New Melco Arrived

tonym posted:

 

james n posted:

Has anyone tried the ripping functionality on the latest firmware ?

Hi James,

I gave it a try out of curiosity & it worked well. As I need music elsewhere I prefer to rip to AIFF using DbPoweramp.

Cheers Tony. Will have to try that out sometime. 

James

Bart posted:

tonym posted:

Bart posted:

tonym posted:

I do a similar thing; I've got a large music store on a 6TB HD attached to my iMac. I run PLEX media software on the iMac & the Melco sees this, so I can play music either stored on the Melco (the better sound) or on the iMac. If I want to move music around, I can easily do this by finding the Melco on the iMac via the network, then dragging the music from one to the other. I use a NAS for backup of the Mac & its files & the Melco sees this also, via the NAS' on-board uPnP software. It really is a most transparent and straightforward device, with lots of options.

How does Plex factor in? I'd expect the Melco to simply see the files on the Mac, regardless of any media server software running on the Mac.

Similarly, I think that the Nas's UPnP software has nothing to do with Melco's ability to "see" music files on the Nas.

My suspicion is that neither Plex nor the UPnP server on the nas are doing anything when you use the Melco

Otherwise it sounds like you use Plex to play music from the Mac, the nas's UPnP software to play music from the Nas, and I have no idea how the Melco does anything in between as it's neither playing nor storing. 

No, you need a media server, the Melco won't see just the files.

And the Melco is directly connected to your dac via usb or spdif, correct?

So in this mode of use, the Melco is used as a dac-less streamer/player, similar to what people do when using an NDX with a Chord Hugo?  (Only the Melco also has internal storage as well; perhaps HDX with a Hugo is the better analogy!)

I'm trying to understand how this piece of kit fits in!

Melco connects to my DAC via USB ( it doesn't have an SPDIF output). Melco "sees" any uPnP music on the network & routes it to DAC, as well as its own internal storage.

Bart posted:

tonym posted:

Bart posted:

tonym posted:

I do a similar thing; I've got a large music store on a 6TB HD attached to my iMac. I run PLEX media software on the iMac & the Melco sees this, so I can play music either stored on the Melco (the better sound) or on the iMac. If I want to move music around, I can easily do this by finding the Melco on the iMac via the network, then dragging the music from one to the other. I use a NAS for backup of the Mac & its files & the Melco sees this also, via the NAS' on-board uPnP software. It really is a most transparent and straightforward device, with lots of options.

How does Plex factor in? I'd expect the Melco to simply see the files on the Mac, regardless of any media server software running on the Mac.

Similarly, I think that the Nas's UPnP software has nothing to do with Melco's ability to "see" music files on the Nas.

My suspicion is that neither Plex nor the UPnP server on the nas are doing anything when you use the Melco

Otherwise it sounds like you use Plex to play music from the Mac, the nas's UPnP software to play music from the Nas, and I have no idea how the Melco does anything in between as it's neither playing nor storing. 

No, you need a media server, the Melco won't see just the files.

And the Melco is directly connected to your dac via usb or spdif, correct?

So in this mode of use, the Melco is used as a dac-less streamer/player, similar to what people do when using an NDX with a Chord Hugo?  (Only the Melco also has internal storage as well; perhaps HDX with a Hugo is the better analogy!)

I'm trying to understand how this piece of kit fits in!

Tony will correct me if I'm wrong, but the Melco has a built-in renderer: that's the part that takes the digital file and converts it into a digital audio stream that the DAC recognises. It's the first part of any Naim 'streamer' such as the NDX, and the output from that part can be taken and fed into an external DAC. Nothing to do with file storage or access.

The Melco can read the files from it's own storage and feed directly into it's renderer, but as far as I'm aware al renderers, and I assume equallytrue of the Melco, require the fires to be 'served' from a network connected external storage device by a UPnP server.

