Remember those crazy deals that you’d hear about back in the Reagan-licious 1980s where European countries were apparently so starving for the U.S. Green that they would practically PAY you to come over and pick up a car.
“Ja! We have terrific car deal! You buy car, we fly you to Deutschland. We put you up in fine-quality hotel in Deutschland. We make sure you have ample portion of sausage servings for dinner UND breakfast! We bring you to factory. You tour factory. You help Hans and Franz build car. You drive car all around Germany. We pay to ship your car home. You leave us your strong-strong American dollars. Is gut, ja?”
Well, I got the audio equivalent of that offer today. Except I don’t have to go to Europe. (Well, I guess “have to” and “Europe” don’t really EVER belong in the same sentence.) Instead of getting to fly to Europe, you get to fly to San Francisco, thanks to a music server company named Olive.
Olive is a company that makes pretty sweet music servers. In fact, I’ve written about how much I’ve enjoyed using them in the past. I originally mentioned how terrific it was to listen to high-resolution audio files through its 24-bit DAC set. Then I talked about how a client wanted a REAL CD player and how I suggested the Olive might be exactly what he needed. I’ve reviewed their system a couple of times, and you’ll just have to take my word that I liked it. In fact…Olived it!)
So the company just released a new lower priced, slightly lower performing Olive O3HD server that comes in at under $1,000 (OK, it’s $999, but that is technically under $1,000). I got to audition this, recently, and while it doesn’t have quite the performance chutzpah of the O4HD, it is $1,500 less expensive. But, when you have an Olive 2, an O3HD and an O4HD and you want to stun the audio world with a new model, what do you do? You make the new model SO good that you skip straight to O6HD! (Suck it, O5, you piece of crap, loser!)
To kick off this new product, and help some of the “What happened to the O5HD? I *really* wanted THAT one!” Olive is offering the first 20 people that pre-register to buy this bit of music awesomeness the chance to win a Golden Ticket Willy Wonka factory tour! (Note: No actual Golden Ticket will be awarded. And the actual Willy Wonka is highly unlikely to be in attendance.) They’ll fly you and your favorite high-res music listening guest (preferably that guest is a technology blogger that provides you with entertainment; I have friends in SF. We’ll have a great time, honest!) So, two round-trip tickets to San Fran, a night in a hotel, dinner for two, tickets to a “special music event,” a tour of the Olive factory where your product is built to order and le pièce de résistance…FREE SHIPPING! (OK, that was a pretty weak closer; I probably should have led with that.)
So, details are a tad thin on the O6HD, but what I know so far is that it will have this:
• Fully balanced differential 24-bit DAC. At the heart of the fully balanced differential DAC design is a matched pair of TI’s top-of-the-line 24-bit/192 kHz DAC modules (Burr-Brown PCM1792) for the inverted and non-inverted signals on each of the right and left channels.
• Dedicated 24-bit/192 kHz PCM1792 DAC for headphone use. In English that means it will have warm, sweet, gooey-butter audio that melts in your ears. Yum! Even when using your headphone!
So, head on over to this site and get us registered for this baby! Go on! And if you win, remember, “For those who come to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.” Unless you’re a dude. Cause me and you cruising the streets of SF with you wearing a flower in your hair? Not cool. I get slagged enough for carrying around Lady Phone for any of your flower-haired foolishness.
