Nickname: davebarnes

Review: A number of features are disappointing about this device from www.olive.us. 1. Nowhere on their Web site do they describe what they use for ripping the CDs. As many music freaks know, this is one the most important steps in the chain from CD to music playing from your hard disk. Windows owners use EAC (Exact Audio Copy), but Mac OS X users don't have the same ability. 2. 60 GB is way too small. It is 60 because they are using a notebook drive and the largest notebook drive you can buy is only 120 GB. 3. Too expensive. When this device costs $299 and has a 300+ GB drive, then I will buy one. It is a much better way to play serious music on a serious music system than connecting an iPod. Dave

Date reviewed: Nov 27, 2005 4:56 AM

Nickname: Leonardo

Review: Well now, this is wonderful news. Good to read that this is on the market. It is something that I will remember as I put my music system together. I am glad that Apple has catered a little bit to the classical music folk. I wrote to them and reminded them that if they were composing in this age, quite a few composers would probably be using Macs, and so it would be fitting that the Mac and the iTunes store would carry a good and full selection of this music. Actually, we need the more complete music format than MP3, but still, Apple should pay attention to this part of the population.

Date reviewed: Nov 25, 2005 9:35 AM

Nickname: Macariah

Review: Ho-hum replicating CDs is so 20th Century. CD quality is inherently worse than LPs. The quality of a CD is about 1/3 that of what you would hear from a good vinyl record. When a CD can record the full sonic range even the "sound" you can't hear, (that's what gives vinyl its edge-atmospherics), it creates a dynamic range where a trained ear can detect the difference between a Stradivarius or a Guarnerius violin. If it can do that, we're talking high quality reproduction! Ron

Date reviewed: Nov 25, 2005 4:20 AM

Nickname: John Konopka

Review: No knock on this new product. However, with iTunes there is an option to encode a CD in a lossless format. This quality is preserved when wirelessly streaming with an Airport Express (I believe). Also, you can preserve gaps (or no gaps) by telling iTunes to encode a series of tracks together. One problem is that to my knowledge no online store lets you download music uncompressed. To get the highest quality you have to march down to the store and buy the CD.

Date reviewed: Nov 23, 2005 11:20 PM

Nickname: geek

Review: At long last, long-suffering classical music lovers like me will require less effort when transferring our CDs onto our portable players. Anyone has any idea if it'll be available here in Singapore and that if a trade-in program is available for current iPod users? :) geek

Date reviewed: Nov 23, 2005 12:29 PM