Hifidelio

[xk8boy]

have anyone seen/use this or anything similar to it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/19/review_hifidelio/

[David Meek]

Not me. At least, not yet.

[Wayne E]

No, but check this one out.

http://www.slimdevices.com/

burr-brown DACs and all. ;x( ;x( ;x( ;x( ;x( ;x(

[krek]

When you are interested in a cd player with a harddisk for mp3 and other features, also check out the cambridge audio azur 640 H:
www.cambridgeaudio.com
This is a new music server based on a very decent cd player (for the money . Costs about a 1000 euro here in Holland.

[krek]

a 640H clone..?

I found another harddisk device wich will be launched in a couple of weeks/months. It looks like its a 100% copy of the cambridge 640H. I'm puzzled..

check it out and compare to the 640H in te previous message.

http://www.opus-technologies.co.uk/hds500.html#

[PewterTA]

That does seem like a rip off. One thing they never mention is the DACs in that player/server whatever you want to call it.

At least the 640H has Wolfson WM8740 24/192kHz DAC to it. Another thing (with the quick look I did) is does it have WIFI support? That's an AMAZING feature of the 640H. Gotta love that! The on screen display of the 640H looks really good as well.

I'll definitely be testing out that unit.

[krek]

info on opus server

I have some more info about the Opus HDS 500.

I called a product manager from Marantz in Holland (I was told Marantz delivers Opus in Holland). I asked him some questions about the Opus HDS 500.
-what kind of DAC is used in the opus HDS 500? -something from Cirrus Logic, simmilar to DAC's used in other Marantz products.
-what is the link between Cambridge Audio and Opus (I mentioned the simmilarities between the opus 500 and the 640H). anwser: Opus and Cambridge audio are owned by the same holding. Therefore sometimes technology is shared.
-when will the opus 500 be available? -at the end of the year. The product manager told me he was testing the product himself. He told me it sounded great, even from the HD.
-what will the price be? -he could not tell me for sure, but somewhere between 1000 and 1500 euro was a very close guess.

Without asking, the product manager told me that the opus machine will have much more possibilities when compared with the Cambridge machine. For instance, it can be fitted in the Opus 500 multiroom series. Cambridge has no such thing.

I like both machines on paper, and the Hifidelio looks good too. IMHO the Hifidelio has some advantages over the 2 to be released servers.
First, the Hifidelio has been around for about a year. There have been many software updates, so the chance of a bug is a lot smaller.
Second, in the beginning of 2006 the Hifidelio will be available with an LCD remote wich shows album cover etc, with the same interface as the machine. You don't need your tv for browsing.
Third, for multi-room purpose there will be a seperate module without HD, but with speakers and of course wireless internetradio Very i-pod like looks. See the following site:

http://www.vistra.com.au/products/hifidelio/accessories.htm

And fourth: the price of the Hifidelio 160Gb is around 800 euro's here in holland.
Fifth: according to the German magazine Audio and a dutch hifi site: it sounds great! The CD player sounds better than the famous Philips dvd-963 SA (as a CD player), and is compared to the Marantz CD-7300. Not bad for a computer manufacturer going audio!

But on the other hand I think I wait for the Cambridge machine. Maybe it wo'nt be too expensive, and maybe it sounds even better..

[mickster1972]

HIfidelio - This is branded as Olive Symphony and Musica in USA

I just auditioned it at a store in Berkeley, CA and it sounds great. I had the store owner rip classical music in an uncompressed format on the hard drive and played it back through an Arcam integrated amp and Revel speakers. This unit musically easily held its own and maybe sounded better than an Arcam CD player that was used to A/B compare. (Note: playback from the Olive Symphony harddisk using the internal DACs; I doubt playback from the CD transport, which is a Panasonic CDr/RW is anything special)

Worth the $899 US selling price, in my opinion. David Pogue raved about it recently in a New York Times editorial. I called Olive directly and they said that they also submitted samples to high-end magazines and their reviews will be out shortly. You can read more about the US version at www.olive.us. I'm starting to sound like an advertisement, so I'll stop. But I do plan to buy one and free up some shelf space my CD collection is now hogging. :lol: More room for DVDs and components...

[farbs]

For those that might be interested in the opus or cambridge audio, i just spoke to the wholesaler here in Aust, and he said that they are the exact same unit just differnt badging. And the upus is gong to be more expensive.
Go Figure?