[Mike Rubin]

I could not resist a Red Wine-modded Symphony that appeared on eBay at what appears to be a "right price," so bought it even though I can't really identify a legit use for it.    (I already have traded up a stock Musica for a stock 400GB Opus, and am enjoying it in my system.)  I have read so much about the Red Wine improvements that I really can't wait for the Symphony's arrival.

I don't want to be a pig about asking for support for a product that I did not buy directly from the manufacturer/VAR, but I have a couple of questions that this community might be able to answer pretty easily:  Is there an advantage to using an external DAC with this unit?  I have a Musical Fidelity XDACv3 with a spare coax input, but no coax cable yet, so, before I run out and buy one, I am curious to know if this is a sensible strategy or whether it makes more sense just to use the analog outs.  With my Opus and TOSLink, I did not find there to be a significant enough difference to use the DAC, and ended up using the DAC with an Airport Express instead.

The second question is on a completely different topic.  I suspect I know the answer to this although the Opus manual doesn't really address it effectively if it can be done, is whether the Olive could be used as an outboard DAC through which content on a computer could be passed via the USB connector.  I have a backup drive that the Opus recognizes as a source (although it takes forever and a freaking day to "load" song information for less than 50 GB), but I have no idea if the Olive would recognize in the same way the hard drive on my MacBook Pro or, for that matter, whether a USB signal even would pass to it using a Mac's "sound" preference since there don't seem to be any Olive USB drivers for use with computers.  If I can do this, I'd just drag the Olive down to the office and run its line level output directly to my active speakers.

Thanks to anyone who cares to pitch in with info. -- Mike   

[Vinnie R.]

Hi Mike,

Welcome to Audiocircle and the RWA forum!

Is there an advantage to using an external DAC with this unit?  I have a Musical Fidelity XDACv3 with a spare coax input, but no coax cable yet, so, before I run out and buy one, I am curious to know if this is a sensible strategy or whether it makes more sense just to use the analog outs.  With my Opus and TOSLink, I did not find there to be a significant enough difference to use the DAC, and ended up using the DAC with an Airport Express instead.

The answer to your question really depends on your tastes, system synergy, etc. 

I never use my modded Symphony with an external dac.  I really like the sound of the modded analog outputs, and I like the built-in remote volume control for them as well 

If you do prefer the use an external dac, you'll find that the modded Olive makes for an outstanding transport.  I mod it with a 75-ohm BNC digital output jack, so if you external dac does not use a 75-ohm BNC jack, you'll need a BNC-to-RCA cable, or a BNC-to-BNC cable with a BNC-to-RCA plug adapter on one end.

I suspect I know the answer to this although the Opus manual doesn't really address it effectively if it can be done, is whether the Olive could be used as an outboard DAC through which content on a computer could be passed via the USB connector. 

If you have an external hard drive with music on it, you can connect it to your Olive and play those files off of the hard drive.  You can also copy music from the external hard drive onto the Olive's internal hard drive, and vice versa.

You might want to call up Olive Support and check on this one, but I don't believe you can play music on a computer (e.g. iTunes) and use the USB interface to use the Olive to work just as an external dac. 

However, you can wireless stream your files that are in your computer's iTunes library, and play them via the Olive. 

I have read so much about the Red Wine improvements that I really can't wait for the Symphony's arrival.

Please keep us posted! 

Also keep in mind that the analog line out voltage of the modded Olive is 1Vrms (not the typical 2Vrms of most sources), so you'll need to turn up the volume a little more ("level matching") when using the modded Olive if you are doing any A/B comparisons.

IMPORTANT -- Please make sure you do not play longer than approx 6 hours between full charges, and DO NOT forget to turn it off and charge the unit after each use.  Hopefully the first owner took good care of the battery, but it is easy and inexpensive to replace if need be 

Best regards,

Vinnie

[Mike Rubin]

Thank you, Vinnie.  I appreciate your willingness to support even the buyers of used equipment.  Not every manufacturer is so magnanimous, and I am used to assuming that I can't come directly to the source.

I think that with the DAC, I might just give it a try as I did with the Opus.  However, I know I need the cable that you mention, so whether I actually get around to that or not probably depends on the price of the cable. 

I presently use outboard drives as the backup for my Opus and as the external iTunes library location for my MacBook.  I suppose it would be easy enough to disconnect the one I use with the Mac from the Mac and then reconnect to the Olive if I decide to use it at my office.  However, my iTunes library is not at the root level, and I wonder if the Olive can find it if it is not.  I will give Olive a call and find out. 

With respect to wireless streaming, I have to say that I've found that to be something that the Olive no longer does elegantly, to my chagrin.  I bought my Opus the week after upgrading all my iTunes installations to 7.0 and 7.0 simply won't stream.  I've tried UPnP clients with my Mac and a PC notebook as substitutes, including the recommended FireFly, and, perhaps it's just my network, but each just bogs down my Olive and knocks it off the network.  I am sure that trying to receive streamed metadata for 50 gb of MP3 and MP4/AAC music is a daunting task for wireless clients before you even get to the point where they'd actually be able to play music.  (With that much music in those formats, I found that even loading from a backup drive takes forever and a day, so I pretty much have given up on playing that stuff through the Opus and now just use the outboard drive for backup.  To stream MP3/MP4/AAC, I now just use the Airport Express through the DAC I mentioned.  It sounded better over the Opus even with the Opus built-in DAC, but I don't think the Olive handles large directories as well as does the Airport Express, which seems to stream on the fly rather than with the metadata first.)

Anyway, thanks for the help and the tips.  I'll take the liberty of coming back to you if there are other issues that arise.  -- Mike


AS A FOLLOW UP:  If anyone is interested, I spoke with Matt at Olive.  No, you cannot run a computer through the USB connection, but the Olive should  see music wherever it is located on the USB drive.  So, while that is not a superior way to go about things for me, it is A way to go about them.