Gizmodo: olive

Olive 4 HD Music Player Brings Minor Updates, Now Costs $2,000

Dan Nosowitz — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:30:00 EST

The Olive 4 HD isn't too different from the Olive Opus N4 we saw back in July, but has a few nice additions and a steeper price: The 2TB version now comes in at $2,000. Youch.

Olive's music players are the kind of crazy high-end AV hardware that peasants like you and I shouldn't even be reading about, let alone contemplating. The 4 HD rips CDs to its huge 2TB hard drive, in addition to streaming from a PC, to be played through crazy high-end speakers. It's got a nice 4.3-inch touchscreen, and it's pretty nice-looking. So what's new? Well, the ports are all gold-plated, and the 4 HD adds a DAC the Opus N4 didn't have:

* Proprietary, high resolution DAC featuring Texas Instrument's 192khz/24-bit Burr-Brown PCM1792A.
* DAC may be used as an outboard DAC for any digital music source. With 24-bit/192kHz oversampling, noise and distortion are ultra low resulting in incredible purity in both high frequencies and low-level detail.

Basically it's a super simplified music player (just music, mind you, no other media) for incredibly rich old people for whom the CD is something they've just gotten comfortable with in the last six months or so. It's pretty, we'll give it that, but it seems like the kind of thing you'd see in SkyMall, not your buddy's entertainment center. It's available now for $2,000. [Olive]

Olive Opus N4, Melody N2 Music Players (For Rich People) Become Slightly Better Music Players (For Rich People)

John Herrman — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:01:00 EDT

We haven't heard much from Olive since they released the pretty-but-pricey Opus and Melody music wedges last year, but that kind of cautious pace is to be expected in the high-end A/V world. Today, they've given their line a refresh.

The Opus 4, which previously maxed out at 1TB of storage in a $1799 incarnation, now lugs along 2TB of ripped music, preferably, according to them, in lossless format. The software touch interface has gotten a hefty overhaul, promising greater responsiveness, search and custom internet radio streaming via the device's Wi-Fi. The core functionality, however, remains unchanged: this is a music device, and that's it. The Melody extender gets the same software upgrades, but must draw on an Opus box or PC media server for content, and retails for substantially less, at $599.

Olive's strategy with the Opus and Melody is possibly more interesting than the products themselves, at least to most folks: they advertise their highest price options over their lowest ones (the Opus actually starts at $1500), and are completely upfront about the fact that their technology is deliberately simplified, to the point that obvious potential functionality—through the Opus' Linux-based OS, for example—is left unrealized. The thing is, if these issues bother you, you're not the target audience. Who are they? Old people with money, basically. Related: Hello, old people with money! [Olive]

Olive OPUS Nº4, MELODY Nº2 Music Streaming Combo Pack Style With Expense

Haroon Malik — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:30:00 EDT

The Olive OPUS Nº4 has quite a striking design and boasts either a 320GB or 1TB HDD, internal CD burner, 802.11g WiFi support and a 480 x 272 touchscreen display. The unit supports MP3, FLAC and WAV files, as well as having a bevy of output ports, the OPUS Nº4 also pairs up wirelessly with the MELODY Nº2, which allows you to access your content from the OPUS Nº4 and audio files stored on your PC's hard drive or central server. The OPUS Nº4 and MELODY Nº2 will retail for $1,799 and $599, respectively. [Tech Digest]

American Express My WishList Post-Black-Friday Super Deals Go Live Nov. 27

Wilson Rothman — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:00:44 EST

We just got the advance word on the American Express holiday My WishList deals, running from November 27 to December 13. If you recall, Amex sells certain hot products for super cheap in very limited supplies, but you have to go to the site and try to buy it on a certain day (and yes, with an American Express card). It's really just a game, because demand always comically dwarfs supply. But there are other products that go on sale immediately, and are available at low but not necessarily insane prices until they sell out. And they always sell out. Before you go and shoot your wad during the Black Friday frenzy, you might want to check out this year's lineup, edited down to the most Giz-appropriate selections (i.e. no spa retreats or studded mini clutches):

Remember, the first four products are going for ridiculous prices, but because of this they are only available on a certain day, in a certain timeslot:

Panasonic 42" 1080p HD Plasma TV
Available on My WishList: November 30
WishList Price: $700 (Retail Price: $1,999)

Dell XPS M1330 Notebook
Available on My WishList: December 3
WishList Price: $900 (Retail Price: $2,079)

Xbox Elite Game System and Five Games
Available on My WishList: December 11
WishList Price: $300 (Retail Price: $649.99)

BMW K 1200 R Sport Motorcycle
Available on My WishList: December 4
WishList Price: $5,000 (Retail Price: $17,000)

The rest of the products below will apparently be on sale until supplies run out; some deals might look similar to Black Friday pricing, while others may be crazy low. Have a look:

Denon Soundbar
WishList Price: $743.99 (Retail Price: $1199.99)

TiVo HD DVR with Service and Wireless Adapter
WishList Price: $399 (Retail Price: $538.98)