Meanwhile, Tony, can I ask: In the 'Is Melco the new Hugo' thread earlier this year, now closed, you posted that you had a N1A on trial, and liked it ... then you went for the N1Z SSD. And in recent posts you'e indicated that direct into a DAC Melco gives better SQ than Mac Mini/Audirvana.

What convinced you to get the model you did at nearly 4x the price? And re MM/Audi, does that apply to the N1A as well as the N1Z? And did the Chord QBD you were using have galvanic/rf isolation if you weren't using a separate isolator between it and MM?

IB - out of interest why do you use the Gustard interface rather than USB direct from the Mac. Not familar with the Hugo inputs so i take it that the USB > S/PDIF is superior than direct USB into the Hugo ?

I think you'd find a demo of the N1A / Z direct into the Hugo compared to your present MM/A+ setup rather interesting.

James

Innocent Bystander posted:

Meanwhile, Tony, can I ask: In the 'Is Melco the new Hugo' thread earlier this year, now closed, you posted that you had a N1A on trial, and liked it ... then you went for the N1Z SSD. And in recent posts you'e indicated that direct into a DAC Melco gives better SQ than Mac Mini/Audirvana.

What convinced you to get the model you did at nearly 4x the price? And re MM/Audi, does that apply to the N1A as well as the N1Z? And did the Chord QBD you were using have galvanic/rf isolation if you weren't using a separate isolator between it and MM?

 

Actually, although I did use Audirvana+ originally, with the Mac Mini I was finally using Amarra Symphony with built-in Dirac room correction. Despite my initial scepticism, The N1A was surprisingly better, the N1Z better still, although the jump from 1A to 1Z wasn't as great. The Chord QBD76HDSD does indeed have a galvanically isolated Async. USB input, and using Melco direct to this sounds better than via my USB to SPDIF convertor.

Innocent Bystander posted:

The Melco can read the files from it's own storage and feed directly into it's renderer, but as far as I'm aware al renderers, and I assume equally true of the Melco, require the fires to be 'served' from a network connected external storage device by a UPnP server.

This is an interesting approach, vs that of the UnitiServe.  So the Melco is both a renderer and a UPnP client (simultaneously) when used in this mode.

The uServe can be used as a renderer, and indeed I used it that way when I first bought it, connected to the Naim Dac.  In this mode, I THINK, the uServe can read the files from its own storage, or go out onto the network and find them w/out requiring them to be 'served.'  This means of course that one must use nServe to control playback, as it cannot function as a UPnP client.

I wonder why Melco chose their approach, vs. the Naim approach.  It seems to me that needing to run a UPnP server external to the Melco (when one wants to access external storage) makes things more complicated, rather than less!  

Bart posted:

I wonder why Melco chose their approach, vs. the Naim approach.  It seems to me that needing to run a UPnP server external to the Melco (when one wants to access external storage) makes things more complicated, rather than less!  

Best playback results are from using the internal storage in the Melco. The preferred way of extending the storage (if you run out) is an external USB hard drive connected to the dedicated Expansion USB port on the Melco. The ability to play from other UPnP sources is just for convenience. The other thing (like the US) the Melco does is act as a UPnP server to a Network player (i.e NDX) connected to the Player port and also appears as a UPnP server on the network (my Sonos system can see it and use it)

Indeed James. The Melco's an excellent source for my Muso.

james n posted:

IB - out of interest why do you use the Gustard interface rather than USB direct from the Mac. Not familar with the Hugo inputs so i take it that the USB > S/PDIF is superior than direct USB into the Hugo ?

I think you'd find a demo of the N1A / Z direct into the Hugo compared to your present MM/A+ setup rather interesting.

James

The USB out from the MM into Hugo didn't sound great - I described it being like a veil drawn over the the sound.. It seems the Hugo is susceptible to electrical and rf noise on the signal, as is likely with any DAC unless it has galvanic and rf isolation. Although the MM might possibly be better than some computers, the very nature of normal computer design/construction means that electrical/rf noise is inevitable, and that was almosr certainly the problem, which is consistent with the Hugo designer's observation on such interferene.

