Olive Media launches first HD Hi-Fi server

Reiterating its obsession with perfect audio, Olive creates a new genre of audio equipment

The high fidelity digital media designers at Olive Media just created a new category of audio equipment for audiophiles to drool over.

On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based company unveiled the first-ever HD Hi-Fi server, the Olive 4HD, a device built for music at 24-bit sound and 192 kHz sample rate, 250 times the resolution of standard compact discs--the kind of quality that recording engineers are used to.

“Most digital music solutions severely compromise the quality of the music experience,” said Dr. Oliver Bergmann, CEO of Olive, which he founded in 2005. “Our new HD music server delivers a new listening experience that allows music lovers to enjoy the best of both worlds—the convenience of digital music management and the quality of HD sound. This is the way music sounds as it is recorded."

The Olive 4HD features a two terabyte hard drive (think 6,000 CDs or 20,000 high-resolution 24-bit tracks) and a built-in CD drive for ripping. Music can also be transferred to the digital music library wirelessly from any Mac or PC. Connecting the server to a receiver should be no trouble at all.

Additionally, Olive's server takes advantage of being a Web-connected device by pulling music information--titles, artists, albums, etc.--straight off the Internet to categorize the music imported to it. Aware that the device will likely be purchased solely by hardcore audio-fanatics, Olive also programmed the device to access extra metadata in each of the music tracks it hosts.

To promote its new fancy server, Olive Media has partnered with Chesky Records: each $1,999 Olive 4HD comes pre-loaded with twelve high-quality tracks from the audiophile-focused label.