Melco N100

[What Hi-Fi?]

If you’re looking for a high-quality music streamer, Melco’s N100 is one you should consider.

Melco N100 : Read more

 

[manicm]

Nah, by the time you add a DAC you’re looking at 3k. That’s a serious wad of cash even if it’s got built in storage.

 

[Dom]

My PC has a 4TB HDD, 512GB NVME M.2 SSD, a NVidia 1660Ti, Intel 7700k and USB 3.1 gen 2. This is like a cable debate. There's USB specification, otherwise your 10Gb's would fail. I would still like to try it though.

 

[ijabz]

The dedicated software that references multiple databases to ensure that every file is categorised as accurately as possible is called SongKong, also available for other PC. Macs ecetera - http://www.jthink.net/songkongformelco/

 

[Santa]

If you’re looking for a high-quality music streamer, Melco’s N100 is one you should consider.

Melco N100 : Read more

So I have some flac original recordings, lossless and essentially the original data. If I'm playing these I'd expect that a streamer should be decoding the data and outputting PCM to my DAC without touching it. It's being processed digitally.
The exception might be if you are playing a lossy/ compressed format the codec may be upscalling so would be dependant on algorithms.
Any change in sound is going to come from the DAC, Amplifier, Speakers or any analog interconnects which for this test remained the same.
Some additional information on the codecs the manufactures use would be interesting and also analysing the PCM data to see if there are actually any differences.
And another question, were both streamers sending PCM or DSD?

 

[LeighHughes]

This does not look like a £2k piece of kit. If I'm spending that amount, I want it to look the part, as well as sound good.

 

[simonali]

What a lot of nonsense. I bet if the tester didn't know which bit of kit was playing they'd not be able to tell which was which!

 

[biker_rich]

If you’re looking for a high-quality music streamer, Melco’s N100 is one you should consider.

Melco N100 : Read more

If you want a high quality streamer without a DAC, with the same - if not better - functionality then get a cheap PC or Raspberry PI. This review just reinforces What HiFi's ineptitude and total lack of understanding of digital technology. More expensive does not necessarily mean better. The Melco does not produce better 1's & 0's than a £40 Raspberry PI once it's decoded a compressed media file using standard decompression algorithms they are the same 1's and 0's.

 

[marconiuk]

It may or may not sound good but to be honest, it looks like something you would buy off wish.com

 

[Yggy]

One tip I was given when I bought an N100 was to use the MinimStreamer extension in MinimServer to transcode FLAC files to WAV before you send it to your DAC to reduce the amount of processing it has to do.