The GUstard does all the necessarry isolation, and has electrical and optical SPDIF outputs, also AES/EBU.

having learnt that the Melco can render has whetted my appetite: if I can get one sent to me for evaluation I may do so, though there's no urgency as I'm happy. However I don't really want to go back to HD, so the question is whetherthe N1A can be fitted with SSDs myself. But the other question is whether the considerbly greater cost of the N1Z is justified, hence my question to TonyM- and answered first by the OP. It's just that it is a very significant cost difference, and there's no way I need all that storage, a modest 1GB leaves pleanty of room for all the new music I' ever likey t buy for the rest of my life (I have narrow tastes in music, love what I currently have, there's pleanty of choice for different moods, and there isn't enough time to play most of them very often, as of course there are favourites - and in any case it's rare that I hear any new music that I feel is worth investing in.

Part of this thread briefly discussed ripping. Learning that it can rip as well is an added bonus, as the very occasional CDs I buy could be easily added to my collection that way, however that promps a few questions:

1. What format does/can it rip to? (Flac?)
2. someone mentioned not wanting to rip to Melco because they want to be able to place elsewhere -I thought the Melco could act as a UPnP server, and even if not I thought files could be transferred elsewhere via network?
3. Are the files as accessible on a network for metadata editing by a networkedd computer?

Innocent Bystander posted:

james n posted:

IB - out of interest why do you use the Gustard interface rather than USB direct from the Mac. Not familar with the Hugo inputs so i take it that the USB > S/PDIF is superior than direct USB into the Hugo ?

I think you'd find a demo of the N1A / Z direct into the Hugo compared to your present MM/A+ setup rather interesting.

James

The USB out from the MM into Hugo didn't sound great - I described it being like a veil drawn over the the sound.. It seems the Hugo is susceptible to electrical and rf noise on the signal, as is likely with any DAC unless it has galvanic and rf isolation. Although the MM might possibly be better than some computers, the very nature of normal computer design/construction means that electrical/rf noise is inevitable, and that was almosr certainly the problem, which is consistent with the Hugo designer's observation on such interferene.

The GUstard does all the necessarry isolation, and has electrical and optical SPDIF outputs, also AES/EBU.

having learnt that the Melco can render has whetted my appetite: if I can get one sent to me for evaluation I may do so, though there's no urgency as I'm happy. However I don't really want to go back to HD, so the question is whetherthe N1A can be fitted with SSDs myself. But the other question is whether the considerbly greater cost of the N1Z is justified, hence my question to TonyM- and answered first by the OP. It's just that it is a very significant cost difference, and there's no way I need all that storage, a modest 1GB leaves pleanty of room for all the new music I' ever likey t buy for the rest of my life (I have narrow tastes in music, love what I currently have, there's pleanty of choice for different moods, and there isn't enough time to play most of them very often, as of course there are favourites - and in any case it's rare that I hear any new music that I feel is worth investing in.

 

Ah i see re the Gustard. Makes a lot of sense if the Hugo is susceptible to noise on the USB interface. Certainly from the tests results, the Melco USB output is electrically quiet which gives measurable results downstream at the output of the connected DAC.

What are your concerns over the HDD vs SSD ?. I can't hear the drives in the N1A unless i press my ear to the case where there is a faint whine audible. I used to run a optimised headless MM with A+, max ram, SSD, Uptone Regen etc and that worked very well but the N1A takes this up another level completely. Quite an eye opener.

I'll be interested in your thoughts if you get one on loan to try out. 

James

1. FLAC or WAV.

2. It's just a convenience thing with me. I've a system in our holiday home that runs off my Macbook Pro, using Amarra Symphony iRC & iTunes into a Naim V1 DAC so I want files ripped in AIFF for playback on that. I'm mostly sat at my iMac so it's easier not to get up to rip the CDs on the Melco. Sure, I can access them anyway on the network but then I'd want to convert them to AIFF.

