[mcullinan]

Thanks project, I dont want to argue for sure. Just curious about the product is all. Thought it might be a good SB Touch replacement.

 

[Duartisimo]

*edit

 

[ehlarson]

A product that could replace a SBT would be interesting, but I tried to figure out if this would be that product from the website and didn't get anywhere.
 
So basically it's a matter of waiting to see what happens.

 

[luuk]

I'm sorry when I offended you, but I thought you were just bashing this thing down without a clear reason.
I don't know if its overhyped, we'll know the quality when it's being delivered.
For me it's a good squeezebox-replacement.
I can just put all my music on the 1tb hdd (not having to turn my computer on and relying on the wifi is a plus for me) and when I want to listen to some online music (for example hypem.com) I can just stream the music from my phone/tablet to the one. Also the youtube and miracast intergration looks promising.
This was not possible with the squeezebox (you could only listen to internetradio or your own collection). Furthermore I like the fact that I can control the one from my phone or tablet, or when I'm sitting next to it on the 7inch screen. If you compare it to a sonos or squeezeboxsystem it looks promising, that's why I was enthousiastic. Again sorry if I offended you but I hope you understand now what the device supposed to be/do.

 

[ehlarson]

Squeezebox supports some commercial services like  [size=small] Rhapsody, Spotify and [/size]Pandora, and it can be controlled using uPnP from phones or via a web interface as well.
 
I like the server thing myself because I have several players in my house. Having one central location is easier to manage than a bunch of drives. Plus since it supports uPnP it can play out to things like my Oppo BDP in addition to the SBs. The SB Touch also has a USB port so you can attach a local drive or play out to a DAC with USB in.
 
Sadly though it's discontinued so no updates. That's the biggest issue for current owners.
 
Someday I'm obviously going to have to replace mine. Whether or not that will be with Olive gear is of course to be determined.

 

[NZheadcase]

Very interested in this product too. I need something that will stay put at my listening area. Plus my laptop is getting long in the tooth.

I hope they get to 500k.

Sorely tempted to contribute now. Gonna take a little more time to contemplate. Lol!

 

[d1sturb3d]

no more connector box..but they integrated the outputs needed (analog and digital out!hurrah!) on the olive one itself..I just wish the touch screen will be fluid and the os stable..am really not into computer audio and really just want to have a decent/budget friendly digital music source..

 

[ztsen]

Me too. The coaxial and USB output are wise choice but it will delay til Sep. It comes with speaker binder as well.

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk 2

 

[d1sturb3d]

Quote:

Me too. The coaxial and USB output are wise choice but it will delay til Sep. It comes with speaker binder as well.

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk 2

yeah..but I don't mind the delay as long as it stable and fully functional

 

[dc-k]

  The fact that the website states that the ONE has optional RCA connectors and can be equipped with a 2TB hard drive leads me to believe that it can be used as a source for music, which is fine by me!
Kind of tired of computer audio and this is exactly the kind of thing i'm looking for, since i don't have much love for portable stuff. I only use the computer for ripping and tagging purposes. it will play virtually any codec out there at up to 24/192 resolution, which is great.
 
By the way, do you guys know if there is another similar product?
 

The Cocktail Audio X10 has some of the functions, and has the advantage of being available. The Olive looks nicer but not sure how it will perform in the real wolrd.

 

[Robonaut]

Did the Olive One ever get released?  Looking at the Olive website today, it still seems like you can still only pre-order it?

 

[RHMMMM]

Yes. They are currently producing and shipping to the indiegogo backers from the campaign. It has been a long wait but they claim mine will ship by tomorrow or early next week. I was a late backer and many have already received their units. Olive set up a Zendesk site for firmware update info, forums and reviews.

https://olivemediainc.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

The Olive was originally supposed to ship like last August or Sept. And they moved the ship date almost one year out, but they did make many improvements along the way to (kind of) justify the wait, such as a much improved SoC to improve performance and made the drive removable and some other things. The unit has also been demoed running some Android builds so there is a lot of promise for future flexibility, however the OS it ships with is not currently Android based. The demo they showed us was just to prove flexibility.


To be honest, at this point, I am thinking of re selling it new in box (mine is a 1TB version) and getting an Auralic Aries though. I had originally planned this as a single unit to drive some small speakers in my office (since it has internal amps) but have since gone way overboard and bought a nice Marantz Reference integrated and some Focal Micro Utopia Be speakers since the wait for this was so long. I also funded The Light Harmonic Geek Pulse X DAC, which I may pair with whatever streamer I get. Hopefully the wait for the Geek isn't as long as this Olive. Let me know if anyone is interested in my Olive 1TB.

 

[uncola]

I almost backed this but I had a feeling it would be massively delayed and ship with buggy firmware, based on reports of olives other players.. so I'm glad I didn't.  I did back the geek pulse x however hehe.  Hope that one ships soon

 

[tomscy2000]

Just took a look at this thing. The hardware is definitely not hi-fi oriented for sure.
 
The touchscreen UI and overall design looks sleek, but it's probably going to be quite buggy when it comes out, and who knows when it'll even come out...

 

[RHMMMM]

Just took a look at this thing. The hardware is definitely not hi-fi oriented for sure.

The touchscreen UI and overall design looks sleek, but it's probably going to be quite buggy when it comes out, and who knows when it'll even come out...

Right, so it is out and shipping to backers. There are reviews on the Zendesk site I posted above from people who have received it. The firmware is more or less doing very well today and they continue to release new revisions at least every other week and before shipping to the masses they had a beta program. I'm confident the UI experience will be good.

Regarding it being "hi-fi," it had a starting price for backers of $399 and includes a color capacitive touch screen and removable 1tb hard drive ($499 with 1tb drive), so there is only so much hi-fi goodness they can build into it at that price point. It has a decent DAC built in and has the capability to connect to an asynchronous USB DAC by acting as a USB host, so if used in that configuration with a hi-fi DAC, the audible experience will be comparable to a full blown computer based USB setup.

At the end of 2012, when they originally announced the campaign, it was really sweet and there was nothing like it that could compete with feature set and price. The hi-fi streamers like the Aurender were and still are insanely overpriced (IMO), but now there are other options including more "hi-fi" options that are not priced into the stratosphere.

The announcement and production of units like this is SO very time sensitive because of fast- reacting competition and I feel that Olive spent too much time on the fit and finish of the unit (they encountered production issues with the aluminum casing that stalled production for months) and changing specs too much that they fell behind. If this had been released last summer like originally expected, it would have taken off better.