Any chance of a future dealer in Ireland /Northern Ireland ?
Hi Jeff
, I haven’t heard the new one yet but as soon as we have a demo available, I’ll be more than hapy to demonstrate the new, to compare to the old.
please be patient… should come soon.
Frank very Fine Solutions
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We will participate at the DAE Event 7&8 Oktober, in Room 64. Mr Boselli from Sound & Colors will be present to answer your questions.
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Any update on this…mid-September…
We have or are in the process of completing OLADRA upgrades that used the upgrade form on our website.
We have fulfilled paid OLADRA orders.
OLADRA is again Sold Out, The next shipment along with any further upgrades will be ready to perform/ship in early October.
I think I am one of the lucky ones to have been at the front of the upgrade list and it is possible that I have one of the first upgraded versions of the Oladra in my system.
No doubt people will be interested to know what I think about the Oladra upgrade having had it now for just over a day.
Straight off I can say I am more than pleased with the sound of the upgrade.
So far I am not using the new USB output. I did briefly compare the new USB to BNC and whilst the new USB is much better than before I still prefer BNC from the Oladra to the Mscaler. I suspect this is more to do with the Mscaler inputs than with the Oladra USB output.
I thought the upgraded Oladra was going to be relabelled the Oladra 2 but it appears it is still called the Oladra 1, or at least that is what is on my Oladra’s label.
The main difference in the sound is a much more organic delivery with a lovely richness and body to the notes. I had thought that the original Oladra whilst excellent in all respects it could still have a certain incessant quality to some tracks, mostly in the upper frequencies. The new updated Oladra is super smooth and has lost that possibilty of tending towards very slight edge to some notes.
Perhaps I can use one track to illustrate what I mean.
This has a plucked double bass note underpinning the track and with the upgrade this has more body and character. The guitar with the original Oldra always sounded great but with the upgrade it is more balanced with the rest of the instruments. Pre upgrade I always felt the guitar was a tad more strident than it needed to be. Only a tad but a tad is sometimes enough to draw too much attention to the notes of one instrument.
Half way through the track everything gets more busy to the point where previously I might be tempted to turn the volume down a bit. Not so with the upgraded Oladra.
This is only one track but I have been roaming through my playlists with delight since receiving the upgraded Oladra with similar improvements all through my library of stored tracks.
So all in all I am very happy indeed with the Oladra upgrade. It has definitely been worthwhile.
(Just a note to say all listening was done with the Oladra set to Squeeze + Squeeze and I was playing through a Chord Mscaler to a DAVE dac and ATC 150 active speakers. The Mscaler and Dave are powered by Sean Jacobs ARC6 power supplies.)
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Thanks for your overview @NickBacon
Keep us updated as burn in continues, it will only get better 
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I have had my upgraded Kala K50 plugged in a streaming continuously for 6 days. Using the AES/EBU output into my DAC, I also use ROON server and Squeeze Player.
The most obvious change from this upgrade is the increased vividness inside the soundstage. It’s the dynamics inside the music that have improved. It makes the stage seem more realistic. As if each instrument is a light source and their individual scales of vividness have expanded.
The overall stage has not changed. I am still in the same seat in the concert hall, the tone has not changed, the low end has tightened up but that could because I am not listening as loud, benefiting from the increase in musical density.
It’s a home run for me. Next to adding my PreAmp this spring, this is the most impactful addition I have made this year.
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Hi Mark, I have had my Oladra 2 playing continuous music (locally stored files) for 5 days now and all is getting even better as you suggested.
One thing that has been a welcome surprise to me is that with the Oladra 2 upgrade I think the SQ gap between Squeeze + Squeeze and Roon + Squeeze has diminished to the point where it is possible that there is no difference between them.
Mark, this would be an amazing wow factor it it turns out to be real. Have you recently tried the comparison with an Oladra 2?
My listening was with locally stored files so far, I have not yet connected my Qobuz account. Also it is using the BNC Digital output from the Oladra connected to the Mscaler with one of my RF filtering WAVE Storm bnc cables.
I want to do more comparisons with more tracks but this has been curtailed this morning because changing back to Squeeze + Squeeze from Roon + Squeeze eventually stopped playing music. It says it is playing but no music comes out. Hey ho, the experiment will continue when I have sorted this.
