Olive 4 HD in house

[Still-One]

I have started this thread to keep you up to date about my observations regarding the Olive 4HD that I have added to my system.

I am repeating a few things I have posted elsewhere but I thought it would be good to keep it in one location.

Basics.
Packaging was pretty good, the unit was double boxed.
I had a choice of Black or Silver. I chose the latter since I will stack it on top of my APC S15.
The HD unit comes with 2 1TB drives and automatically backs up your music.
The unit arrived without the remote control. They are shipping one out today. It is not a big issue since I will be loading music for the next several days and the remote really does not help there. (To play music 'till it arrives, I have downloaded their iPhone/iPod Touch app or I can use the touchscreen on the unit)
Set-up was a piece of cake. It found my network and asked my for my key and everything was up and running in no time.
You can use the touch screen for control and viewing information. You can send the output via a HDMI cable to a monitor. You can control the unit via a iPhone application. (Very similar to the SonoS app)
The unit has analog outputs, a digital out if you want to send it to a DAC of your choice. The unit has a digital input but not much info that I have found on that as of yet.

More to come.

[Still-One]

I have started loading discs.

After you load a disc the unit goes out to find the album and artists name. The screen then gives you the option of playing the disc or loading it on the server.

I was surprised at how quiet the unit is copying a disc. Quieter than either my MS300 or my MacBook Pro or MacBook Air.

You have four choices for saving discs.
WAV - no Compression
FLAC- Lossless Compression
ACC- Lossy Compression
MP3 - Lossy Compression

I have chosen WAV. The first three have taken about 6-7 minutes per disc to copy. I will watch closer a bit later.

[klipschfan]

Wonder how much of difference in quality-WAV compares to FLAC played back through the MCD500...

[jdandy]

Jim.......I'm curious about the difference in file sizes between a CD stored as a .wav file versus a FLAC file.

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Jim.......I'm curious about the difference in file sizes between a CD stored as a .wav file versus a FLAC file.

Here is what Olive shows for a 1TB

WAV - 1638 CD's
FLAC- 2889 CD's
ACC- 18059 CD's
MP3 - 18059 CD's

I am not sure how HD i.e. 24/192 or 24/96 disc will eat into that number

[Still-One]

Unless I was doing something wrong on the MS 300 one other difference I have noted so far, I can listen to music on the Olive's HD as I am loading another disc.

The music sounds real good but I have not done any comparisons.

[two dot]

Thank you so much for taking the time for this review!!!

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by Stillone

Here is what Olive shows for a 1TB

WAV - 1638 CD's
FLAC- 2889 CD's
ACC- 18059 CD's
MP3 - 18059 CD's

I am not sure how HD i.e. 24/192 or 24/96 disc will eat into that number

The unit is 2TB but they show the capacity for 1TB since they mirror the discs.

[MC352]

This sounds interesting. I look forward to your future posts on this.

[Still-One]

I am not sure where it is going to pick up meta-data but the cover art has been missing or incorrect on several of the first handful of discs I have loaded. It is actually just as easy or easier to fix them using the Olive Maestro web browser than it is on the MS-300. I have a separate file where I keep all of my cover art so I just point the browser there and it picks up the right jpg image.