Audiophile Music Servers and a perspective from one publication.

Johnny Vinyl · Jun 15, 2012

I recently picked up an issue of UHF magazine, which is a small circulation magazine out of Montreal, but has a dedicated readership. Whilst reading their "Feedback" column I came upon this letter and response:

Question:

Are you planning to review any Olive products in the near future?

Reply:

No. We do not recommend buying commodity hard drives from high end audio companies. Olive, in our view, brings nothing to the table that cannot be done with the conventional computer gear you may already have.

This struck me as quite bold and matter of fact. Maybe they are right, maybe not. What's your take on this?

jdandy2 · Jun 15, 2012

John.......As an Olive 04HD owner and a McIntosh MS750 owner, I think UHF magazine's view is narrow minded at best about music servers. Their comments sound like the mantra of the laptop and DAC group. I have no reason to bash those who embrace that route, and no agenda or ax to grind. To each their own. For me it is about having components that compliment the other gear in my audio rack and look like audio components. I don't want a desktop or laptop computer in my listening rooms. I appreciate having the music server wrapped up in a user friendly component that fits into my audio rack. I like the advantages of the dedicated music server's processor and the convenience of proprietary software without tweaking and adjusting various downloaded software perimeters necessary to stream audio via USB, not to mention sharing a computer's processor speed with all the other system operations going on in the background on a typical laptop. I like being able to control my servers via an iPad, iPod, or a networked computer, both wired and Wifi. No computer in the listening room also means no power supply cooling fan noise. The Olive 04HD is an excellent music server with 2TB of storage capacity, and operates dead silent. Listening to hi-res downloads from the 04HD hard drive is exceptionally good, and should be auditioned to be appreciated.

So, yes, I think UHF is a tad preoccupied with their chosen media, and do their readers a disservice by refusing to report on alternatives outside their anointed choices.

Andre Marc · Jun 15, 2012

What these guys are missing is that are there are boatloads of people who have no interest in interfacing
with a computer, know nothing about "USB DACs", Pure Music, FLAC, AIFF, or WAV, drivers, ASIO, WASAPI,etc, and just
want to be able rip and access their music collection in CD quality. Olive provides an excellent one box solution.

This product is not for the lunatics who debate round the clock about the sound of different hard drives, different operating systems, USB cables, Amarra versions, integer mode, or any other esoteric "computer audiophile" craziness.

mep · Jun 15, 2012

There are boatloads of digital lovers who are killing the music industry though. Spotify and Pandora are the two latest nails in the coffin. Digital people are moving to the stage where they don't feel they have to "own" any music and they will just stream compressed digital music and be quite happy. As I said before, digital has killed the recording business and bands can no longer make a living from selling their music. You have to tour now in order to make any money as a band. The paradigm has flipped.

FrantzM · Jun 15, 2012

mep said:
There are boatloads of digital lovers who are killing the music industry though. Spotify and Pandora are the two latest nails in the coffin. Digital people are moving to the stage where they don't feel they have to "own" any music and they will just stream compressed digital music and be quite happy. As I said before, digital has killed the recording business and bands can no longer make a living from selling their music. You have to tour now in order to make any money as a band. The paradigm has flipped.

Before the recording industry took over the music industry that is what bands used to do ..play music ...tour to play music not sitting in a studio to make or patch up music ..
Paradigm change or return to the sources?

Andre Marc · Jun 15, 2012

????

I don't see the slightest correlation between your post and the OP.

Buyers of an Olive product, or for that matter of any sort of music server are not interested in ripping off artists or streaming mp3s.

Lack of desire to own music is a cultural thing, it has nothing to do with technology. Before the internet, CDs were were bootlegged all over Russia, China, and South America..even the streets of NYC, where you could get any brand new release for 5 bucks or less.

mep said:
There are boatloads of digital lovers who are killing the music industry though. Spotify and Pandora are the two latest nails in the coffin. Digital people are moving to the stage where they don't feel they have to "own" any music and they will just stream compressed digital music and be quite happy. As I said before, digital has killed the recording business and bands can no longer make a living from selling their music. You have to tour now in order to make any money as a band. The paradigm has flipped.

Johnny Vinyl · Jun 15, 2012

In think we're getting a little off-topic here gentlemen! It has nothing to do with how content is obtained, but rather how it's delivered.

Personally, I don't stream music. I have my vinyl setup and my PC setup and have no intention on bridging the two. It's a personal preference that's all.

