Vinnie Rossi, he of battery-power fetish, brings his extensive modding skills to the highly publicized $800 Olive Symphony music server. If you don't know what a music server is, it's a computer-in-a-box with music ripping and playback capabilities (aka jukebox for your living room). Read the Stereophile review and Design Technica cover for more. And if you're interested in Vinnie Rossi's Red Wine modding pedigree, check out our coverage of his iMod iPod hot rod.

The $649 Red Wine mod gets you complete battery power conversion for total isolation from the noisy grid as well as analog input and output stage and digital output mods. Vibration dampening is also added. How does all this change the sound?

The modified analog line output provides highly resolving, spacious, rich and warm sonic qualities that will rival some of the best dedicated CD players and external dacs on the market. Gone is the strident, “etchy” sound that is so typical in many costly CD players. Expect a warmer, more musical tone that emerges from a very silent, black background that only an all-battery powered source can orchestrate.

If you have already found the perfect external dac for your system, you will still need a first-rate transport to supply to it a clean digital signal. Count on the Red Wine Audio modified Olive Symphony or Musica to provide you with the very best digital audio output quality that only an all-battery powered transport can provide.

There you have it. Check it out.