The 3TB Challenge

People are sometimes affraid of a bigger nas. I invest for a 8 bay Qnap and it is simply great. I actually use 4 bays and have time to see the end. For the sound effect, it is not pssible to put a dedicated power supply regulated or so but the internat power supply is designed to work harder and 24 hours a day for years.
I choose the right RJ45 cables audioquest and add a powerline to the NAS - yes i heard a difference. The result is perfect.

On normal working days I get an hour during my workout in the morning, a 20/30 minutes at breakfast. In the evening I get normally an hour till three hours depending on the evening. During the day at work I also have on average 1 - 2 hours on my Sony. During the weekend I get a couple of hours a day of listening, 3-5.

so of course I never will get through my whole collection it would require already right now close to 6000 hours, but I am not doing bad in total. 

So today I had a revealing demo at my dealer of what the Melco can do. And I would say a no brainier upgrade for 2k for the hard disk version. So much more air, clarity, musicality....., that it's amazing.

Now we will have to wait that they come up with Wav conversion and I hope they can put the two tb disks in non mirroring mode, so that the device would give me 4tb.

i will keep you updated on the experience when it arrives.

This is very interesting Bert thank you.

One of my local dealers has pushed the Melco and recommended I demo it. Be good to hear your thoughts as you demo more of its capabilities.

Just try a A-B comparison with something like The Koln Concert on 24 bit and you are sold....

I listened to a system with a 282 and 300DR, while a good system not even a 500 series system.

Ps - is there anybody already using the Melco and what have been your experiences, would appreciate the sharing of this information in the forum. For some people they might also consider as Hugo fans to directly connext the Melco to the Hugo and be done with the source side of things.

Bert,

Pretty sure you can configure the disks so that they are not mirrored which will give you the full capacity.  If you already have a separate NAS drive and planned to retain the music there this set up would make sense.

Have you heard the SSD version (6K)?  I did an A/B comparison (NDS without Melco then with) through a full Statement systems into Ovator S600s.  I only needed to hear about 10 seconds of the first track to realise it sounded much better.  Probably next on the list after the NAP 300DRs for me, possibly with a second 555 PS.

I didn't hear the SSD version, but indeed it seems even to be in another league. I will listen with interest but will not spent that kind of money on that component. 

My my dealer told me that the SSD was a killer on a line system.

When operating without the Melco, what was the source of the digital data for the NDS?  Was it a UnitiServe, a NAS or a USB stick?

Hi Huge it was a QNAP NAS which also had a specific power-supply - so not just a standard NAS setup. Without the power supply it wouyld have been a bigger difference....

Hi Bert, I don't doubt that at all - and it corresponds to my experience.

It's well worth doing a comparison to a USB stick though, as that cuts out all network issues (assuming the network cable to the NDS is disconnected and all the network devices are disconnected from the mains!).

It's a shame the Melco does not support SPDIF.. As I am quite interested in the device.  For me USB is just not suitable for top flight audio where very low noise is required .. Async audio over Isochronous USB is more electrically noisy than UTP Ethernet patch leads..

Simon

I'm interested in the Melco myself; I noticed at the recent Signals hi-fi show the majority of demonstrations were using one. My only problem is that I could no longer use Dirac room correction without investing in a separate MinDSP unit.

Personally I've no problem with async.USB, It's down to what sounds best. At present, I can't use the USB input on my Chord DAC because Chord have yet to issue the necessary drivers for El Capitan (OK, maybe I should have waited before upgrading but I forgot...) so I'm using the SPDIF input, but it doesn't sound as good.

I'm quite keen on this also but assumed the ethernet out into (soon to arrive) 272 would be the optimum way of transferring the media?

Is network to SPDIF conversion boxes adding another layer to the information delivery thats best avoided?

Quite like the idea of direct connection to your download partners, so HiRes purchased music is downloaded directly to the Melco.

I have been using USB for connection between a computer and DAC for more than five years.

This method effectively makes the computer soundcard spare, which is no bad thing, unless you have a really splendid example. Initially I used a Windows based PC and non-asynchronous DACs. My first experiment was with a very inexpensive Chinese Muse DAC, followed shortly after by a slightly more expensive Aune [also Chinese], and the Aune at least is still giving pleasure in a friend’s system. 

