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Meridian sooloos, Olive 6HD, ??

Confused with choices. What music server to buy? Budget $2500-$4000 new or used. Looked at Olive and Meridian. The exterior of the Olive 6HD disc slot has the aesthetics (puke green) of a Fischer Price toy (what were they thinking?). I want a screen and disc drive to copy my large CD collection to build-in hard drive and ability to add backup hard drive. Plan to use iPad Mini for control. Keeping my SACD player for my large SACD collection but ideally would like to copy my SACD's to disc and put SACD's in storage with my CD collection but not possible with current SACD copyright restrictions.
airegin
airegin OP
174 posts
 
Yioryos. Thanks for your comments. I stand corrected. Is the new Olive 6HD available with black and/or silver disc surround choice as well? Appealing to a younger market segment by loosening the buttoned-up attitude is fine, but few choose to wear white to a funeral or drive a neon green car - but some do. As Apple PR slogan suggested on thousands of billboards coast-to-coast "be different." Apple for all their "different" culture remain rooted in silver with their top offerings. To paraphrase Ford, "any color you want as long as it's silver." Unless of course it's Nano or iPod.
yioryos's avatar
yioryos
723 posts
 
Hi Airegin
I LOVE the Olive 04HD,I am listening to it right now.
I don't have the 06HD,I wish I could afford it then,when I bought the 04HD BUT the 06HD does not give you digital out,where the 04HD does,even though the build in dac in the 04HD is good to my ears. I just bought the Bryston BDP-1/BDA-1 combo.I only received the units mid of this week,Last night I bought the Analysis Oval digital 1m AES/EBU digital cable and soon will hook up everything. The Olive 04HD will stay as my party machine and the Bryston combo will be my kit for the main rig.
Forget the colors and get either one or the other and enjoy the tunes.
Only small issue is I lost recently the Maestro interface because I upgraded to Firefox 18.0.1 version,I emailed Olive for support. No big deal I am sure it will be resolved.
Regards
George
vhiner
533 posts
 
This is a fact: most audiophiles want a computer audio device that is as easy to use as an CD player. Very few people enjoy server maintenance, software installations, firmware updates, calling tech support, etc. I want a toaster, not a science project. As much as I hate to, I'll sacrifice some quality for fewer headaches. One day there'll be an elegant appliance designed for ultimate quality and ease of use. Until then, I'll continue to enjoy CDs through a world-class DAC.
airegin OP
174 posts
 
Forget the colors and get either one or the other and enjoy the tunes.

Yeah George you're right. The music matters most.
crion's avatar
crion
9 posts
 
Vhiner, this is exactly the reason why I got the Meridian Sooloos system. I'm keeping the headaches to a minimum and still enjoy reference sound. Using the 800 reference series as audio endpoint in my system and the MC200 as my store/core. It's good for about 2500 CD's and when more is needed I can add an MD600 store or several for the largest collections.

Example of a Reference setup:
Meridian 818V2(streamer/preamp) or 808.5 (CD/streamer/preamp)
Meridian MD600 4TB storage/core with two mirrored 3.5" HDD
iPad generation 4

High-End setup:
Meridian MS600 (streamer with high-end DAC)
Meridian MC200 1TB fanless storage/core/audio endpoint
iPad generation 4

Starting setup:
Meridian MC200 1TB storage/core/audio endpoint
iPad generation 4

This is all it takes. And the server maintenance is just keeping a current backup from time to time on a NAS or HDD.

Sorry for the sales pitch, but you really can have the cake and eat it. :D
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