Melco N1A Digital Music Store - does digital affect analogue

[donuk]

Hello fellow addicts,
I put the following post on the Linn forum a few days ago, and place it here for discussion with Mr L's gracious approval. I note from previous threads that several folk here have already considered some of the issues which seem to go on in this box:-

It happened a couple of weeks ago – I had been reading about how NAS drives may contribute to hifi sound. I have a single disc Qnap, and had been toying with the idea of building a simple conventional power supply to see if there were any sonic differences.

The mistake I made was to go into the Sound Organisation, York, and see and hear a sleek silver box – the Melco N1A Digital Music Store. Hamish and his crew are not given to nine-day wonders, and to hear them enthusing about his project, caused me to borrow one for the weekend!

It can be placed between one’s existing network and the DS. Self-installing – producing music in seconds. And I was surprised to hear such a difference in presentation of the music. Notes have a better decay, music seems slower and more luscious – yes many of the usual hifi platitudes. I even walked into the kitchen and hummed the tune! I got SHMBO to do an ABAB sort of test, not knowing which was which. She is not a hifi phreak but has good ears. “That one is clearer, you can hear the instruments better.”
Dear Reader, I bought one.
Worth £1,600? Well, I have spent more than that on a phono preamplifier in the past to achieve a similar sort of improvement.
There are two levels of improvement, as Hamish explained. Firstly when you plug the Melco into your system, you can of course still access your old Nas. Even playing music from this, which has to reach the DS through the Melco, brings about a noticeable improvement – this, I understand, is partially due to the optical coupling offered by the Melco. The second level of improvement is noticed when you play music stored on the 2 x 2TB drives of the Melco – presumably brought about through better power supply and quiet environment (also no fan!).
Anybody else tried one at home?
So perhaps the maxim of “source first” has manifested itself in the digital age....

Anyone heard one?

Don, sunny downtown York

[Lego]

Hi Don how are you getting on with the Melco .have you compared it to different NASs with different DSs.eg. Melco and MajikDS with generic nas and Akurate DS ?..If you know what I mean!?

Leo

[Luxur333]

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[Music Lover]

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[Spannko]

I've had a Melco N1A at home for a few days to compare against my QNAP251/Intel 320 SSD combination.

I felt that the Melco was way better than the QNAP both musically and sound wise and that the improvements were more like what would be expected from an expensive component upgrade. Considering the gains to be had, I think that £1750 for the Melco represents reasonable value for money.

I've also had the chance to compare the N1A to the more expensive N1ZH (£3500). Oh dear! What a mistake!

Everything about the N1ZH was better than the N1A. It was even more tuneful and coherent and the sound was even better. There was clearly no going back!!! I was conscious that one reviewer felt that the most expensive Melco (£7000'ish) didn't have the "pace" of the N1A, so this was something I paid close attention to. However, at no time did my dealer or me think the N1ZH was rhythmically worse than the N1A. On the contrary, we felt that the timing was very analog like. It was like the difference made by going from a Majik power supply to a Lingo on an LP12. It was a really significant and fundamental difference.