While I think the reply was rather 'out there', I don't necessarily disagree. I mean ...how much better can the sound from an Olive unit be as compared to say "Gary's Stupid Music Server"?

jdandy2 · Jun 15, 2012

mep said:
There are boatloads of digital lovers who are killing the music industry though. Spotify and Pandora are the two latest nails in the coffin. Digital people are moving to the stage where they don't feel they have to "own" any music and they will just stream compressed digital music and be quite happy. As I said before, digital has killed the recording business and bands can no longer make a living from selling their music. You have to tour now in order to make any money as a band. The paradigm has flipped.

Back in the day there was still free music coming into homes. It was called radio. You could listen all day, and all night without spending a dime. I remember buying new release vinyl albums for $2.99, and going to concerts to see Jefferson Airplane, Young Bloods, and Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company all in the same night at Filmore West in San Francisco. Admission was $6.00. You can hardly see a concert for less than 10 times that today. Plenty of live music concerts will cost you $150.00 a ticket or more , and that's not even the good seats. I agree, the paradigm has flipped. I'm still trying to figure out who's winning.

My apology for drifitng off the original topic.

Andre Marc · Jun 15, 2012

Let me be the first to say that I am one jealous bastard.

Youngbloods, Janis, and the Airplane on the same night?

I was born in the 68 and I have a very special connection with 60s rock.

Please don't tell me you saw Jimi and the Doors.

jdandy2 said:
Back in the day there was still free music coming into homes. It was called radio. You could listen all day, and all night without spending a dime. I remember buying new release vinyl albums for $2.99, and going to concerts to see Jefferson Airplane, Young Bloods, and Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company all in the same night at Filmore West in San Francisco. Admission was $6.00. You can hardly see a concert for less than 10 times that today. Plenty of live music concerts will cost you $150.00 a ticket or more , and that's not even the good seats. I agree, the paradigm has flipped. I'm still trying to figure out who's winning.

My apologize for drifitng off the original topic.

Andre Marc · Jun 15, 2012

I think I said as much...mep's comment had nothing to do with the Olive.

Also note, again, that the sound of the Olive is not the question. It is a matter of interface, convenience,and over all feature set. No software, drivers, peripherals, O/S, or other such matters to deal with.

And BTW, the Olive sounds very good. It also can act as a streamer, a DAC, and has multi room capability.

John72953 said:
In think we're getting a little off-topic here gentlemen! It has nothing to do with how content is obtained, but rather how it's delivered.

Personally, I don't stream music. I have my vinyl setup and my PC setup and have no intention on bridging the two. It's a personal preference that's all.

While I think the reply was rather 'out there', I don't necessarily disagree. I mean ...how much better can the sound from an Olive unit be as compared to say "Gary's Stupid Music Server"?

jdandy2 · Jun 15, 2012

Andre Marc said:
Let me be the first to say that I am one jealous bastard.

Youngbloods, Janis, and the Airplane on the same night?

I was born in the 68 and I have a very special connection with 60s rock.

Please don't tell me you saw Jimi and the Doors.

Andre.......Never got to see the Doors live, although I wore a few of their albums totally out. I saw Jimi Hendrix at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. He played so loud it practically made my ears bleed. He was great, but I left the concert early because I couldn't stand the volume level.

In the late 60's Filmore West was the place to see live music, not to mention amazing light shows. I saw Santana, Moby Grape, Country Joe and the Fish, Crosby Stills and Nash, Grateful Dead, Quicksilver, Joan Baez and many other great 60's bands in San Francisco, either at Filmore West, Winterland, Avalon Ballroom or free concerts in Golden Gate park. Those were the days, and from what I can remember really great times.

garylkoh · Jun 15, 2012

John72953 said:
No. We do not recommend buying commodity hard drives from high end audio companies. Olive, in our view, brings nothing to the table that cannot be done with the conventional computer gear you may already have.

Click to expand...

This struck me as quite bold and matter of fact. Maybe they are right, maybe not. What's your take on this?

I don't agree with them. There are many audiophiles who would absolutely not want to build a music server, any music server, for various valid reasons. They want something that they can get off the shelf, would work, and not have to worry about Foobar not playing nice with the ASIO installation of a 3rd party DAC. It's not a matter of SQ, it's a matter of user friendliness and peace of mind.

