Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv

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ryno

Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #20 on: 19 May 2006, 05:34 pm »
As a transport their kind of pricy, a minimac or other computer based system might be better. As a transport/storage/DAC/preamp, their pretty cheap.
Their little wireless unit is also interesting for a bedroom or basement system. Does it have a volume control? If the main unit is in standby, will the wireless unit turn the main unit on? I'm guessing battery mods would make this option more difficult, you would have to make sure the main unit is on.
Ryan

Occam

Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #21 on: 19 May 2006, 05:36 pm »
Quote from: sts9fan
There's a bandwagon in audio mods? :roll:


Forget those Arctic Monkeys, you've just gotta hear Vinnie croon 'Dancing in the Dark'!
'Get Aboard' indeed. You gots to love the soft core of the 50s
Now I'm going to dream of Cyd Charisse doing those splits....

Vinnie R.

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Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #22 on: 19 May 2006, 08:14 pm »
Nice to see a good sense of humor.   :lol:

Mine is coming back and TGIF!

Thanks, guys!

John Casler

Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #23 on: 19 May 2006, 09:09 pm »
Quote from: brj
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 ...


Just saw this thread, but I doubt if I can offer much info beyond Vinnie's knowledge level.

I have not yet received a unit nor will I be opening one up, or offering technical info.

However I have been told that the 2.2 software in the units "does" offer the ability to back up both the "onboard" and any "outboard" HD's connected via the USB ports.

I have heard the unit and on a clients system it was pretty clean.

I look forward to getting my demo unit, and running it through the paces.

inguz

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Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #24 on: 19 May 2006, 10:34 pm »
I heard a demo of Vinnie-modded Olive, and... it's extremely good.  Using digital outputs, it beat the (modded) Squeezebox.  Seems as though the S/PDIF circuitry on the Olive is a notch above the SB's.

Personally I'm not sure about the embedded-hard-drive, since I have ulterior motives (DSP) for keeping a PC as music server.

Vinnie R.

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Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #25 on: 19 May 2006, 11:20 pm »
Quote from: Robert57
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.


Hi Rob,

Here are some answers...

1) Not yet.  Olive mentioned that encryption of the NAS was preventing the communication between the two, but this is something that they will be working on finding a solution for.  No exact details of the solution yet..

2) Currently, you must rip to the Olive's hard drive.  Then, you can transfer the files to the USB hard drive.  No NAS at this time...

You can also load up your USB hard drive with music (not using the Olive) and then connect it to the USB port on the Olive and play your files through the Olive.

3) The difference in sound quality has to do with the fact that they (Olive and SB) are using different dacs, different transports, different output stage design.  The digital output design is all different as well.  I have found that this mod also makes a substanial improvement:

Quote from: RWA Olive webpage
We add a dedicated 5V regulator to feed the analog power input of the dac.  The regulator is directly hard-wired to
the 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.


Having the space inside to do all of this is a big plus!  

4) I asked Olive about this and they are supposed to get back to me..

5) According to Olive, you can replace the hard drive and use the recovery CD that comes with the Olive to reload the operating system.  If you take a look at one of the threads on my forum, I actually tried this with a Musica and a 320GB hard drive, but had no luck.  Maybe I didn't do it properly....I need to investigate.  They did mention that if you are going to use a larger hard drive, you need to be careful about cooling and power consumption.

6) There is a "large display" option, but I have found that the text still isn't as readable across the room like the Squeezebox's flourescent display.

7) It is very quiet, but not completely dead silent.  I add vibration damping material to the top cover, top of the drives (being careful not to cover any vent holes on the drives), etc. and it gets even quieter.

8) I didn't get around to asking these questions   :oops:

They did mention that they are probably going to start a forum on their website (I don't know when) and this should get the ball rolling with dealing with many questions, providing support, etc. (it had worked very well for Slim Devices).

Lastly....they are in the process of improving their software and if you Olive is connected to your network, you can simply download the latest updates with the press of a buttom.

EchiDna

Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #26 on: 20 May 2006, 02:01 am »
oo-er the Olive's beating out squeezeboxen...  :o

that will come as a bit of a shock to the system for many!

I'm a firm believer that any computer based audio hardware like an Olive or indeed a squeezebox needs to be truely open for file movement for it to suceed.

NAS or server based storage is a must for me and give it about a year - solid state drives will be much cheaper and big enough to run  MCE dead silent (no moving parts) on a 'transport' like squeezebox or the Olive range... media files MUST be easily backed up and can't be part of the transport - this is just silly when probably 90% of people who would buy such a product already have a PC or mac in their house anyway and where a GB of storage space costs under a $1... not $5+

BUT that said, it will really take off once high def video can be streamed through such a transport from your networked files. This is the consumer market of the near future, not audio transports. Something like this is gonna dominate IMHO review here ... it's open source, does everything a tweaker would want it to and can stream 1080p... what more could you want?... ah that's right, a nice DAC :) - lucky it has open source software and 4 USB ports eh?

yeah it still has a few glitches, but at well under US$400....  