3. Yes, as above.

Here's a screenshot showing the music files on the Melco, from my iMac :-

james n posted:

What are your concerns over the HDD vs SSD ?. I can't hear the drives in the N1A unless i press my ear to the case where there is a faint whine audible. I used to run a optimised headless MM with A+, max ram, SSD, Uptone Regen etc and that worked very well but the N1A takes this up another level completely. Quite an eye opener.

 

My preference for SSD is based on 2 considerations really, noise and reliability:

My MM with SSDs is completely inaudible from 3ft away in a quiet room, whereas with any computer I have had I could hear the hard drives whirring and clicking from further, above the loud background cooling fan noise of the computer itself. I couldn't hear the HDDs at the listening position from my NAS with WD red drives when I used it as server in the listening room, but then the NAS fan itself was unpleasantly noisy from the listening position just 8-10 feet away, and I've no idea if I'd have heard the HDDs without the fan noise. I accept your observation, so maybe that is i minor consideration.

HDDs do suffer from wear, and eventually most fail. Most concern about SSD reliability is to do with re-writing, but in this use that is negligible, so they should be expected to last considerably longer than HDDs.

SSDs are also faster, but in this application I think that is probably irrelevant.

Innocent Bystander posted:

james n posted:

What are your concerns over the HDD vs SSD ?. I can't hear the drives in the N1A unless i press my ear to the case where there is a faint whine audible. I used to run a optimised headless MM with A+, max ram, SSD, Uptone Regen etc and that worked very well but the N1A takes this up another level completely. Quite an eye opener.

 

My preference for SSD is based on 2 considerations really, noise and reliability:

My MM with SSDs is completely inaudible from 3ft away in a quiet room, whereas with any computer I have had I could hear the hard drives whirring and clicking from further, above the loud background cooling fan noise of the computer itself. I couldn't hear the HDDs at the listening position from my NAS with WD red drives when I used it as server in the listening room, but then the NAS fan itself was unpleasantly noisy from the listening position just 8-10 feet away, and I've no idea if I'd have heard the HDDs without the fan noise. I accept your observation, so maybe that is i minor consideration.

HDDs do suffer from wear, and eventually most fail. Most concern about SSD reliability is to do with re-writing, but in this use that is negligible, so they should be expected to last considerably longer than HDDs.

SSDs are also faster, but in this application I think that is probably irrelevant.

Your noise concern is not something I have experienced so far and I am already using the Melco for quite some time. With regards to the reliability you have a point. But that's for me the sense of making sure that you always have backups. The scary topic of nowadays in this digital world is more on how would you know that you lost an album or a song due to disk problems. I have already been faced with this problem based on my old NAS setup and it's kind of scary, and frustrating as well as the collection is too big to monitor without tools. 

Just so I understand correctly, if using the Player port rather than ethernet port from the Melco into a Naim streamer you lose functionality but gain in sound quality?

This doesn't tally with Ed Selley's review from HFC where he said a factory reset of the ND5XS allowed iPad control from the Naim app as before.

i didn't post whatever prompted this,  but from my current learning about the Melco I think I can answer: The Melco is effectively a NAS and Renderer rolled into one. The ND5XS is a Rendarer and DAC rolled into one. I know from personal experience that a Mac Mini/Audirvana (NAS/Renderer) into a Hugo DAC beats an ND5XS renderer into Hugo DAC. Recieved wisdom is that Melco gives significantly better quality than MM/Au. SO on that basis MM/Au would be expected to be very significantly better than the ND5XS Renderer, depending on whether the DAC is capable of resolving the difference. IF the DAC of the ND5XS is capable of that, then assuming the player port on the Melco is the rendered output to DAC, plugging into the ND5XS's digital input would be using the Melco renderer and give a better sound compared to simply using the Melco as a NAS across the network.

