The DRM music struggle has been largely won for consumers – even Apple now lets you download and move your music around freely, compared to its former restrictions.
So, onto the next battle. The MP3 is no longer our friend, fellow music lovers, we must fight for a better quality listen.
(This review was originally published on July 22 2009)
Plug your iPod into any decent stereo system and the shortcomings of MP3, or Apple’s AAC format for that matter, become apparent. It compresses crystal clear music into a fuzzier noise stripped of instrument definition and the rich tonal shadings of an original recording.
Apple did improve the quality of AAC from 128 kilobits per second to 256 when it introduced DRM-free iTunes Plus, but it was hardly “virtually indistinguishable from the original recording,” as it claimed.
Much better quality is possible in music reproduction from the richness of vinyl records to the SACD CD format.
In terms of digital downloads, 24-bit 96khz files are the best “studio master” quality and can be delivered with the lossless compression of the FLAC format.
Former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel has been advocating such high standards with his Society of Sound download club and other services such as HDtracks.com, Linn Records and AIX Records are also satisfying the needs of digital audiophiles.
San Francisco’s Olive has just the device to play them on. It says its Opus Number 4, launched today, is the only device in its category that can play and stream 24-bit files and the two terabytes of storage inside, double the capacity of the previous model, will be ideal for storing the much larger files created by 24-bit.
Olive expects the Opus will be more commonly used for ripping and storing regular CDs and its 2Tb version would take 5,800 of those. The company also offers to rip buyers’ collections for them to the device, with the first 100 CD conversions being free.
Oliver Bergmann, chief executive and co-founder, gave me a demonstration at Olive’s headquarters in the Soma district. Listening through a high-end system, the improvement between an iTunes download and a lossless CD conversion was dramatic.
Olive’s unit also has a colour display with album art and information, internet radio and improved navigation. Its Maestro PC software allows users to organise their music and create playlists.
Its sister product, the Melody Hi-Fi Multi-Room Player, allows the music to be played in up to 10 rooms simultaneously.
In this respect, Olive is similar to the Sonos Multi-Room Music System. Other rivals include the Logitech Squeezebox Transporter, Yamaha’s MusicCAST and Cisco’s Wireless Home Audio.
At $1,799, the 2Tb Opus is not priced for the mass-market consumer, but Mr Bergmann says the company is focused on around 38m “experience connoisseurs” – males over 35, earning more than $100,000 a year.
“In the audiophile world, $1,800 is a mid-priced range,” says Jonathan Gaw, digital home technologies analyst for the IDC research firm.
“Olive is in a spot between the Logitechs of the world that are aiming at the mass market and the higher-end guys who are aiming at the custom-installed home theatre.”
“But Olive will live or die by whether or not people care enough about the quality of their sound.”
The four-year-old company is planning a number of product announcements over the next few months, helped by second-round VC funding from IDG Ventures last September.
It is one of a handful of San Francisco companies pursuing excellence in sound and industrial design, including Dolby and the Bluetooth headset company Aliph.
