Music Servers VS Excellent Transports?

Dcstep,

We have a few Olive's a Ultrafi and they are convenient pieces. With a good digital cable into a good DAC, the sound is nice but not fantastic. Much better sound can be had by many high end CD players or transports.

As for the sound quality of higher res formats like SACD and DVD-A, I have never heard either come close to the best vinyl playback. Unlike many others, I find SACD particularly disappointing in the high frequencies- enough to where I often prefer red book CDs played on the best CD players. I guess it doesn't really matter anyway given that SACD is barely a viable format these days.

If you are doing vinyl in preference to CDs, and that is what you like to listen to, keep doing it. No one is trying to convert you.

If you are doing CDs, many of us have found that a PC transport with a DAC is a better way:

1) cost of entry is lower for the same or superior results. You have to spend thousands on traditional gear to better these results

2) ease of use is huge

3) tremendous flexibility

Davemitchell, thanks for the review of the Olive.

Have you heard DSD copies of vinyl? I'm making 1-bit 5.6MHz copies of my D2D vinyl with incredible results. You can't tell the digital from the vinyl. It's easier to identify cable swaps (which you can do with 5.6MHz) than it is to pick the vinyl in an A-B. I think that I can make a great DVD-A copy for "everyday" use.

Ultimately, given the low cost of HD storage, I'd like to load all my CDs and higher rez media into a server/transporter. Of course, the server will need to be truly hi rez and I don't think anyone is there yet. We'll see what comes out of CES.

Dave

Dcstep - I have an Olive Opus 5 here. I've added a clock input so that it can be used with my reclocker and a good DAC. The build quality is good, mostly thick aluminum. The backpanel is actually more attractive than the front. There is a LOT of writing all over the top - a bit tacky. It works well, but they should have used a color LCD on the front. Difficult for me to read the B&W LCD from the listening position. If you want push-button ripping, this is the box. It takes about 1 minute to boot, and like a computer you dont want to just jerk the power to it. Seems to rip relatively fast, probably 5X. It must power down gracefully, which takes about 15 seconds. One thing that bugs me is that it powers off when the last track is played. "Green" I guess.

Steve N.

Davemitchell - I agree about SACD. There is something "overblown" about the sound. Ultradynamic. Difficult to get a "live" synphony to sound live. I have heard CD tracks sound much better.

Steve N.