Melco and Sonos ?

I borrowed an AR Isolator from a buddy & found it did not make a huge difference,  I tried it on both NDX & NAS ends. Yes there was a small change,  but the change was not an improvement worth the buying price.  

My buddy says its made a good improvement on his system,  but is currently rethinking his whole house ethernet system as he's found some crappy wiring into a few wall sockets.  He is thinking is his LAN is defective & the AR Isolator is filtering the resultant noise.   

Andrew E.

Andrew Everard posted:

... no benefit over my existing opto-isolated NAS set-up, ...

Andrew.. about this "opto-isolated NAS set-up"... do you have a more detailed description?

Back on topic, i have an N1A sitting under my desk so hopefully if i'm not too late getting out of work i'll have a chance to have a play later (and also answer my original question). Thanks for all the input.

James 

PS - Drpo - Google 'Mr Everard' and you'll find his informative blog. 8th of June 2015 should sort you out 

Got home a bit late to have much of a play last night but i got it setup and running. First impressions are very positive, the Melco arriving double boxed and very reminiscent of Naim packaging to ensure it’s safe and secure on its travels. The N1A itself is well built and surprisingly heavy. Setup was very easy with just a network cable, a USB cable (Chord Silver Plus) to my Devialet amp and finding a spare power socket. Power on and it boots, finds the network and gets itself an IP address.  After a few seconds the screen shows a “Checking System…” message which won’t go away. Fearing the worst, I check out the Melco support page and find it’s a known bug with v2.0 firmware (something to do with a network conflict and this is fixed in later firmware). Three button presses later and it’s downloading the latest firmware (2.2) from the internet and after a minute or so I’m fully up to date and the message has gone. The N1A is visible to my Mac over the network so I copy a few albums across and it’s ready to go. Load up Kinksy on my iPad (takes me back to my Linn DS days) and it finds the Melco and I can play music.

I didn’t get too much of a chance to listen last night and have left it copying 600 odd Gb of ALAC files across from my NAS to the internal drives so I’m looking forward to having a proper listen to find out what it brings to the party.

tonym posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

For those evaluating  a Melco for Ethernet streaming it would be interesting to compare to using various Ethernet noise isolators and/or a high quality low EMI switch or even extensive common mode filters/chokes clamped on the Ethernet lead ... the effects people describe so far on its use are similar to using devices with a lowered electrical noise floor. Perhaps the Melco really helps when you use cheap/noisy consumer switches and NAS/UPnP media servers? If so I can't help feeling there is a certain irony there....

The Melco does initially look to be a very attractive device, and indeed I noticed most exhibitors at the last Signals show were using one in their demos, but looking a bit deeper & breaking its construction down I can't help feeling something similar could be put together with a bit of care on a DIY basis at significantly less cost.

Well sure, given enough time you could probably build your own car or washing machine, but time is in short supply............so when we may, and can afford it, we should let those more knowledgeable than us supply the solution, and listen to more music instead!

I used to have a UnitiServe, until I found that a nas was just as good, if not better. Why is a Melco better than a nas. Surely all it is is a nas in a fancy box, and a fancy box that needs to live on your rack rather than being hidden away? Is it just flavour of the month? 

David O'Higgins posted:

Well sure, given enough time you could probably build your own car or washing machine, but time is in short supply............so when we may, and can afford it, we should let those more knowledgeable than us supply the solution, and listen to more music instead!

But you miss the fun of building it yourself.

Huge posted:

David O'Higgins posted:

Well sure, given enough time you could probably build your own car or washing machine, but time is in short supply............so when we may, and can afford it, we should let those more knowledgeable than us supply the solution, and listen to more music instead!

But you miss the fun of building it yourself.

Had that fun, and really enjoyed it!

Sed, tempus Fugit!

(had to struggle to let the IPad post a bit of Latin!)

I really enjoy building stuff, it's very satisfying and I never cease to be amazed when I build something electronic and it actually works! You also learn a lot about hi-fi in the process.

No problem with building things, just not got the time or inclination at the moment. I just prefer to try to put my brain in neutral when i'm not working so i'm quite happy for someone else to provide an elegant solution for me 

Working James? Not sure I...oh, hang on, I remember working, seems so long ago now.

Ah yes - plenty of time for you Tony 

HH doesn't understand why a Melco is better than a NAS. 

I don't understand why as a Naim user, if you think you can do better than a NAS, you would prefer a Melco to a Unitiserve.

Olly

Melco is located after the switch (2 Ethernet ports) or can be bought as a switch itself. The designer sees the US as complimentary in terms of ripping functionality. Were it not for frequent failures of the US I have read in the forum I too would see the US as compelling . 

Olly posted:

HH doesn't understand why a Melco is better than a NAS. 

I don't understand why as a Naim user, if you think you can do better than a NAS, you would prefer a Melco to a Unitiserve.

I do.