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There's a bandwagon in audio mods?
In my view, the ability to backup your music is the most significant missing feature.All of the Olive products run a version of Linux on a 32 bit PowerPC processor, but they have not opened up access to their operating system. I've been told, however, that you can telnet into the unit over the Ethernet connection. (I wonder if they are using Yellow Dog Linux, or one of the PowerPC ports of the more common Linux distributions.) As a result, th ...
This is a very helpful thread. I'm also wondering how a couple of SB's might coexist with an Olive on the same wireless network. So I'll toss out a few more questions, which I hope haven't been fully answered elsewhere. 1. Can the Olive access preexisting FLAC (and soon Apple Lossless) files from a central networked hard drive (or NAS RAID, like an Infrant ReadyNAS)? I would want the convenience and security having a robust central storage drive for multiple SB's and perhaps an Olive operating on one wireless and wired ethernet network. 2. As the Olive rips, can it save a back-up to a central networked RAID hard drive (NAS) or server, so a networked SB could access the same file from its Slimerver database? It would be cool if the Olive and SB could share from the same library. I would ideally want to use iTunes on a Mac Mini as my main library organizing software for creating playlists, for both the Olive and the SB's. 3. Vinnie, could you elaborate some more on the differences beteen the BB DAC's, and why there would be a difference in the sound quality between the SB and Olive, even after mods? Might this be a function of greater room inside the Olive case for better caps and other analog stage parts? 4. If one were to rip CD's on the Olive, how confident would one be of the error correction? Is there any info. on how this might compare with iTunes, or EAC? And if the Olive's built-in song database of track info does not include an obscure CD, how would one get it? Is cover art available, or could it be added later from an outside source to the Olive database? 5. If the Olive hard drive were to fail, would one be able to replace it and recover the operating system after the warranty ( which I believe is one year)? It seems like a closed system, and not easily repaired with off-the-shelf drives and parts. I imagine there is no way to boot the Olive from an external drive? 6. The Olive display is tiny and seems very hard to read from across the room. And there is no video out to a monitor/TV, I believe. So how does one easily see tracks and select playlists, without having a PDA ? 7. Is the Olive totally quiet as its drives are spinning? Could one hear them from a few feet away? 8. I see that Olive's President claims in an interview they aim to be "open source", but will there be a community of plug-in and software geeks to support this if Olive fails? How would the song track database be updated if Olive ceased to exist? It is very comforting to me to know of the Slim forum and the large network of programmers that stand ready to adapt and support the SB as standards change and add new options. Some of these questions I expect we wouldn't be able to fully answer until more people are using these devices, possibly side by side on the same wireless network. Thanks. Rob.
We add a dedicated 5V regulator to feed the analog power input of the dac. The regulator is directly hard-wired tothe 12V SLA battery for a clean and direct power path. The 12V input and 5V output of this dedicated regulator feature Black Gate capacitors directly soldered to it.
One important thing that is missing in the Cambridge product is support for a lossless compressed format. You do get .WAV support (lossless but uncompressed), but not FLAC or Apple Lossless. This cuts in half (give or take) the number of CDs that can be stored, if you want a lossless format.
Your last sentence isn't quite accurate.My CDs are stored as .flac files, but I have my computer convert them to .wav files before they're sent to the SB2. Consequently, the SB2 only sees the .wav version, and yet I'm saving space with compressed lossless.There may be other issues, but I don't agree that this is one of them.
I have been eyeing both the olive and the cambridge. I have not seen any write ups on the cambridge? Where was it critically acclaimed
Or am I missing the point again?... as usual...
One important thing that is missing in the Cambridge product is support for a lossless compressed format.
