Olive blesses Opus No. 4 music server with 2TB of space, charges $1,799 for it

We haven't heard from Olive in a white hot minute, but hey, given the price of its wares, maybe it just decided to take the whole recession off. At any rate, the boutique outfit is sashaying back onto the scene with the Opus No. 4, the newest member of its long-standing Opus Hi-Fi Digital Stereo family. As with the models that have come before, this ultra high-end music server packs loads of internal storage (2TB if you're counting), giving you enough room for around 6,000 CDs stored in the lossless FLAC format. There's also a handy, full-color display on the front that probably won't get much use, and 'round back, you'll find a WiFi adapter (for wireless music streaming, you dig?), optical / coaxial digital audio outputs, a left / right analog output, a USB socket and an Ethernet port (for more of that streaming stuff). Look good? You bet. Does it look $1,799 good? That's debatable.

Olive blesses Opus No. 4 music server with 2TB of space, charges $1,799 for it

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:05PM]

That is hella expensive.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 22nd 2009 8:15PM]

So it's an external hardrive that does nothing but holds music- then streams it to your network? for $1800

(this is a real question)

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 22nd 2009 11:22PM]

I can stream all my lossless music from my iMac to Airport Express, connected to my HT system via optical, and control it on my iPhone. I can't understand why anyone would spend $1,800 for a dumb box where my computer can do all of that and much more.

[NikAmi Posted Jul 23rd 2009 5:22PM]

But the case alone is worth it.

[Poop Chef Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:05PM]

Neat! a crossword search!

[rchives Posted Jul 22nd 2009 9:57PM]

It actually says "HAHA SUCKER YOU JUST PAID $1800 FOR SOMETHING YOU COULD HAVE BUILT FOR $200"

[Rocky Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:06PM]

Did I miss something? Popcorn Hour C-200 surely has something to say about this. Mvix Ultio... anything. No way I'd pay more than $300 for this setup.

[nitinmehra20 Posted Jul 22nd 2009 8:00PM]

You don't need to just use this:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/08/qnaps-latest-bittorrent-nas-ts-109-pro-turbo-station/

Much cheaper and easy to use

Combine with this:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/06/video-logitech-squeezebox-duet/

To have a full fledged wireless player setup.

Works awesome and sounds awesome!!!

Total Cost: 220 for QNAP (Can be snagged from ebay) + 249 for the Squeezebox (After coupon dscount) = $469 :)

[Frostblade10 Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:08PM]

"METAL" or any form of it such as "BLACK METAL" or "DOOM METAL" isnt on the top. What a rip-off. For that, this thing is worth nothing to me.

[jgpuff Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:15PM]

Electronic music is fairly under-represented too...I can make out garage, techno and disco, but it looks like they ran out of inspiration after that.

Why couldn't they just have painted it black? It just looks tacky with all the writing on.

[magallanes Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:10PM]

oh.. my old US. Robotics modem.

[monkey with glasses Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:18PM]

What's white and hot about a minute? Or is this an Engadget slang that i haven't picked up yet?. And at that price it's not debatable it's refuse able. Imo.

[Solipsism Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:19PM]

gonna go out on a limb here and say prooooooooobably not worth $1,800. If you're that obsessed with audio quality you're probably still clinging to your vinyl records.

[HakushoX Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:53PM]

I have 2 words for you Engadget "Recession Antidote!"
Oh 2 more words for you " Pick Me!"

[Lessthantito Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:33PM]

this thing is ugly

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 22nd 2009 7:54PM]

think ill just stick to Windows 7 Media Centre, ive got 2TB storage here anyway

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 22nd 2009 8:22PM]

$1799 for a box with "GELATIN" printed across the top?

Somewhere a graphic designer is laughing his head off.

[Frostblade10 Posted Jul 22nd 2009 8:53PM]

In case you're not being sarcastic (though im almost certain you are), I believe thats "GARAGE and LATIN".

[Wobbly Posted Jul 22nd 2009 9:49PM]

Sooooo, they charge extra for 'lossless audio'?

LMFAO, the 'F' in FLAC stands for Free!

For that price, just build an HTPC with WiFi and save a few $$$'s.

[Link2877 Posted Jul 22nd 2009 10:04PM]

Seriously who needs 2 TB of space for their music? By the time you sat there and listened to every song that could possibly fit in their you would probable be two years older. This thing still this thing looks pretty cool, 2TB just sounds like over kill to me.

[omemshotmailcom Posted Jul 22nd 2009 11:50PM]

I wish some of these companies that produce high-priced CE gear would realize that a box that holds media isn't new, creative or worth paying for. What we mindless consumers want is a nice UI that makes it easy to play our stuff. Actually, we don't care about the UI per se, we just want it to be painless to get our tunes/movies/pics going. Figure out a non-kludgy way to navigate, organize and enjoy the stuff on our

[omemshotmailcom Posted Jul 22nd 2009 11:52PM]

Continuing:
...Figure out a non-kludgy way to navigate, organize and enjoy the stuff on our

[omemshotmailcom Posted Jul 22nd 2009 11:57PM]

(Sorry, less than sign borked it twice)
Continuing:
...Figure out a non-kludgy way to navigate, organize and enjoy the stuff on our under $1000 computers.
Olive, who is your market? How does your product improve on what's already out there?
The little navigation window looks nice; could you lay that into an RF remote control and port your software to Windows (it's probably already written for Linux, no?)

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 23rd 2009 12:47AM]

i don't like the top with all of the letters.

tomo

[Frastoglegnia Posted Jul 23rd 2009 3:04AM]

In case people hadn't noticed, there's a CD slot in the Opus. It looks as if Olive intends that users go through their entire CD library, rip at FLAC quality and trash or sell the leftover CDs. The CD ripper/hard drive then becomes the music server. It's a later incarnation of the hardware CD rippers sold by Sony, Alesis and Tascam in the 90s.

At a lower price, this would have been a good fit for the luddite looking to shed thousands of CDs. The convenience, default resolution and lack of thought required would have made this useful for the technophobe who's buried in clutter and needs a shovel.

[MittenFace Posted Jul 23rd 2009 4:27AM]

CROCK?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 23rd 2009 4:53AM]

The casing makes it look like an 80's drumcomputer/synthmodule. Kewl!

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 23rd 2009 6:06AM]

This thing is so so expensive! I can stream FLAC with my Mvix Ultio and even all types of codec. It has UPnP and SAMBA client that gives me an ultimate viewing experience from You tube, ESPN, CNN, Hulu etc. (with its compatibility with PlayOn and Tversity) with my Plasma. I can easily transfer my movie files from PC and save them on Ulito's internal hard drive by using USB port. I don't need to burn them on DVD to be played on Plasma. I say goodbye to those darn DVD!

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 23rd 2009 11:34AM]

So for the word search on top, I found the following,


RAP, RHYTHM&BLUES, CLASSIC, FUNK, LATIN, ALTERNATIVE, COUNTRY, JAZZ, OPERA, TECHNO, REGGAE, DISCO, PUNK, GARAGE.

Anyone find others?

Or am I the only one who didn't read the article?