New Zealand-based manufacturer Antipodes Audio has announced the fourth generation of its Oladra music server. The Antipodes Oladra is pricey but promises a level of musicality that sits at the high end of the market.
Antipodes Oladra
New Zealand is literally on the other side of the world and people in New Zealand are also called antipodes. Presumably that is why manufacturer Antipodes named itself “Antipodes”. When you think of New Zealand, you probably think more of kiwis (that’s fruits and birds), but there are also audio products from New Zealand, such as the Antipodes Oladra and other Antipodes models. Antipodes Audio is based on the Kapiti Coast of New Zealand’s North Island and the new G4 edition of the Oladra is the latest flagship music server.
The first three cascade processing stages create a high-bandwidth signal with virtually no noise below the bit rate, ensuring that the timing of binary data transitions is precisely defined. This is crucial to allow the Oladra’s ultra-stable clock circuitry to send a clean, precisely clocked signal to the connected DAC.
Incorporating Antipodes’ latest G4 technologies, the new version of the Oladra features double isolation against electronic noise (computers are inherently noisy environments), regeneration and reclocking of all outputs: S/PDIF (RCA, BNC and optical), AES3 (three-pin XLR), I2S (HDMI and RJ45) and a brand new, improved USB output.
Two custom motherboards inside the Oladra utilize the latest generation of Intel chipsets, carefully selected and firmware-tuned in-house with 64GB of RAM and newly developed high-speed power supplies to maximize performance. Other benefits of the G4 model include a 200 percent to 400 percent increase in system resources to improve responsiveness and enterprise-grade resilience to data loss.
The Oladra doesn’t have any onboard storage, but there are three slots, accessible from the rear, for installing an SSD. Users can fit up to 24TB of internal storage in total. Other specs include native DSD512 and 32-bit/768kHz PCM hi-res audio support, and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet networking connectivity.
As with all Antipodes music servers, users can easily select and switch between Roon, Squeeze, Plex, MPD, HQPlayer, UPnP/DLNA and other popular playback solutions.
The Oladra is the flagship. For those who can’t afford that, there are also the cheaper music servers from the Kala product line. We have not yet heard official pricing information.
