Olive Media launches new way to serve music to home stereos

High-end audio is moving into the digital age. Olive Media announced today it has created an audiophile’s music storage system that can deliver digital music to home stereos.

The San Francisco-based company is launching the Olive 4HD, a high-definition Hi-Fi Music Server. The system serves as a control center for high-quality audio — with 24-bit sound and 96 kilohertz sample rates. It can store 6,000 CDs on its two terabytes of hard disk space. That’s also enough space for 20,000 high-quality s24-bit songs.

Listeners can use it to access their digitized music libraries, copy the music to the Olive 4HD, and then play it back on their home stereos. The Olive 4HD connects directly to a stereo receiver. The sound quality is roughly 250 times better than a CD.

“Most digital music solutions severely compromise the quality of the music experience,” said Oliver Bergmann, founder and chief executive of Olive, in a statement. “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 system retrieves standard music information from the web, including artist, album, track title and cover art. It also delivers extended metadata, describing music more accurately and tailored to its specific genre. This allows users to find the right music, quickly.  The system has wireless connectivity. It sells for $1,999. The company was founded in 2005.

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