Hi macspur,
ive been in the same boat looking at these nas drives and to see what they can do, with a view to getting one. My main aim is improving sq off an nas with Ethernet. These are my thoughts.
the drives like the Brennan and bluesound vault are basically, so far as sound quality off an nas, just storage drives with little more than ripping and storage, compared to say a few hundred pound nas and just ripping CDs by a computer. Obviously what you are paying in the vault is the streaming software too, and the costs to get that to market etc. Not sure of the Brennan on spec in regards streaming servicesc.
But with devices like Innuos zen or zenith and Melco n1a (and perhaps less so from advertised spec of the naim uniti core) what you are buying is a dedicated audiophile type usb streamer and nas, that you can either use usb or Ethernet connections to the hi Fi for best sound. These devices have better power supplies, fast processors for quick indexing, they play the music through a memory buffer so that you don’t get the junk off the hard drive, the hard drive is acoustically dampened, and you have isolators from the router to the streamer with dual Ethernet ports. One port goes to the streamer and another to the router, such you don’t get junk off the router. Also the zenith drives use quieter in house designed ssd drives and have linear power supplies. I think the melco might have power conditioners.
now all these things on the Innuos or melco devices may not be individually worthy of good regard, and I’m sure people on here will come in and argue the toss (I’ll leave them too it), but I’m quite sure the sound quality end game of these things combined is better than a vault or Brennan, or possibly the electoacmpaniet devices swell, which don’t have the same tech, for the sake of feeding a streamer over Ethernet or a dac by usb etc. So in this sense I don’t think the vault is comparable to the Innuos zen/zenith. From what I’m reading in the reviews, the melco has best sound quality with Innuos second. If you want a good nas with a drive, the Innuos zen mini looks good value, but it doesn’t have the same features I’ve mentioned above of higher specced Innuos stuff, or melco, and I suspect it’s little more than a pc world nas in its sound quality.
So in summary, if you are buying a device for the functionality and ability to rip from a drive in the nas, rather than computer, I think a vault or a zen mini or Brennan will serve the purpose well in comparison to a nas and pc ripper, allthough you probably pay double the price for the privilege of the more expensive devices in this type, like the vault . Something like the Brennan will be best value it seems because it would be easy to spend around £500 on a nas and ripping cd drive from pc world, as comparably the same, but if you are thinking of a device above a thousand or thousands, like has been recommended then the considerations are different ones and really trying to push best sound quality from Ethernet/usb and paying for all the things I’ve mentioned above, which probably do have good sq benefits worthy of spending more than a thousand and around £1700 for the melco, or perhaps beyond.
Ive been looking at the melco n1a/2 which doesn’t quite have the slick ripping interface of Innuos, but I think it will probably sound the best around the price. I’m not sure of the naim uniti core as to performance comparably, as details on how it benefits better sound quality above big standard nas drives are scant. But it’s similar on price. The other drives are Kstor sold by Ripcaster, but details scant too. Zone rippers look like glorified pc world nas drives, so do these kstor devices but with ssd drives.