagram of the thing, which severely limits what you can do to "improve" it.

For example, many are replacing the switching supply wall-wart with linear regulated power supplies and making all sorts of claims about vast improvements in the sound. The problem with that is that the power for the analog circuits in the squeezebox comes from the DC-DC converter circuit that provides high voltage for the vacuum fluorescent display (according to the CTO at slimdevices). Replacing the external switching power supply doesn't eliminate the internal one...

And yes, before our pursed-lipped friend asks, I have tried it and found no difference in the sound whatsoever. But then, I wasn't expecting to hear any difference. This is a completely unscientific test with no more validity than anyone's who claims that there are big improvements from changing the power supply. The difference in this case is that I know that it's a meaningless test and most of the other folks don't.

I_F

[bordins]

Hi I_F, thanks for the reply.

I'm always curious that why big brands, Mark Levison, Linn, Ayre, etc, have never built "MP3" (lossless) players. If PCM data is the same, why not ? Once the music tracks are ripped, they can be in any media - CD-ROM, harrdisk, flash drive, over the network, etc.

DAC could make big differences in the sonics. Cheap DAC v.s. expensive ones. There still exist issues with hi-fidelity audio reproduction, PSU, ananlog stages, etc. ?

I hope to see big brands make lossless players with wi-fi. Only a dream ??

[pinkmouse]

I'm sure they have them up and running in their R&D labs, they just don't think there's a big enough market for them yet