Melco N1A High Resolution Digital Music Library

This is the ultimate NAS for audiophile systems! It can be used as an audiophile grade NAS to feed an existing network or it can be used as a stand alone music server. As a music server, it will show what your DAC is capable of!

The Melco N1A High Resolution Digital Music Library can function as a music server or a NAS directly feeding your network player of choice. There are two Ethernet ports on the N1A's backside labelled LAN and Player. The LAN Ethernet port connects to your network (router, switch, or hub) making the N1A's internal 4TB of storage available to network-attached devices including computers and network players. The Player port connects directly to your network player of choice. While in Player mode, the N1A acts as a DHCP server and assigns an IP address to your network player. In Player mode, you cannot connect to the N1A from your computer or copy files to its internal storage via Ethernet.

The N1A's 4TBs of internal storage comes courtesy of two 2TB Hard Disk Drives (HDD). In addition to the 2 Ethernet ports on the unit's back panel, there are 3 USB 3.0 ports; one labelled "USB 3.0" for importing music from external USB storage, another labelled "Expansion" for adding additional USB storage if 4TBs is not enough, and one labelled "Backup" for backing up all your Melco music and data to an external USB storage device. Any of these USB ports can also be used to connect to an external DAC. Finishing out the rear panel is an IEC inlet for the included power cord.

Melco has also gone to some lengths to keep noise out of the data path. These include a separate and isolated power supply for the light-piped LAN ports, which offer complete electrical isolation (ALT Series Pulse Transformers from TDK are employed). The N1A also re-clocks all incoming data (using NDK's ultra-low-jitter clock) before sending it on its way.

The N1A runs on Twonky 7 and supports all file formats as well as PCM resolutions up to 24-bit/384kHz and DSD (5.6MHz at present and will be extended to 11.2MHz). It will also convert DSD to PCM for USB connected DACs if your DAC doesn't dig DSD (this option is not available via Ethernet streaming). If you want to play DSD files via DoP over Ethernet, the company recommends installing MinimServer on the N1A.

The 4TBs of internal HDD storage comes configured as one big Spanned drive but you can also format yours as a RAID 0 or RAID 1 array right from the front panel controls. I would just keep it as one big drive and use an external USB drive(s) as backup.

NOTE: There are speckles in the finish. This is the only blemish. Please see blown up photo.