Description
Antipodes Audio Oladra: The Pinnacle of Digital Music Servers
The Antipodes Audio Oladra is more than just a music server; it’s a revolutionary digital audio hub that exemplifies cutting-edge engineering and meticulous craftsmanship. Designed to elevate your listening experience to unparalleled heights, the Oladra integrates Server, Player, and Reclocker functionalities into a single, elegantly sculpted chassis. This flagship model from Antipodes Audio, based in New Zealand, embodies the company’s commitment to delivering a sound that is both deeply organic and highly articulate, making it a must-have for audiophiles who demand the best.
Innovative Design and Build Quality
The Oladra’s design is as functional as it is beautiful. Encased in a sleek and solid aluminum body, it exudes a sense of durability and sophistication. The compact design belies its substantial weight, which is due to the dense and robust materials used in its construction. The device’s three proprietary feet are a marvel of engineering, utilizing a sandwich of metals and polymers to provide exceptional vibration isolation, ensuring that the sound remains pure and uncolored by external factors.
Advanced Processing Engines and Power Supply
At the heart of the Oladra lies a complex system of four separate processing engines, each optimized for its specific role—Server, Player, and Reclocker. The Server engine, unique to the Oladra, manages your music files and streaming services with unparalleled precision. The Player and Reclocker engines refine the digital signal progressively, reducing noise and improving clarity before it reaches your DAC. The power supply, a triple-cascade switch-mode design, is another standout feature. By eliminating the drawbacks of traditional linear power supplies, it delivers fast, clean power that enhances the server’s ability to produce a natural and dynamic sound.
Comprehensive Connectivity and Software Flexibility
The Oladra offers a wide array of connectivity options, including Direct Stream Ethernet (RJ45), USB, S/PDIF, AES3, and I2S. This flexibility allows it to integrate seamlessly into virtually any high-end audio system. With up to 24TB of internal storage, accessible through three user-installable SSD bays, the Oladra is capable of handling even the largest music collections. On the software side, the Oladra supports popular playback solutions like Roon, Squeeze, MPD, HQPlayer, and more, all managed through Antipodes’ intuitive AMSv5 interface. This ensures that users can tailor their listening experience to their specific preferences.
Superior Sound Quality
The Antipodes Oladra is renowned for its sound signature, which balances deep tonal saturation with crisp articulation and a natural, organic flow. It delivers a highly resolving, airy sound that is never harsh or analytical, making it ideal for long listening sessions. Whether you’re playing high-resolution files or streaming from services like Qobuz and Tidal, the Oladra brings out the best in your music, providing an emotionally engaging experience that is as close to live performance as possible.
Conclusion: A New Benchmark in Digital Audio
The Antipodes Audio Oladra sets a new standard in the world of digital music servers. With its state-of-the-art processing engines, innovative power supply, and exquisite design, it delivers a listening experience that is both technically superior and profoundly moving. For audiophiles who demand nothing but the best, the Oladra is an investment that will pay dividends in sonic excellence for years to come.
About Antipodes
Antipodes Audio, a leading New Zealand-based company, is renowned for its cutting-edge music servers designed to deliver both technical excellence and an emotionally engaging listening experience. As part of their commitment to the highest standards of audio fidelity, Antipodes offers a range of products, including their flagship Oladra Music Server. The Oladra represents the pinnacle of their engineering expertise, combining superior digital transport capabilities with the latest innovations in noise reduction and power management to create an unrivaled sound experience.
The Oladra is designed to act as both a high-end music server and renderer, offering exceptional performance in both roles. It is built with carefully selected components, including advanced signal processing, robust power supplies, and proprietary technologies aimed at reducing jitter and noise, thus ensuring the purest possible playback. The Oladra’s attention to detail in both hardware and software optimization allows it to provide a rich, immersive sound that captures the emotional essence of the music .
Alongside the Oladra, Antipodes’ Kala Range of servers, including the K50, K41, K22, and K21, provides scalable solutions for audiophiles at different levels of their journey. The K50, often regarded as a benchmark in digital audio servers, integrates server, player, and renderer functions into one device, offering flexibility and world-class performance. The K41 and K22 specialize in server and player functions, respectively, while the K21 focuses on DAC connectivity, ensuring that there is a solution for every configuration.
A key feature of Antipodes Audio products is their meticulous attention to power management and noise reduction. The use of high-quality power supplies and effective isolation techniques significantly reduces electrical noise, contributing to a cleaner, more detailed sound. The servers are also compatible with a variety of music management platforms, including Roon, providing users with a flexible and user-friendly interface.
By combining innovative engineering with a focus on musicality, Antipodes Audio has established itself as a leader in the high-end digital audio space. The Oladra and Kala Range exemplify the company’s mission to not only provide precise, high-resolution sound but to enhance the emotional connection to music, making every listening session a profound experience.
Reviews
Christiaan Punter – HiFi Advice (Janurary, 2024)
“As the company’s top-tier product, the Oladra is priced rather seriously, but it looks absolutely stunning, offers a wealth of options, and delivers the sonic goods. Especially after the G4 update, the Oladra is still very much an HFA Favorite!”
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Wolfgang Kemper – Hi-Fi Statement Magazine (December, 2023)
“The continuous research and development at Antipodes Audio also ensures that the new generation of the Oladra has an unmistakably more pleasant sound. Considering the price of the top model, the extra cost for the new version is fair, because the G4 version is musically convincing and clear. The fact that the New Zealanders offer a comprehensive upgrade from G3 to G4 at a relatively low price means that such high-priced investments retain their value, which deserves an additional compliment.”
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Marc Phillips – Part Time Audiophile (November, 2023)
“Did my time with the Antipodes Oladra provide me with the clarity I needed to make a decision about music servers? To tell the truth, I think that day is still off in the future, and I wonder if my own digital rig will be sophisticated enough to explore the potential of this astounding and organized device. So yes, I’m going to suggest that a device that can accomplish this much and sound this good might be reserved for those of you who already have a magnificent DAC and streamer in place. You know what great digital is supposed to sound like–a lot like analog–and the Antipodes Oladra is it.”
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Andrew Everard & Paul Miller – Hi-Fi News & Record Review (September, 2023)
“The combination of fluidity and drama makes for a magnificent sound, more than up to the level of any amplification with which you may choose to use it.”
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Jason Victor Serinus – Stereophile Magazine (June, 2023)
“I felt I’d never heard sound so open, warm, smooth, maximally colored, and musical through my system. I sat spellbound at the glorious sound of one of Mozart’s early acts of genius. When soprano Carolyn Sampson began singing, heaven’s gates opened before me.”
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