Then I went upmarket and got an rDAC, and not long after that converted to Apple MAC Mini as the computer. The keystone was put into place two and a half years ago, being the DAC V1. This was a really significant improvement over the previous DACs, possibly because there are advantages to a properly implemented asynchronous USB approach, and just as likely the competence of the analogue output stage and well implemented use of the DAC microchips.

In any case, it is so fine that I am not left with a feeling that there is something that needs improving.

I used un-modified iTunes with AIFF music files. These are similar to WAV, but tagging is simplicity itself. I have in the region of 10,500 individual tracks amounting to 475 GB of storage. That is quite enough music, being end to end about thirty-three and half days of music. For music not in the MAC I listen to Radio Three, or watch youtube ...

ATB from George

The Melco USB output can connect to external DAC's so should be able to drive a Hugo. 

Yes that's the intention of the connectivity. While most people will use it as a high quality NAS.

I'm interested in hearing one (N1A) now they've enabled the USB out. Supposed to be very good and work very well with my amp. 

Synology DS415 NAS drive to Netgear 108 switch to NDS/555 using Audioquest Cinnamon Ethernet cables.

Im currently using 3 NAS drives, 2x 2tb and 1 x 6tb (running as 2 x 3tb drives in mirrored mode & iTunes server) plus a 2tb usb drive.

I mainly purchase flacs and then convert them to ALAC as I use iTunes as my music server/organiser.

The ALACs are added via iTunes to the 6tb NAS as are any ripped CDs, old radio shows I find etc etc.

This NAS then backs up to one of the 2tb NAS drives daily. The original FLACs are then stored on the 3rd NAS drive and backed up manually to the 2tb usb drive.

This way I have 3 up too date copies of my complete iTunes library at any given time as well as a dual backup of the FLACs.

The 3rd NAS also is home to my Time Machine backups.

The usb drive also is home to my carbon copy laptop drives cloned backup and I have a separate 256gb SSD drive that has the main carbon copy bootable cloned backup on it, these two backups are done weekly.

All NAS drives are in another room and connected via a Netgear switch and cat 6 ethernet cable to an Asus router, the Uniqute is connected straight to the router via cat 6 cable as well and the other drives via usb 3 direct to the laptop.

Yes I know it all sounds a bit anal but a few years ago I had a hard drive fail on me and as I had no backup lost nearly a whole albums worth of material Id been working on plus several thousand photographs as well as all my music collection, I swore never to let it happen again.

It's quite normal to be a bit anal about backups. If I look at the time invesred in ripping all my cd's and the money spent on downloading files, you don't want to consider for one moment that you lost it all.

Dan, it depends on the angle you are coming from. USB in many ways is like an Ethernet transport and so you can consider then equivalent from adding layers of indirection, albeit asynchronous audio over USB is more simple than audio encoded within TCP.

SPDIF is simply a half duplex framing protocol that encodes the audio. SPDIF adds the least overhead, although there are overheads they are minimal.

However for me it's the electrical interfaces that are key in connected high quality audio. By design Isochronius USB, as used in USB a sync audio is electrically noisy.. The feedback mechanisms work by forcing the twisted serial pair out of balance thereby generating a radiated electro magnetic field which can couple into places you don't want.

Therefore in my experience of noise produced from interfaces and cables I have in my least to worst I have

SPDIF over TOSLINK (fibre)

AES/EBU (balanced SPDIF pro)

SPDIF (consumer)

Ethernet (4 pair twisted cable)

USB (Isochronous transfer)

Obvioulsy this doesn't determine the necessary derived audio quality, but with all other things being equal I suspect it might.

Simon

Rob Watts, otoh, says that USB is the best sounding input on the Chord Hugo TT, albeit by a small margin, over s/pdif. I just don't see how you can make such a sweeping generalisation that USB is not suitable for top-flight audio when people who actually design top flight audio disagree with you! 

Because likesmusic I know only too well how these interfaces work and experience on EMC, I don't need to protect any product sales (with these devices at least). I am a professional engineer, not marketeer, so forgive me for being direct.

i suspect if you spoke to Rob Watts one to one away from bramd associated social media about the engineering and issues concerned the discussion would be somewhat different. I do exactly the same in my professional circles, it's a fact of life.

They key part of my assertion was all other things being equal... Were they? 

So you are saying, bluntly, that Rob Watts personal statements are lies? And your reason for that is that you yourself have to lie professionally, therefore he must too. That is an absolutely shocking accusation, and a shocking thing to do. But of course as a "professional engineer" you must have measurements to back up your claims about the inferior USB performance of a TT. May we have a link please.