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Olive Musica CD Player/Music Server
A hi-fi component for the computer age.
Barry Wills
I've got one program of music running in my main system, another streaming to my desktop speakers, and a third one, a small music library on my computer's hard drive, just a mouse click away. While chatting on the phone, I copied some CDs to play in the car. I've just made a compilation disc by clicking and dragging a dozen songs into a playlist. I'm a one-man media empire, thanks to the Olive Musica, a leading example of a new niche of home-entertainment products, adroitly playing multiple roles as CD player, CD burner, hard-disc recorder, and wireless- or Ethernet-connected music source. A hi-fi component for the computer age, it's the coolest thing since crushed ice.
I wasn't chilling quite as blissfully during my first three weeks with it, however. With a small backlit display, a pair of concentric scroll wheels (or "jog shuttle controls," as the manufacturer prefers), and soft-touch function buttons arrayed beneath a trayless loading slot, the slim silver device looks deceivingly like a high-quality disc player, which it is. This resemblance lured me into approaching it as such, rather than delving into it for what it is, an exceedingly clever blend of audio component and computer.
The fact that the Musica comes with a system-restore disc should have clued me in to its true nature. Ditto the size and density of the owner's manual. A breezy three-page introduction deludes you into thinking that in 10 minutes you'll have your new toy all figured out. Example: "Import from CD: Just insert an audio CD, wait until it is recognized, and press the Import button." Or: "Listen to Internet radio: In the main menu select Internet Radio and choose from a wide variety of stations."
[...]
For three weeks, I consciously avoided deep probing of the Musica's real potential. I used it as an ordinary CD player, it sounds great, comparable to anything in its price range, and made straight copies of discs. That's truly a one-button operation; just pop a CD in, press Copy and in a moment the Musica has read all the bits on the disc and asks you to insert a recordable blank. Soon your copy is ready, sir, as easy as turning a slice of bread into toast, far easier than using a computer program like Nero Ultra to achieve the same result.
But I wasn't making headway into what I feared was a technological jungle. As deadline loomed, I swallowed my pride and called Olive executive Robert Altmann, in the company's San Francisco office. Patient and jovial, they listened to my complaints, and then explained that the real way to operate the Musica is via computer using any web browser. I'd had the Musica connected to my Belkin Pre-N router via Cat-5 cable, but hadn't been able to exploit the connectivity because of an IP conflict. Altmann helped me resolve that in less than five minutes.
With the Musica's IP address in the clear, all I had to do was enter it in the address bar of my Web browser (Mozilla Firefox) and hit the enter key. My monitor's screen was filled by a lovely blue image of the Musica with boldface titles to all its functions. It was as if the door with the keyhole through which I had been peering so intently had just swung open. It was amazing to see all the features I had been studying and trying to manipulate via the Musica's scrollwheels suddenly expand right in front of me, and totally accessible via mouse and keyboard.
Then Altmann told me something that made the sun burst through the clouds: "Do you have iTunes on your computer?" I did have the software, not music purchased from Apple. "You can use it to control the Musica." I opened iTunes from a desktop shortcut. Voila! The Musica showed up on the left as an accessible library, just like the small collection of songs I had on the computer's hard drive. I'm not in the Apple camp, it's a tad cultish for my tastes, but iTunes is the best way I've found to manage a music database. Plus, unlike Nero, it's available as a free download. Using it doesn't tie you to the iTunes Music Service.
I thanked Altmann and told him I'd call again if I needed help. I loaded a half-dozen more discs into the Musica, and some individual songs from discs that I did not want in their entirety. Like its sibling, the classical music-centric Symphony, the Musica can categorize imported recordings by comparing their "meta data" (hidden info read only by computer) to an internal database. This makes it easy if you want to find a song by genre, artist, etc. The Musica can also, at your instructions, "go out" onto the Internet to acquire data about imported songs. It correctly identified the Beatles' Rubber Soul and Radiohead's Pablo Honey as rock, The Squirrel Nut Zippers' Hot as retro-jazz, and Kool Moe Dee's Knowledge is King as rap. But Fiona Apple's Tidal was categorized as blues, strangely. This automated taxonomy can be overridden with the editing function, as can most data you see either on your computer's screen or on the Musica's small one.
