14 DAY TRIAL // Audiophiles are a breed apart among music lovers, since they typically only go for high-end components capable of delivering only pristine audio, that will provide a supreme listening experience in just about any condition.
And this is exactly the very demanding segment Olive Media targets with its latest music server for home stereo systems, model Olive O6HD, that takes music purity to a whole new level.
The O6HD’s elegant aluminum enclosure eliminates operational noise and resonances, while its distinctive angled front includes a huge 10.1-inch glass-on-glass color touch-screen, both of which allow for easy navigation of the music library.
The music library has capacity for up to 6,000 CDs in original quality or up to 20,000 High Definition tracks on the O6HD’s internal 2TB hard disk drive, which is cushioned in 8 layers of noise-canceling padding.
Even the O6HD’s Anti-Vibration Feet play a role in producing sound that is pure, with each foot designed in a 2-part, special polymer mold, thus allowing the chassis to float above its supporting surface and protect it from outside vibrations and resonances, which can negatively affect sound performance.
Furthermore, Olive has chosen a unique fan-less cooling system further eliminates operating noise.
Of course, given that super-cool exterior, we were expecting nothing less from the internal components, that are, in fact, absolutely amazing, at the heart of the device being a fully balanced differential DAC, with a matched pair of TI’s top-of-the-line 24-bit/192 kHz DAC modules (Burr-Brown PCM1792) for the inverted and non-inverted signals on each of the right and left channels.
The device from Olive Media also sports a Signal-to-Noise ratio of 124 dB and comes packed with all sorts of high-end additional components, such as an ultra-low jitter master clock A separate temperature-compensated crystal oscillator, with jitter of less than 10 picoseconds after re-clocking virtually eliminates jitter and a high-performance Sample Rate Converter.
The O6HD delivers a very flat frequency response (+0/-0.5db, 20Hz-20kHz) and ultra-low THD+N of less than 0.0007% (at 20Hz-22kHz), while also featuring a separate 24-bit/192 kHz PCM1792 DAC and TPA6120A2 High Performance Audio Amplifier for headphone use.
Plus, the highly sensitive analog section is powered by a dedicated linear power supply with a custom-built ultra-low noise toroidal transformer, while a separate AC line filter, with noise attenuation at close to 80dB, reduces noise floor from the start. Given its audiophile status, it should come as no surprise that the O6HD music server is extremely expensive, as it's available in limited quantities directly from Olive for $4,999 (2TB).