The olive looks good, but for my money, it will be yesterday's news faster than you can say tripath  :D


some more options (again not audio focussed but highly tweakable)

http://www.kiss-technology.com/?p=products&v=press

http://www.vwbinc.com/press/122205pr.html

Robert57

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Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #27 on: 20 May 2006, 01:07 pm »
Vinnie, thanks for for your very helpful reply to my laundry list. Its a tough position for you to be the lone expert about this complex system, when you have paying clients to serve. But you do a great job fielding these questions, especially as Olive's planned features keep changing, and with precious little real world operating experience.

The NAS storage feature is a must for me as well, and I must be able to have one library serve both SB's and the Olive, with iTunes as the library/ playlist organizing software. But I can understand how this would be very attractive for those who have no interest in a computer network with multiple players, and want a one-box ripping/playing/ storage solution just for their hifi system. If Olive were to come out with a player-only version of the Opus, with its high-end DACs and clock, stripped of the CD drive and HD drive (essentially a souped up SB), and with all the SB's NAS/ iTunes compatibility, I'd be very interested. But the display still needs to be more readable.

Thanks again Vinnie.

EchiDna

Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #28 on: 22 May 2006, 08:40 am »
:oops:

I just re-read my previous post - sorry if it was misconstrued as having a go at Vinnie - the Olive aint for me, but your input and preparedness to share are great Vinnie, please feel free to keep it up!

Cheers,

EchiDna (mod, square circle)

davidada

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Olive mods
« Reply #29 on: 22 May 2006, 06:32 pm »
As one of the first owners of a Vinnie modified Olive , I would like to make a few comments that I think a lot of people are missing here.
This technology may or may not be a flash in the pan, however , what we really have here is a viable alternative right now to high priced sacd or cd transports.
Before the SB and Olive I personally had cd transports that cost multiple thousand dollars. ie Audiomecca mephisto, Meridian, Macintosh and none of these sounded as good as the modded Olive- lets not even get into the convenience.
So you can pay around $1500 for an off the grid fully modded HD based Olive transport or $3000 for a decent CD transport plus power cable plus power conditioning.
Hello!! :mrgreen:

Dr. Krull

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Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #30 on: 22 May 2006, 07:27 pm »
Curious if anyone has compared the features of the Olive to the critically aclaimed Cambridge Azur 640H Music Server? The Cambridge seems to have some features that are missing in the more expensive Olive.

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summary.php?PID=39&Title=Azur+640H





-Krull

ehart

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Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #31 on: 30 May 2006, 01:32 am »
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.

Of course, as with all things computer, updates happen, and it's possible that the latest firmware/upgrade does offer FLAC or Apple Lossless.  Neither is listed in the specs, though.

- Eric

Double Ugly

Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #32 on: 30 May 2006, 01:41 am »
Quote from: ehart
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.

Caveat added - my comments only apply if you intend to use a separate device for storage.  If you intend to use the Cambridge as an all-in-one device, ehart's comments appear to be accurate.

PeteG

Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #33 on: 30 May 2006, 02:19 am »
Quote from: Double Ugly
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.


Good point. Do these new music servers come with they're own software.

kbuzz3

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critcally acclaimed?
« Reply #34 on: 30 May 2006, 02:28 am »
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

lonewolfny42

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Re: critcally acclaimed?
« Reply #35 on: 30 May 2006, 02:47 am »
Quote from: kbuzz3
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
Found this review of the Cambridge......

Gordy

Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #36 on: 30 May 2006, 03:13 am »
DU,

I would think that anyone looking at an Olive or Cambridge would want an all in one solution... doesn't rely on a computor for flac conversion or storage as the SB's etc. do.  Not having flac in the native software would certainly defeat the whole purpose, at least for me, unless the HD was at least 600g.  Or am I missing the point again?... as usual...  :D

Double Ugly

Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #37 on: 30 May 2006, 03:15 am »
Quote from: Gordy
Or am I missing the point again?... as usual...  :D

Nah, I don't think so Gordy.  See the caveat I added moments before your post.  :D

Gordy

Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #38 on: 30 May 2006, 03:37 am »
Thanks Jim  :thumb:   I really do need to learn how to type with more than two fingers....

Dr. Krull

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Squeezing an Olive: fact finding mission on Olive music serv
« Reply #39 on: 30 May 2006, 04:34 am »
Quote from: ehart
One important thing that is missing in the Cambridge product is support for a lossless compressed format.

I understand that FLAC support will be included in their next software release.  

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/content.php?COID=67&Title=640H+Software+-++Upgrade

-Krull