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Olive Musica
The shape of things to come? The Musica mashes up a hard drive, CD burner, and wireless switch, letting you store and play audio from and to a variety of sources. Who needs audio brand names?
Brand fanatics and audiophiles look away now ... The Musica is the ultimate convergence audio kit, merging wireless audio streaming, oodles of networking options, and a harddrive on which to dump your audio collection. It might not be Bose or Linn, but it's worth a second look. The Musica operates like some futuristic jukebox. It allows you to rip CDs directly to its 160GB hard drive in raw format for the purist, as well as FLAC lossless, AAC, MP3 and Ogg. Once inserted, the CD is copied to the drive, then compressed in the background. An internal database recognizes the CD tracks, but you'll have to enter track details by hand (via remote or Web interface) for newer tunes. Still, I had no problems with my collection, speeding the conversion process. Audio is then selected and played using a iPod-alike scroll wheel and LCD display, and there is a line of gently throbbing play controls along the front, although they are a bit on the large size for my taste. Yet it's the wireless hub feature that lifts the unit, operating as a switch and routing data between devices. We used it to stream iTunes from a duo of iBooks, and the shared iTunes library shows up in the playlist panel. Songs are buffered in case of connection outages. Round the back is an embarrassment of connection riches: two USB 2.0 ports, four ethernet ports, and gold-plated RCA jacks, plus S/P DIF and digital co-ax ports. You can even bolt on an antenna to boost coverage. The CD slot on the front houses a 24X burner for back-ups. Once tethered to an amp, audio was reassuringly good, especially in uncompressed, and the fact it's fan-free only added to the clarity. ... The Musica is the audio centre that could well become the wireless audio hub in any set-up - regardless of brand name.