I can’t say anything about comparing those two but I’m very happy with my N1ZH/2, which work for me purely as a storage music libry device as well.
I don’t think, you will gain anything from EX version. I was thinking about upgrading mine to EX version which cost in the Netherlands about €300 but I didn’t find any benefit by doing that.
We all sream files or albums from the Melco or Innuos, used only as Nas. And we appreciate the real differences in sound quality. But the entry level ones doesn’t make a big uplift.
If you echo the thoughts about nd555 (definition bass but. A bit lighter), how do you think about the uplift from synology to melco - if you could remember
As I remember (it was 3 years ago) and with my own words😅; much better separation between the instruments and vocals, it was quite big improvement over the Synology.
In my system I found the Melco N1Zh2 compliments the ND555 nicely. The Melco tended toward a fuller bass presentation and the ND555 with one PS a bit leaner and they complimeted.
But I went for ND555 with two PS as it was a big upgrade and then the ND555 is very neutral in the right way presenting Bass. The Melco could over-blow this unless carefully positioned and tweaked on its own Fraim shelf - then it works in a sumptuous way I like in presenting good musical detail down into the noise-floor, which I really need to have in my system for involvement.
I found a good switch - I use the Ether Regen (ER) - was a very nice and complimentary upgrade to the above. I find ER feeding the Melco which in turn feeds the ND555 gives superb results in my system; I did try feeding Melco and ND555 seperately from ER, but is did not have any musical cohesion for me.
Thanks a lot - this is what I want to hear. Perfect. Fuller bass is what I really like to obtain. Melco is the way. Now I only need to find a black one - found a good priced silver one, but really like to have a black one
There are some melco models listed
E.g. Melco N1Z/2 EX - H60
is this the one?
And … I have all my music as wav on hdx - a lot of them ripped.
As hdx rips are a bit different, I assume I can only transfer it via flac to melco. Or copy all wav albums and tag all of them manually - this is months work,
Really would like to use wav instead of flac. Sound better in my ears…
wav as format isn’t a problem for Melco at all, with tagging the albums maybe SongKong would help.
Therefore EX version would be (I guess) a better option.
If you use your HDX as a server you can convert WAV to FLAC on it, then you shouldn’t have to worry about metadata compatibility if you later move to Melco or other hardware.
Then, if you still want to serve WAV from the HDX, get it to transcode FLAC to WAV ‘on the fly’. This is a rare example of being able to have your cake and eat it. You get the reduced file size and improved metadata handling of FLAC, as well as the potentially better sound quality of WAV from your Naim streamer.
Thanks a lot. I know this and have already set it up in serve. Strangely the streames displays flac, when I play a flac file from hdx as sever. When I use hdx as player transcoding works.
Transcoding to flac helps for metadata.
But as far as I remember, the metadata from hdx rips are not imbedded in the files itself, but in one separate file.
When I copy the naked wavs to melco at best I must tell the metadata program on the melco, which album it should look for.
A lot of work
It’s the right model of Melco. @Darkebear should help you how to have WAV on the Melco and have still the correct metadata and albums covers.
I use AIFF for downloads and my cd rips are FLAC. The difference between Flac and Wav are however insignificant for me.
With FLAC the metadata is embedded, even it its Naim FLAC. Only the Naim WAV files store metadata separately. If you watch a CD rip on a computer while it’s being converted, you can see the separate metadata folder disappear as the process is completed.
I use a Unitiserve, not an HDX, but as I understand it you should still be able to transcode on playback if using it as a network server.
I use the Twonky music server option on the Melco over the Minim option many use as I found the Twonky presentation vastly superior in my system in terms of detail, scale and dynamics over the Minim, which I did try for a while but abandoned - so don’t assume (as I first did) it makes no or little difference.
I know a few others with high-end Naim systems with Melco that also use and prefer the Twonky server option to manage the music to the ND555.
The last version of Twonky from a few years back fixed a metadata issue I had before with artworks and now my WAV files all get rendered fine with the correct Artworks - when Melco rips these it puts in the ‘folder.jpg’ file with the Album cover in the music folder, which if you like you can change to the correct version if you need and it will show on the App and ND555 front panel.
I prefer WAV over FLAC in my system - it seems to be down to less processing required in the streamer but the end result is a darker weightier presentation I prefer over FLAC which do not sound as crisp to me.
A friend with a Naim 272 doing the streaming did me a demo on his system of the FLAC oricinal fime straight to the streamer - against the same file pre-rendered into WAV before being sent to the streamer and it was the same uplift signature difference and we both preferred the WAV.
It is a lot of time and effort setting-up a streaming system including ripping all your CDs so getting some details decided is useful.
I’m not saying FLAC is bad - I play them but I prefer the WAV version when available.
Thanks - do you think a naked (untagged) wav file copy from hdx can be tagged by the melco? (Twonky or others) could be difficult, as I do not know how the Programm should do its search …
Any WAV file can be made into a custom ‘album’ on Melco.
Just create an empty folder with the name you want to show for the album in the Artist area in the Melco file system using any file manager.
Insert your WAV files into the folder.
Create a Jpeg image of the album art you want to show and name it ‘folder.jpg’ and put it in that folder.
…and that is it.
If you want any more complex stuff , like different pictures per-track or other things then you have to edit the metadate with a program like Songkong or several others available.
But if you just want to play music and have the track name and see a picture then the above works.
I came from the HDX-SSD with FLAC-files originally, and revisited the Minim/Twonky choice in the beginning of this year and found the Twonky-server improved the sound much as you describes it. Even more so after I converted to WAV (I used FLAC-uncompressed).
The latest Twonky-version is 8.5.2 and it includes corrections to reading RIFF-chunks which WAV use. A few releases earlier Twonky also updated their WAV-support with ID3-tags as supported by many others so I feel comfortable using WAV now.
Another odd but interesting feature with Twonky is you can skip the UPnP/XML software API and instead use an alternative REST-API as supported by most programming languages today. I have made simple integration with a knowledge-base app I use to collect extra info about the music.