For music heads such as ourselves, one of the best things about the digital revolution has been the ease of shopping for and transporting our music library. The worst thing to happen is the degradation of the quality of sound in our collection. MP3’s really just can’t compete with the sound we used to get on compact discs. Luciky for us a company called Olive has just released a High Definition Music Server … read on…

Creating the HD category for digitally recorded music, the Olive 4HD matches recording engineers’ golden standard of 24-bit sound and 192 kHz sample rate, offering listeners music at more than 250 times the resolution of CDs.

“Most digital music solutions severely compromise the quality of the music experience,” said Dr. Oliver Bergmann, founder and CEO of Olive. “Our new HD music server delivers a new listening experience that allows music lovers to enjoy the best of both worlds — the convenience of digital music management and the quality of HD sound. This is the way music sounds as it is recorded.”

Easy to set up, configure and navigate, the new Olive 4HD serves as a control center that can access any digitized music library. A two terabyte hard drive stores up to 6,000 CDs, or 20,000 high resolution 24-bit tracks. Music can easily be copied to the Olive 4HD via the built-in CD mechanism, or from a PC or Mac through its wireless or wired network connection. The breathtaking music reproduction is handled through Olive’s proprietary high-resolution Digital-Analog-Converter (DAC), featuring Texas Instrument’s best-of-breed 192khz/24-bit Burr-Brown PCM1792A.

Olive enforces its commitment to HD by partnering with Grammy Award-winning Chesky Records, producer of high-resolution audio recordings. Twelve tracks from Chesky artists are included free with the Olive 4HD, providing over an hour of audiophile-grade music.

“To achieve the highest quality audio means recording at 24-bit,” said Chesky Records founder David Chesky. “CDs cannot reproduce what we capture from musicians during a recording session, and MP3 files degrade the quality even further. But with the Olive 4HD it is now possible to replicate the experience of that golden master recording at home, in full 24-bit.”

As part of your home entertainment system the Olive 4HD connects directly to a stereo receiver. Music libraries are easy to navigate through the integrated touchscreen, or, using the unit’s built-in HDMI interface, on a TV. Olive also offers a free iPhone/iPod Touch application that allows users to control the HD Hi-Fi Music Server from anywhere within the home network. Beyond standard music information such as artist, album, track title and cover art, the Olive delivers extended metadata, describing music more accurately and tailored to its specific genre. This allows users to find the right music, quickly.

The Olive 4HD can be integrated into a home network with its Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n connection, which also allows for direct download of music. Adding the Olive 2 Hi-Fi Player allows users to access their music anywhere within their home.

Pricing and availability

The Olive 4HD Hi-Fi Music Server is available in the US directly from Olive (www.olive.us; 1.877.296.5483): $1,999 (2TB). It includes 12 of Chesky Records’ best HD tracks for free. Olive is available world-wide through a network of authorized distributors.

More information on product specifications, features, pricing, images and other multimedia assets are available at www.olive.us.