Disclaimer: I have not had the Olive in my own system - although I helped a friend evaluate one.

jdandy2 · Jun 16, 2012

I can say that the Olive 04HD DAC sounds very good through its own DAC, but I still route the digital out to the ESS 32Bit dual quad DAC's in my McIntosh MCD1100. This turns a very good music server into an exceptional server. One thing to note, the 04HD provides one coaxial digital input to its DAC, the 06HD does not. I think it was foolish of Olive to eliminate the DAC input from the 06HD.

Phelonious Ponk · Jun 16, 2012

No. We do not recommend buying commodity hard drives from high end audio companies. Olive, in our view, brings nothing to the table that cannot be done with the conventional computer gear you may already have.

This statement is absolutely accurate. There is nothing a dedicated Audiophile server does that cannot be accomplished, and with a much more elegant and intuitive interface, with computer, software and components. Do you want to make the decisions, install the software, connect the components...do you want to do it? That is another question. And do you want to look at another "audio" component in your rack? Yet another question. Do you want to avoid the look of a computer in your listening room? Not an issue. You can easily reduce the visual impact to an iPod Touch on the arm of your chair.

Tim

Bulldogger · Jun 16, 2012

Phelonious Ponk said:
This statement is absolutely accurate. There is nothing a dedicated Audiophile server does that cannot be accomplished, and with a much more elegant and intuitive interface, with computer, software and components. Do you want to make the decisions, install the software, connect the components...do you want to do it? That is another question. And do you want to look at another "audio" component in your rack? Yet another question. Do you want to avoid the look of a computer in your listening room? Not an issue. You can easily reduce the visual impact to an iPod Touch on the arm of your chair.

Tim

I agree. Some of the cases that I have seen make it possible to have a very nice looking computer in your rack. After investigation, this for the last couple of months, I see no reason not to just use a computer.

Johnny Vinyl · Jun 16, 2012

jdandy2 said:
So, yes, I think UHF is a tad preoccupied with their chosen media, and do their readers a disservice by refusing to report on alternatives outside their anointed choices.

Regardless on which side of the fence one sits, this last sentence in your post I can fully agree with.

Phelonious Ponk · Jun 16, 2012

Bulldogger said:
I agree. Some of the cases that I have seen make it possible to have a very nice looking computer in your rack. After investigation, this for the last couple of months, I see no reason not to just use a computer.

I see no reason for the computer to be in the room.

Tim

audioguy · Jun 16, 2012

garylkoh said:
There are many audiophiles who would absolutely not want to build a music server, any music server, for various valid reasons. They want something that they can get off the shelf, would work, and not have to worry about Foobar not playing nice with the ASIO installation of a 3rd party DAC. It's not a matter of SQ, it's a matter of user friendliness and peace of mind.

I'm one of those. While I am confident I could have "built" a server, I had other things I choose to do with my time so I purchased one that I heard at a friends home, compared to the very best players, DAC's etc. Probably paid twice what I could have put one together for and have never doubted my decision.

Along those same lines assembling a PC is now very doable. You can buy the boards, drives, DVD drives, cases, processors, video cards etc and get a screaming machine for less than from a more traditional source. Wouldn't do that either.

Andre Marc · Jun 16, 2012

Wow.

Well, the closet I get is hundreds and hundreds of recordings of those shows.

Jimi Hendrix recorded Electric Ladyland 10 blocks from where I was born and
lived as infant. I definitely have some mystical connection. I looked up concert
calenders and The Doors, Janis, and many other iconic 60's bands played New York
Shows in when I was less than one years old, and my parents lived on 1st Ave in
New York.

Did you ever take pictures?

jdandy2 said:
Andre.......Never got to see the Doors live, although I wore a few of their albums totally out. I saw Jimi Hendrix at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. He played so loud it practically made my ears bleed. He was great, but I left the concert early because I couldn't stand the volume level.

In the late 60's Filmore West was the place to see live music, not to mention amazing light shows. I saw Santana, Moby Grape, Country Joe and the Fish, Crosby Stills and Nash, Grateful Dead, Quicksilver, Joan Baez and many other great 60's bands in San Francisco, either at Filmore West, Winterland, Avalon Ballroom or free concerts in Golden Gate park. Those were the days, and from what I can remember really great times.

Andre Marc · Jun 16, 2012

Phelonious Ponk said:
I see no reason for the computer to be in the room.

Tim

agree totally. but the Apple disciples like fondling their expensive Cupertino trophies.

Audiophile Music Servers and a perspective from one publication.

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