Melco Audiophile NAS

[Peter@57m]

(07-04-2015 20:43)Peter@57m Wrote:  The Acoustic-Revive LAN Isolator (RLI-1) has arrived - I ordered it on 1 April and came today 7 April AND this included 4 days of public holidays for Easter - so very prompt delivery (reached UK on 4 April)

I have been comparing it with:

1) QNAP - MinimServer - NetGear GS108 switch - KDSM/1
2) QNAP - MinimServer - NetGear GS108 switch - Acoustic-Revive RLI-1 - KDSM/1
3) QNAP - MinimServer - NetGear GS108 switch - Melco N1A* - KDSM/1
4) Melco Twonky - KDSM/1
* Melco is just being used as a LAN switch

In terms of sound quality 1) is definitely last, 2) 3) and 4) are all very close, but I often thought I preferred 2). If pushed I'd say the overall order would be 1), 4), 3), 2). The RLI-1 needed a few minutes to bed in, when first connected it didn't sound good but I left it for 30 minutes or so, listened again, and it was much better.

Given that the last three options are all very close, you would have to consider price. The Melco N1A is £1,600, the Acoustic-Revive LAN Isolator RLI-1 was £107 imported from Japan. So bang for buck, the Acoustic-Revive RLI-1 is a good deal.

The caveat is that this is in my system in my network. Simon has posted that a GISO isolator made his system sound worse. Its a different isolator, perhaps Acoustic-Revive is better or perhaps my network is different - who knows.

Of course with the Melco you get a NAS, so if you don't already have one, it could be a great solution. If you already have a good NAS running MinimServer, do you really need another which can only be used with one renderer?

I will be ordering another RLI-1 so I can use one with both my Renew DS/1 and Renew DSM/1. For me they seem a good return on investment for the sound quality improvement.

I am hoping that MinimServer running on the Melco with transcoding will be the overall winner, but waiting for Simon and Melco to agree how to make this available. Then you would have to evaluate whether the benefit that will hopefully provide would warrant the extra cost.

Well I now have MinimServer running on the Melco. So it would be option 5) above Melco MinimServer to KDSM/1.

And this is quite clearly my favourite. Its more spacious, better clarity and I think better timing.

So now there overall ranking would be (best first): 5) 2) 3) 4) 1)

A big thank you to Simon and Alan (Melco)

So now back to listening to music and not doing comparisons........