When we started dealing with Melco Audio, they were part of Buffalo. The paradox here is that Buffalo was created, initially making print buffers (clue is in the name), as a division of MELCO – which was one of the original ultra-high-end boutique Japanese Hi-Fi manufacturers. As of late May 2016, Melco Audio comes directly under holding company, MELCO. Got it? Questions at the end. 🙂
We have known their General Manager, Alan Ainslie, for virtually all the time we’ve been in business. His CV is impressive and the knowledge that he has brought to this has been crucial. Mind you when he mentioned to us that he was working on this new project, we were as baffled as anyone else.
This is a range of high end music data storage devices designed purely for music replay and their brilliance has got us quite fired-up.
These can work as UPnP music servers, running various music server software options, or as combined storage / renderers, outputting the audio via USB into a suitably equipped DAC. If you connect a USB3 CD drive, you can import CDs in WAV or FLAC format straight to the drive. Or even play a CD without importing in real-time!
Providing the Melco is sitting on an Ethernet network, control can be via Apple or Android devices running a plethora of alternative control ‘apps’.
As a UPnP server, it offers some intriguing benefits over even the most accomplished servers that we’ve tried.
Feeding, say, a Naim streamer, the Melco connects to the Ethernet network exactly like any other device. Unusually, though, it also has a dedicated ‘PLAYER’ Ethernet port. Connect the streamer to this and it has access to the internal contents of the Melco along with any other storage devices located on the network. Access to online services, Tidal, Internet Radio, etc connect just as normal.
Surprisingly, these existing devices, be they Naim Uniti Serve or Asset running on, say a QNAP device, sound noticeably better, cleaner less ‘hashy’, more musical, when accessed via the Melco’s ‘quiet’ cleaned and re-clocked feed.
Move the same data onto the Melco’s internal storage and a broadly similar step happens all over again. We’ve done the comparative dem countless times and it is really easy to hear. This sonic benefit is also brought to Internet Radio or Tidal on-line streaming, by the way.
The benefits of the improved Ethernet feed are one thing, those who have compared the USB output with other devices such Macs , PCs, Raspberry thingumajigs etc. have reported that the Melco outclasses them quite decisively.
The USB feed is so clean that devices that are supposed to clean such things up have negligible affect.
The ‘entry level’ N1A-2 has 6TB of storage and will impress you greatly.
The higher end N1Zs-2 costs a whole lot more but, by virtue of better power supplies and higher quality circuitry, as well as the SSD drives in the top model (which don’t constantly shunt data around like computer drives do) gives an even larger improvement.
There is a 6TB N1ZH-2 with conventional HDD which sits in ability terms somewhere between N1A and the SSD version of N1Z.
This is a very simple good – better – best demonstration, although a fourth lower end offering is due late 2018.
All, with the exception of the forthcoming lower level server, come in black and silver.
Only a demonstration can show you what these devices can achieve. Customers have listened compared, contrasted, gulped . . . then bought! Home demonstrations are an option for those local to us.