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@JJJS I think it was you who posted that you had tried an Oladra 1 and that you “did not like the Oladra at all”. If you get the chance you should try an Oladra 2 because to my ears it is a completely different animal to the Oladra 1. I also had a K50mk1 before working my way from that to K50mk2 and then Oladra Mk1. A friend of mine recently said that he preferred my system with the K50Mk1 out of all of those including the OladraMk1 and I know what he means when he says that. However the OladraMk2 has now clearly set itself as being head and shoulders above all of them.
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Just a follow up update on this as I had a friend around this morning to listen to my Oladra 2 and we took the opportunity to compare Roon + Squeeze to Squeeze + Squeeze because I had been gradually losing my conviction that they were getting near to sounding the same.
I played the two play back methods blind to my friend, swopping between them as requested by him as many times as needed for him to be able to make a sure and without doubt decision as to which he preferred.
Unfortunately he confirmed what I was beginning to suspect, ie that Roon + Squeeze is not as good as Squeeze + Squeeze on the Oladra 2. Roon + Squeeze was sounding good but after due deliberation he confirmed that it sounds somewhat smeared compared to Squeeze + Squeeze and the bass is not as deep or detailed, also many details in the music are swamped by the smearing with some notes or subtle instruments missing altogether.
Oh well, I guess it was a big ask and perhaps I was just getting a bit carried away.
I would like to try HQP to do some initial upsampling (say 4x upsampling) prior to Roon similar perhaps to the upsampling that the MU1 does in conjunction with Roon. My Mscaler would then do the remaining upsampling and apply filters. Unfortunately my experiments with that are foundering at the moment because I’m struggling to get the HQ Player to output to the Oladra BNC output (it only gives USB output as a choice in the HQP configuration).
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I have owned a K50 (1st generation) for 2.5 years. My dealer made me an offer and will trade in my K50 and I will get a 2nd generation Oladra. My question: How do I know whether it is a 1st or 2nd generation Oladra. Are there any external identifying features?
WTA1 is so much better than HQPlayer’s sinc filters. I can’t imagine combining the two turning out to be better. No harm in experimenting though.
So under the device dropdown under Network Audio backend, you are only seeing one option? You may need a support call.
How are you finding the k30 upgrades a month on?
Still feel they easily justified the price. One thing I question are the feet. Although functional they certainly don’t have the bling factor of the expected Oladra feet. I also wonder what the extra components are on the K50 or Oladra upgraded usb board. The usb upgrade is still “the goat”.
There is no difference in USB board between K50 and K30, exactly the same
In fact all K Sereis get the same USB output, sans K41 obviously.
OLADRA is a double USB board, sending signal to the Re-Clocker.
Kenny, yes just as you say it appears as just one option on the dropdown menu under Network Audio backend (see screenshots of my set up pages). Despite this I am getting music from the BNC output.
Although I wonder if Mark’s words above (“ OLADRA is a double USB board, sending signal to the Re-Clocker”) mean that is why I am seeing what I am seeing on the drop down menu. Any thoughts @MarkCole ?
@NickBacon You have Digital Audio set, so what you are seeing is correct.
Antipodes USB Audio 2.0 is the ReClocker this has always been the case.
If you had USB selected in the Antipodes Solution Dashboard, HQPlayer would see both the USB DAC and the internal Digital so there would be two items to select from.
If you are getting no sound via BNC check your sampling rate, 24/192 will be maximum.
Really if you want to try HQPlayer I would suggest using USB.
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Who is the dealer?
No Antipodes dealer would say they would offer one thing yet give another, that is highly unethical.
If you are being offered a G4 OLADRA then it is a G4, altho it has to be said there isn’t a lot of G4 stock in the market.
Mark, thanks for the prompt reply which is much appreciated and that explains and reassures that all is normal. Just to confirm HQP is working and I am getting sound out from the Oladra BNC but I was just a bit confused by the USB output indicated in HQP.
Also I have the max HQP output set to 24/192. This is just me playing to see what happens to SQ if I try various things. I am sticking with BNC output from the Oladra because Mscaler (and Dave as it happens) gives best SQ when using their BNC inputs as opposed to USB (yes I have rechecked that with the new usb output from the Oladra 2 and I still prefer the BNC output from the Oladra 2 to the Mscaler or Dave).
On another matter, I have tried using HQP to output 705 and 768 using the Oladra 2’s USB output and taken that through the SRC-DX usb to dual bnc convertor to input into the Daves best sounding BNC inputs and I have come across what was a previous issue of very low volume. This has always before been able to be resolved by accessing the streamer setting as described in the SRC-DX’s shown below instruction but now when I try this I am asked for login details. Unless you have another fix for this is it possible for you to PM the login details so I can implement the fix?