As a card-carrying quality-conscious audiophile, I saved recordings as FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) files. The Musica also supports compression-free RAW files (AIFF/WAV) and four levels of resolution for MP3s. The highest, 320 kilobits/second, is called "CD Quality." The Musica's 160GB hard drive holds the equivalent of 235 CDs as RAW files, 395 as FLAC, or 1045 as "CD Quality" MP3s. While that may not seem like much compared to a 40GB iPod, at an average of 12 songs per CD, 395 FLAC files translates to 4740 individual songs. That's approximately as many CDs as I have in my collection, many of them there for one or two good cuts. The Musica is an attractive way to free up shelf space without having to say good-bye to favorite tunes.
The Musica presented an impressive amount of information about commercial CDs, titles, artists, and sometimes, composers. Mix discs, compilations, and copies were another story. Like most music fans, I have plenty of obscure recordings. Some have never been released commercially; some were made by friends; others are too far below the radar to have ever entered any public database. The mixes and compilations I imported into the Musica were free of meta data, no ID tags, so to speak. In such cases the Musica simply assigns track numbers. You can give them names if you wish, if you know them.
After loading some discs into the Musica, I began dragging -and -dropping like a maniac. Assembling playlists via a networked computer is infinitely easier than the awkward front panel method. To stream Sirius satellite radio to my main system, I use an old Sony VAIO notebook computer, connected wirelessly to the Belkin router in my office 25 feet away. (The USB port on the VAIO feeds an April Music Stello DA 100 DAC.) By entering the Musica's IP address in that computer's Web browser, I can also stream anything from the Musica to that system. Simultaneously, I can play other content (or the same, if I wish) through my primary computer in my office. While both of those run, I can listen to CDs via the Musica's disc transport, or use the Musica to listen to music off the computer's hard drive through the Musica's headphone output. Three-way music streaming requires nothing more than the Musica, two computers, a wireless router, and iTunes.
I don't know what the practical limit might be for multi-room use with the Musica, but Olive makes a wireless receiver, the Sonata, that connects the Musica to any room in the house without the need for a computer. Anything seems possible within a local area network.
My final revelation came when I told him I hadn't figured out how to burn a playlist to CD. There didn't seem to be any obvious command for that in iTunes, or in the extensive access that networked computers provide. "Simple," he replied, "Just highlight the playlist you want and press the record button."
Record button? I was so deep in the computer interface that I'd forgotten about the Musica's front panel. I turned the scrollwheel to "First Mix" and hit the record button. The Musica asked me to insert a blank disc, and in 10 minutes I had my hot little experimental compilation in hand. Olive had just made a friend for life.
The Musica is a fantastic but imperfect piece of transitional technology. The front-panel interface and instruction manual leave much to be desired. The variable analog stereo output could directly feed a power amp, but the remote's volume up/down function is slow to respond, and won't go to zero. There's no front-panel control for headphone output. That's via remote control only, by briefly hitting the right arrow key, then using the left arrow key for down volume and the right arrow for up. For my purposes, the Musica's Internet radio feature was useless, because it uses the Shoutcast portal for the most popular stations. Streaming Sirius satellite radio requires password log-in, not possible using the Musica. To listen to Sirius, KCRW, WFMU, or WREK, I log in the old-fashioned way.
Those are minor shortcomings compared to all the Musica does right. As this issue went to press, Olive had just announced the Opus, a heavyweight big brother to the Musica, with audiophile-quality circuitry and construction, a 400GB hard drive, and improved functionality. I can't wait to take it for a test drive.