Melco Audiophile NAS

[simoncn]

The Melco N1 has a slow processor compared with most other server devices. Transcoding DXD to WAV in real time is pushing the limits of the capabilities of this processor and I think this could be the cause of the stuttering you are hearing.

You could convert your FLAC DXD files to WAV offline using a converter program such as dBpoweramp (this is likely to sound slightly better than AIFF) or you could try converting them to compressed FLAC with a lower compression level (level 2 is a good choice) or you could try converting them to uncompressed FLAC (level 0). The default compression level is 5.

If you have not already set the Melco display to dark mode, try doing this. This will reduce the load on the N1A processor and might just be enough to solve the problem. Dark mode also sounds better.