Has anyone had any experience with the Olive Musica or Cambridge Audio Azur 640H. I'm leaning toward the Olive. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks The Greenline

Has anyone had any experience with the Olive Musica or Cambridge Audio Azur 640H. I'm leaning toward the Olive. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks The Greenline
I sent you a PM.

I've got the Cambridge unit as of 2 days ago. Really easy to use, like everyone says the best thing about it is the sound quality, build quality. If you have any questions let me know, (my friend is looking at the olive musica and the cambridge as well) The only thing I didn't like about the olive was the lack of GUI and fact that it takes $3000 to get the high quality DAC. Good luck...and BTW the cambridge has another software upgrade coming out and soon after will offer another update for Pocket PC web interface control

Thanks for the info. Still undecided, heard alot about the Cambridge unit being very noisy. Especially when recording.
Are the Cambridge DACs better than the Olive's

I caled Olive and asked them about the video interface. And they claimed putting a video circuit in the unit would degrade the audio. Not sure how true that is. Would appreciate any info anyone has on this.

How well does the Cambridge unit import music from your computer or from analog sources such as turntables?

Ok some more info on the cambridge...I looked inside the unit (very well built, MUCH bigger power supply than I expected). It has 128 mb memory chip in there can be upgraded for really FAST interface operation. Also looks like they have built in a lot into this unit for upgradability, Has a partitioned drive....2 Gig FAT operating sys. and the rest FAT32 for storage. Has a themes folder which I think they will upgrade to have more in the future (like my parents Audio Request) . Remeber the olive doesn't even have an on screen interface. Also don't forget the sound quality is better than at least the Olive symphony and musica which have an 'Analouge Devices' DAC as opposed to the Wolfson DAC in the cambridge. So yes the DACs are better than both those two units. Also the future release of PDA and web control is a major plus. Really impressed with the build quality though. Oh and on the noise while recording it really isn't that bad I was worried about this as well, if you record and compress music at the same time (in one process) than the drive is silent. Its only louder when recording uncompressed or compressed while in standby. When in playback mode the thing is virtually silent. As far as sending music from the pc it is very simple after the pc's shared folder location is set in the 640H, it fact is fastest way to put music on the device's hard drive since the music is usually already compressed a bit. As far as line level recording I haven't tried it yet.

Ashokrt,

Thanks for the info I was leaning heavily toward the Olive Musica now I'm not so sure.

thegreenline

You can change the blue background on the cambridge unit to what ever you like (file size should be no more than a 75Kb jpeg otherwise it won't load all the time) What worked for me was a nice night time pic. of Chicago's skyline with the water. I figure a night time pic would be easier on the plasma. Looks MUCH better than the boring blue cambridge background. (Look in the 2GB partioned drive in the themes folder for "background" file) Also tried a few with the blue sky to blend with the blue cambridge menu system looked nice as well. You can change the menu image files as well but for me the background was enough for now. Anyway just thought I'd pass that along. Oh and on the memory upgrade 256mb should be fine, I tried a 512mb but sometimes the unit froze, (unlike with the 256mb). Good luck and mod. at your own risk!!!!, or don't mod at all...

what type of memory was it? please

Monsteraudio,
I used a PNY 256mb DDR PC3200 chip. A friend of mine changed his memory over the weekend and was amazed with the difference in menu navigation speed. If you haven't opened the unit you will need a mini torx-6 screwdriver. If you want an image of the inside before you open it email me at ashokrts@yahoo.com, (I have a few pictures).

hey thx for the reply, I am still debating on getting one, found one new for 1350.00 shipped, just want to be happy, I got about 1 gig of that mem laying around doing nothing, in 2 old systems, maybe a new market for it after the prices I saw at newg :D thank you for the reply if I get one will for sure email for the pic

:confused: I am also thinking the dacs only come into play if you us analog connections, otherwise would not the dacs in your AVR/PROC be used for the conversion (with a digital connection)?

Yeah that is true you would have to use the analog outputs to take advantage of the Wolfson Dac. Unless you are using a highend prepro like the Anthem, Lexicon etc. you would be better off using the Cambridge Dac. via analog rather than the digital connection. If you want one I have a dealer here in Bloomfield, MI that got me a better price than anyone online ($1260 including Michigan sales tax). Not many dealers even have this unit.

think I am going with an Arcam avr350 it has new Burr brown vs the wolfsans in the 300 for what thats worth, and if he can get it in black PM me I am still decide between it and a few other routes

Thank you for all your answers

http://www.auzentech.com/images/x-purity/index.htm, and this http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_detail.asp?LineID=&CateID=1&ID=282 or this,http://www.directron.com/x233.html looks almost like you could build better, definatley better than THE S-D1 I see here, not sure what burner I would put in, look at that sound card coming out, plus auzentech is great showing you how to upgrade your own op amps if you want analog out, they use good ones already just a thought

http://www.auzentech.com/images/x-purity/index.htm, and this http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_detail.asp?LineID=&CateID=1&ID=282 or this,http://www.directron.com/x233.html looks almost like you could build better, definatley better than THE S-D1 I see here, not sure what burner I would put in, look at that sound card coming out, plus auzentech is great showing you how to upgrade your own op amps if you want analog out, they use good ones already just a thought
wrong thread?

can anyone who owns the cambridge tell me if it encodes flac (when you initially pop in the cd, can you encode it in flac format)? the olive does and i am not sure from the cambridge website. thanks in advance.

as an update, it currnelty does not fo flac but they say there may be a firmware upgrade that will include it.

Any update on FLAC. Seems this unit still has had no firmware update for FLAC.

The Cambridge is now three yrs old!
That's ancient, in digital download days!
Any news from CES?

160GB's?!?!?!?! Come on!!!

Any further or upcoming updates on this server since January '08?

Can anyone give me the specifics on a compatible external harddrive for the 640H? Cambridge refuses to give me the name of any, saying only that my dealer should know. I understand that it has to be preformatted as FAT32, Windows 98 (and not 98 that requires a program install). Please send me a private message also, since I rarely check this forum.