It's nothing to do with control, however I assume if using the Melco as renderer you'd need to use it's control, and if just using as a NAS you'd use the ND5's control

There have been numbers of clear assessments that Melco, even base model, is way ahead sound quality wise than Mac Mini with rendering software. Because not all rendering software is the same, and because MM's electrical/rf noise can affect inadequately isolated DACs, can I ask the question more specifically, with apologies to anyone who might have already given the answer: 

How does Melco SQ compare with Mac Mini running Audirvana in optimised/dedicated mode (USB out), either into a galvanically and rf isolated DAC (e.g. Hugo TT), or if not e.g. Hugo), through an isolating device that removes noise and rf (typically a USB isolator/convertor, though there are others)?

Over the years i've been into computer audio, i've used a number of different software players for my Mac n DAC front ends (, Plain iTunes, Amarra, Pure Music, Bit Perfect, Audivarna) on my MM with both Firewire (into Weiss DACS and USB) with a diversion along the way into UPnP via Linn and Naim streamers. Each player has a slightly different presentation and eventually i settled on Audivarna and was quite pleased with the additional boost in SQ using it in dedicated mode with iTunes integration turned off. Even more was to come from adding an Uptone Regen  ( see https://forums.naimaudio.com/topic/uptone-audio-regen for thoughts on this). 

Adding the Melco took things a lot further. Music has real sparkle and is so foot tappingly addictive to listen to - the MM sounds a bit stilted in comparison. Low bass definition has improved being tighter and more rythmic. On top of that the Devialet is already a very quiet device with very a low noise floor but this has dropped even further so it's extremely revealing of low level detail. The Mac has been great and has been a very fine source, but the Melco really suprised me in how much better this dedicated solution performed. 

Mileage will always vary, depending upon system, ears etc but i'm very pleased and still very much in the Honeymoon period (6 months on !) with the Melco.

Hope that helps. 

James

Thanks, James.

The UPtone Regen is close enough to the Gustard I use, I think. Anyone else have similar experience of that specific comparison?

I think, Mr Innocent Bystander, that it's time for you to borrow a Melco to try.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Part of this thread briefly discussed ripping. Learning that it can rip as well is an added bonus, as the very occasional CDs I buy could be easily added to my collection that way, however that promps a few questions:

1. What format does/can it rip to? (Flac?)
2. someone mentioned not wanting to rip to Melco because they want to be able to place elsewhere -I thought the Melco could act as a UPnP server, and even if not I thought files could be transferred elsewhere via network?
3. Are the files as accessible on a network for metadata editing by a networkedd computer?

It rips to FLAC or WAV, plugged in a Samsung Blu-Ray, it found it, loaded a CD and it rips to an import_cd folder.

Took about 5 mins, everything on autopilot, very straight forward and simple to do, no issues at all. 

Whilst evaluating the Chord Hugo vs HugoTT vs Dave on Monday, I had a very brief go with a Melco N1A. The system at the time was usb connection to Chord Dave, direct into Bryston 4Bsst3 power amp, and PMC Fact 12 speakers. Comparison was with Mac Mini running Audirvana in optimised/dedicated mode. Music was copied from the MM across a network connection to the Melco before running. Unfortunately only a few minutes to try (nearing end of 4 hour session, with a 9 hour journey home timebound by a ferry), so only a first impression over maybe10-20 minutes rather than a proper evaluation, and no time to try with the lesser DACs.

If there  was a difference, it was too subtle to stand out in that short session. I really need longer, but that first impression suggests that the extra cost compared to MM/Audirvana might does not seem to be justified (though admittedly if used into the base Hugo instead of the Dave,  the MM comparison has to include an isolator making the cost difference smaller, and increasing the relative complexity of the MM approach). From discussions I believe I may be able to have a home demo despite need for postal supply - but clearly that should also include the N1Zssd to have a chance of a significant performance difference, and I can't help but think that if (which is an extremely big if) I was going to spend that much money on a Melco and still proceed with upgrading Hugo to TT as planned, I'd probably get more benefit from just upgrading the DAC all the way to Dave.