Audiovox 8" Picture Frame
WishList Price: $108 (Retail Price: $159.99)

Olive Opus N 250GB Pure Audio Server
WishList Price: $700 (Retail Price: $1,499)

Canon HD Camcorder with 40GB HDD
WishList Price: $500 (Retail Price: $1,299.99)

Helio Ocean with 6 Months Service
WishList Price: $400 (Retail Price: $1,249)

Rock Band Special Edition for Xbox
WishList Price: $50 (Retail Price: $169.99)

Nintendo DS Lite with Two Games
WishList Price: $160 (Retail Price: $199.96)

Toshiba 10.2" Portable DVD Player
WishList Price: $230 (Retail Price: $349.99)

Ultrasone iCans iPod Headphones
WishList Price: $99 (Retail Price: $159)

iStorm Wireless Speakers for iPod
WishList Price: $140 (Retail Price: $199.99)

Sirius Stiletto 2
WishList Price: $279 (Retail Price: $399.99)

Magellan Maestro Portable GPS System
WishList Price: $390 (Retail Price: $599.99)

To see if you can master Amex's wicked little game, visit the official website. [Amex My WishList]

Olive Opus No. 5 HDD Jukebox Is Profit Margin Machine

Wilson Rothman — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:07:01 EDT

Youth may be squandered by the young, but it's the older folks that foolishly spend on equipment that should cost much less. Take for instance Olive's Opus No. 5 hard-drive audio server, referred to in marketing material as "The world's first digital audio system bringing together the sweet sound of vinyl and the accuracy and convenience of digital audio." To its credit, it is one of the only high-end products that boasts, "No costly custom installer required," but under the hood, the $3,000-$4,000 system is charging for hard drives at a markup of over 1000%.

As you might expect for something that costs so much, it holds between 1,156 and 2,200 CDs at full quality, and can be accessed via web interface throughout your home network. It's nice to hear that no installer is needed:

Setup and basic operation of the OPUS is similar to a standard CD Player, so you will be up and running within minutes. Even its integration into your home network, a nerve-wrecking task with so many other network music players, is done completely automatically, wirelessly if you wish.

I am certain that the thing performs as billed, and sounds incredible, but take a look at the pricing:
• 400GB - 1,156 songs - $3,000
• 500GB - 1,450 songs - $3,500
• 750GB - 2,200 songs - $4,000

Now check out the mainstream retail prices (from Amazon) between Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM ATA drives in those capacities:
• 400GB - $123
• 500GB - $124
• 750GB - $220

My calculator tells me it's less than $100 to go from 400GB to 750GB. But it costs an extra grand for the higher-capacity Opus. And the funny thing is, you know they can get the drives for even cheaper.

But hey, we should probably let rich old people have fun with their cool electronics. This might be just the thing to pear with Charlie's similarly named but unrelated Opus transparent speaker cables. [Olive]

Olive Bangs Out OPUS 305S, 307S CD-based Audio Systems

Jason Chen — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:30:32 EDT

Olive's just released a Opus No3 with a 250GB hard drive that's designed to hold 700 CDs worth of music in lossless capacity. The thing is iTunes compatible, rips CDs from disc to its hard drive, and is compatible with their Preload service (which you can send CDs to and they'll rip and include your music on a new unit). The 305S with a 160GB hard drive will go for $1,199, and the 307S with 250GB hard drive will go for $1,699. Not a bad price for slim standalone units, but a PC can do the same job, albeit in a larger, uglier way.

[Olive via ]

Olive unveils OPUS

gizmodo.com — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 05:27:43 EST

The OPUS uses a DSP combined with a high-end CD player to create a new way to listen to music. The Olive Opus has a customized audio board with four 24-bit DACs and a temperature-compensated crystal oscillator. It also features a 400GB hard drive that can store up to 1,100 CDs in lossless quality. On top of that, the OPUS features 8x over sampling (eliminating ultrasonic noise and distortion), a 32-bit processor that allows simultaneous recording and listening of CDs, and a wireless network that allows for multi-room audio streaming. If that didn t get your mouth watering, the OPUS also allows users to record, tag, and archive CDs with one button, allowing you to access your music easily, or even plug your iPod into its USB and take your music to go. You can bag the OPUS for a mere $2,999.00.

The Olive OPUS [Olive]

Olive Musica Wireless Music Center

johnb — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 13:57:57 EDT

I have an old Compaq iPaq Jukebox from, say, 2000, what still runs like a champ. It's basically the same as this Musica dealie, which is to say it has a CD/DVD ripper, can stream audio—the Jukebox's audio streaming was pretty primitive,though—and it stores music onto a hard disk. The Musica, unlike the beastly Jukebox, looks super cool and has a red-hot LCD and a 160GB hard drive, which makes me think that I might need to trade up on pretty soon.

Priced at $1,099, the Musica looks like a pretty interesting bridge between the PC and the home theatre.

Olive introduces Musica wireless music center [PlaylistMag]