Digitalmeisters - Thoughts on Olive.....

My experience with the older Olives has been very positive. I've got several Olive Musicas in a couple different systems and have been impressed with them. One is stock, one is modded by Red Wine Audio (RWA) and one has Bolder Cable mods.

The digital out of the stock unit is quite good (though slightly improved through a Genesis Lens) and the modded Olives' digital outs are on the same playing field (and in some ways better than) my $2.5K transport (which I rarely use these days). The analog outs need the mods to compete in the current high-end market, IMO, but as music storage with digital out to a good DAC, the Olives shine and are a great option. I haven't heard the latest incarnations, so maybe the newer DACs are better and the PS noise reduced, and of course 24/96 capability is a plus, but most of my music is still 16/44.

I've considered getting one of the newer models and getting power supply and digital out mods done to them, to access high resolution. Without mods, I think an Olive matched to a PS Audio PW DAC w/Bridge, for example, would be a killer combo. If I was starting from scratch, I'd also look at the new Wadia 171i iPod/ iPad dock and the Cary MS-1 server (see Stereophile's CES report).

I prefer to use a stand alone unit as a music server. I have a Macbook Pro but prefer a direct digital connection via coax (the RWA has a BNC with pulse transformer, the Bolder uses a 75 ohm Nextgen). Battery operation in the RWA makes for a wonderfully quiet background, a definite plus with computers. I use a Nokia tablet as a remote, though the iPhone/iPad products are probably better. I love being able to access my whole music collection while sitting in the sweet spot, and without any hit to musicality.
A nice review by Laurence Borden can be found at Dagogo.

Anyway, just wanted to let Nglazer know that some long-term Olive users are quite happy....

I had no idea Olive was having these types problems. They have been around for a while, and apparently have a fairly vigorous advertising budget - you would think they had their house in order. So the Airport Express is the device that wirelessly connects a MAC to the input at the DAC - simple as that?

Airport express is a router with increased connectivity compared to standard routers. The WiFi signal from AE (or any other router) will then be captured by any device capable of receiving a Wi Fi signal. Alternatively, it can be directly connected ("wired") via it's ethernet or other connections to a device that accepts
a similar connection.
I have my AE in a closet in my upstairs. It beams a WiFi signal to my MacBook
downstairs. My MacBook is physically connected to a DAC (via firewire in my case, most people will be using USB or S/PDIF). My DAC is then connected by RCA stereo jacks into a receiver.
Some DACs are capable of receiving a WiFi signal by themselves. Logitech Squeezebox is such a device (and then it has other functionality to bring to the party).
I hope the above is not to confusing.

No, that is clear. Thank you.

Two facts about using Airport Express with iTunes on Mac: (1) it is bit perfect, if you disable volume control in iTunes prefs; (2) it converts all lossless audio to Apple Lossless before transmitting (and then back to uncompressed SPDIF at the optical TOSlink output).

You might consider putting the digital output of the Airport Express through something like the Genesis Digital Lens to reduce the jitter. I found it made a big difference with my Mark Levinson 390S. Of course, more modern DACs have jitter-rejection schemes built in (Benchmark, Bel Canto).