Olive Still Believes in CDs and Stereos

Digital audio players for the home that rip CDs without a computer struck me as quite innovative, when I saw the first one at the MP3 Summit in June of ’99. Ten years later, Olive is readying a new device, the Opus No. 4 HD, Wired.com has learned, whose core functionality is identical to the […]
Closeup photo of a compact disc NguyenDai
Close-up photo of a compact disc: NguyenDai

Digital audio players for the home that rip CDs without a computer struck me as quite innovative, when I saw the first one at the MP3 Summit in June of '99. Ten years later, Olive is readying a new device, the Opus No. 4 HD, Wired.com has learned, whose core functionality is identical to the earlier model pictured below but with slightly better sound, updated connections, and slight design tweaks. Although the Opus can stream music wirelessly from Macs and PCs, it's main purpose is to be a digital repository for CD collections within a traditional home stereo.

As one might imagine, Olive's Opus No. 4 HD, on sale in October for $1800, targets 35-year-olds-and-up who tend to have CD collections, and who are willing to pay for better sound quality. Now that baby boomers are more or less on-board with the ipods, Olive supposes, they might go for a digital audio player for the home that sounds better than an ipods or laptop when played through a stereo system — and which can be simply plugged in, turned on, and used, with no manuals or network configuration to fuss with. Insert a CD and the Opus No. 4 HD rips it to the lossless, open-source FLAC format on a hard drive, without involving a computer, while playing it through your stereo or powered speakers. Everything gets stored on a hard drive (up to two terabytes) where it can be accessed later using the touchscreen, a remote control, and/or a connected television set.

It's a counter-intuitive strategy when the rest of the market is going the other way, towards invisible music players that live on cellphoness. Nonetheless, Olive vice president of business development Robert Altmann told us his company's continued embrace of the CD will pay off by serving consumers other companies ignore, and because the CD's obituary has been prematurely written.

"There is a misconception in this market, where a lot of people don't really understand why we have a music solution that's still based on CDs," said Altmann. "You generally see ipods, iTunes -- eight billion songs sold so far, but if you look at this in direct comparison to what's available on CDs, it's actually pretty negligible. You have 200 billion CDs in the market, which is around two trillion songs."

He makes a good point that there are lots of CDs still in circulation. Besides, the NPD Group's latest numbers say CDs are still the most popular format for paid music purchases, though they constitute a smaller part of the market each year.

"Many people are surprised that the CD is still the dominant music delivery format, given the attention to digital music and the shrinking retail footprint for physical products," said Russ Crupnick, NPD Group's vice president of entertainment industry analysis, who predicts that digital music sales will not approach those of CDs until the end of 2010.

The officially-unannounced Opus No. 4 HD, like its predecessor, the Opus No. 4, provides an easy, great-sounding way to listen to the music on those CDs without handling them physically (it's especially easy if you have Olive rip your CD collection to the device first for 50 cents to $1 per CD, depending on how many you have). However, Altmann 's and Crupnick's references to people buying CDs and digital music ignore the legions of MP3s that many of us have obtained through other means over the years, as well as free and premium streaming sites like YouTube and Spotify.

Luckily for us, Olive's Opus devices can stream music and other music files from networked Macs and PCs, which covers any unprotected music you've downloaded from file sharing sites or digital music stores, although Olive's players don't integrate with any streaming services the way other home digital audio players like the Logitech Squeezebox or Sonos Digital Music System do.

And while the Opus can be extended to multiple rooms with Olive's $600 Melody 2 extender devices, Altmann conceded that the Sonos is a better device for true multi-room audio due to the way its MESH network keeps the music in sync between rooms (if your Melody and Opus are located far apart, this isn't an issue — it's only when you can hear music from two rooms at the same time that such precise timing becomes necessary).

However, Altmann criticized the Sonos' sound quality and reliance on a computer or connected music hard drive, which he says make Opus the better option for the single-room experience. Indeed, as a cursory glance at message boards reveals, some audiophiles who own Sonos devices prefer to use outboard gear to convert the digital signal to analog, rather than the Sonos' chip, so he appears to have a point there.

The Olive Opus No 4 HD adds an even better-sounding digital-to-analog converter from Texas Instruments, which Altmann calls "the best in the world," 802.11n wireless connectivity, a slightly larger, plastic-coated CD slot, and an HDMI output for browsing menus on your television using the included remote. Like its predecessor, the Opus No 4 HD also includes an Ethernet slot, a USB slot for backing up your digital music collection, a touch screen, a remote control, accurate song information for classical music, and a passive cooling system that dissipates heat noiselessly.

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Top photo: NguyenDai