Gramophone – September 2019

136 GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2019 gramophone.co.uk

HIGHFIDELITY

MELCO N100

Type Digital media library

Price £1800

Hard drive capacity 2TB HDD

Connectivity ‘LAN’ and ‘Player’ Ethernet

ports, 3xUSB3.0 (two rear, one front) for

storage, USB audio, etc

Control Front-panel touchscreen or

smartphone/tablet apps

Accessories supplied SongKong and

MinimServer software (installed, activated

online), power supply

Dimensions (WxHxD) 21.5x6.1x26.9cm

melco-audio.com

I

nthefiveyearssincetheMelcobrand

firstappearedontheaudiostage,the

companyhasestablisheditselfasago-to

solutionforthosewantingtostream

theirmusicfromsomethingotherthan

acomputerormulti-purposenetwork-

attachedstoragedevice.Backin 2014

theaudiophileMelcoN1musicsystem

waslaunchedbytheJapanesestorage

companyBuffalo,itselfasubsidiaryof

MelcoHoldings–andifthatisn’talready

confusingenough,Melcostartedoutbackin

1975 asanaudioequipmentmanufacturer

beforemovingintothecomputerequipment

marketin1981,takingtheBuffaloname

fromoneofitsoriginalcomputerproducts,

aprintermemorybuffer.

Theaudioproductwasthusalogical

move,Melcohavingboththeaudioknow-

howandthehard-drivetechnologytobuild

equipmentwellsuitedtotheneedsofmusic

serving,wheretypicallycontentiswritten

oncetoadriveandthenneedstoberead

manytimes,sometimessimultaneouslyby

severalclients.TheinitialMelcooffering

remainsessentiallyunchanged:astorage

solutionwithdrivesoptimisedformusic,

andwithanetworkingimplementation

abletoisolateanattachednetworkmusic

playerfromtheilleffectsofeverythingelse

happeningonthehomenetwork.

Inrecenttimes,though,there’sbeena

subtleshiftinthethinkingatMelco.While

thatisolatednetworkconnectionisstill

verymuchpartoftheoffering–allthe

company’smachineshavetwoEthernet

ports,onemarked‘LAN’forthenetwork

andtheotherasdirectfeedforanetwork

musicplayer,lackingeventheusual

EthernetindicatorLEDsinthequestfor

interferencesuppression–there’sanew

emphasisintheuseoftheMelcodevices

as‘musictransports’intheirownright,

designedtobeusedstraightintoadigital-

to-analogueconverterviaaUSBoutput.

That’stheconfigurationofthemost

affordableMelcomodel,thenewN100,

whichsellsfor£1800andhasbeen

launchedalongsideaflagshiptwo-box

launched at the 2019 High End Show in

Munich. This is designed to give easy and

accurate music cataloguing and browsing

tailored to specifi c musical genres,

including a set of parameters especially

designed for classical music and offering an

exemplary level of ‘deep-diving’ into the

detail of music stored on the N100.

There’s so much to say about this system

that I’m taking the unusual step of devoting

this month’s Audio Essay to the problem of

tagging classical music and how the Melco

software addresses it. Suffi ce it to say here,

the system offers remarkable granularity –

to use the currently fashionable term – in

exploring even large libraries of music.

And the sound? Well, regular readers

will know that in the past I’ve been less

than convinced with what the Melcos offer

when used as a server for network music

players; but then I run a highly optimised

network for music with optical isolation.

However, ‘breaking’ my network by going

back to plugging everything into my

internet provider’s router, then inserting

the Melco between network and player,

showed defi nite improvements in focus and

general clarity with the Melco in harness,

thus making the music considerably more

interesting and involving.

The same goes when using the Melco’s

USB output into a variety of DACs, in

place of a computer: there’s a graininess

with a standard computer that’s entirely

absent with the N100 and it’s clear that the

digital feed is cleaner, with less noise. Used

this way, even budget DACs of the likes

of the Meridian Explorer2 and the Chord

Mojo have considerably more sparkle and

dynamics, showing the value of a decent

single-purpose digital ‘transport’ in a

system such as this.

combination, the £6750 N10, which has

a separate offboard linear power supply.

The N100 shares with that model newly

designed ‘half-width’ casework, with

matching expansion units available in the

form of the D100 CD Loader, used for

ripping discs for storage, and the E100

expansion drive, to supplement the 2TB

of internal storage of the N100.

Like all Melco products, the N100 is

designed from scratch as a pure audio

device, containing no standard IT or PC

parts – everything is custom-designed

in-house – and with an eye to ease of

set-up and use. Using the same internal

architecture as the company’s N1 series

‘full size’ digital music library, including

Melco’s HS-S2 (Highly Stable Storage

System) anti-vibration system, it’s a fanless

design, built on a 2mm sheet-steel chassis

and with aluminium front and top plates.

It can be controlled from the front panel

or over the network using a smartphone or

tablet running a control app: at the time

of writing the much-promised Melco App

was still very much ‘forthcoming’ but third-

party UPnP apps such as Linn’s Kinsky,

Bubble UPnP and others will do the job

very nicely for now.

It supports fi le formats all the way up to

384kHz/32 bit and Octo DSD (or DSD512,

with its 11.2MHz sampling rate), and

content can be loaded on to the N100 using

‘drag and drop’ on a computer on the same

network or from USB storage, for which

ports are provided front and rear. You can

even, should you wish, use a computer-type

USB CD drive to rip discs to it, and connect

conventional USB storage to the ports to

expand or back up the internal storage.

PERFORMANCE

The review unit was the fi rst black sample

of the N100 to be released – but that

was far from the only remarkable thing

about this little unit, which is just 21.5cm

wide, stands a shade over 6cm tall and is

a featherweight 3kg. The N100 can serve

content to external devices using Twonky

Server 8.5 and even offer direct music

downloads from online retailers – at the

moment only highresaudio.com, with

others on the way – but that’s standard

Melco fare. What was new on the review

sample was the provision of the company’s

Melco Intelligent Music Library software,

REVIEW MELCO N100

Server with a stylish twist

The entry-level music library server/player from

Japan’s audio storage experts has a trick up its sleeve

The new software is

designed for classical music

and o ers an exemplary level

of ‘deep-diving’ into the detail