Melco - what would it do for me (if anything)?

Streaming Audio
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Core / ND555 / 552 DR / 300 DR / T88

Roon running on headless Mac Mini.

More than half of my listening is material from Tidal / Qobuz via Roon.

Have wondered about getting a Roon Nucleus (or home build) in place of the Mac Mini (it is high spec but 8 years old now).

But am wondering if I should be considering Melco - not sure I understand what most of their products would do for me, however (ie. how they would fit into my system). I like the Core and am not sure I’d give it up.

Can you explain?

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I‘m running a Melco with ND555 via upnp two days now…what does it bring? SQ! Probably the best digital file storage you can buy. I noticed much more details, wider soundstage, instruments in 3D - razor sharp. Got a switch btw. ND555 and Melco. As always- test it in your setup…

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I can’t see what a Melco would bring to the party in your setup given your Roon and Core setup - If the Mac is working well then i’d not rush to change. The Nucleus is a great plug and play solution (i use on) but you can do the same at lower cost with a NUC and Roon Rock - plenty of advice on the Roon forum for this.

A decent switch (the usual Cisco 2960) would be beneficial though if you’ve not already gone this route.

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I listened to one and couldn’t hear any improvement over a Mac mini (no Roon though, I use JRiver). Your experience may be different from mine. Plus I may be susceptible to expectation bias as I didn’t expect anything special. Point is only you can decide if you hear a difference.

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Thanks. Am having intermittent issues with Roon stopping mid track and the iOS client sometimes taking a while to find the Roon core. Not sure if Mac mini is at fault or not. This is more of a problem recently but only thing which has changed is update to Roon software. Got fast fibre broadband. Already got Cisco 2960 for Uniticore and ND555. Saw that Melco now have a v expensive switch, the S100 but not sure that the marketing explanation of its raison d’etre is credible. Hence my initial question (at least in part)…

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T38.45 is completely right it brings you together with Nd555 an higher level sound…unity core is okey nice but Melco is really impressive

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If you are talking about the Melco switch, there is a thread on that: Ethernet switches and cables mania.
As for Melco servers, a lot of Nd555 use it. The middle Melco will uplift the sound vs the Core, at least my experience and some here.

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I think in those days when Naim came out with their unity core it was intended to be more as a ripper than actually a pro server,server was some extra kind better achivement than a pc or a regular nas

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You can still use the Melco to feed the ND555 through its dedicated streamer port, using the Roon Core, on the Mac Mini, to serve the content stored either on the Melco or on a NAS.
You will benefit from the network isolation while still having the benefit of Roon, given Melco use either Twonky or Minim as their in-built UPnP server technology.
I understand, chatting with Dave Spears at the Dublin Audio Show, who is working with Melco, that this is becoming a common configuration.

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Melco owners are waiting for Melco to fulfill a promise to make various of their music servers Roon ready AFAIK.

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