Melco N10/2 Reference Music Library

Melco N10/2 reference music library is a two-box music storage system designed for very high performance music storage. One box is the music server and the other box is a separate linear power supply. There are two storage versions - a standard HDD or a super-fast SSD.

Melco music libraries store your music collection with the best possible sound quality. There is no internal DAC, they are designed for use with an external DAC, or DAC equipped amplifier via USB – or can be connected to an external streamer via Ethenet.

You can rip CD’s with the best possible quality by using the D100 optical drive unit (available separately). The files can be saved in WAV or FLAC formats, although we recommend opting for FLAC which also has the benefit of Metadata stored track information.

Music Library

Unlike some other options, a Melco music library is not based around a standard computer design - no ‘standard’ IT components or PC parts are used. Instead, it is designed around a custom, high performance board with a processor optimised for audio performance only.

The new music libraries come with a choice of drives. There is a massive 5 TB mechanical drive or a superfast 3.85 TB SSD or Solid State drive. The drives are hand picked for the best audio quality. Mechanical drives can have massive amounts of storage but are slower and more prone to failure than SSD drives, that have no moving parts.

Two box design

The N10/2 is a two-box design with a separate power supply. This isolates the delicate electronics in the music library, from any magnetic fields and other interference. The units are half width to save space – but can obviously be seated next to each other within most standard size hi-fi racks.

The 'head' unit hosts the processing circuits and data links, while the power supply is a high-performance, low-noise unit with a toroidal transformer. Extremely low noise components are used in this unit. It is custom designed as an audio-specific device. Melco also use their own proven software that is familiar to Melco users and easy to use for newcomers.

Purist connectivity

The head unit feature two dedicated Ethernet ports. One connects to the network while the other is a direct connection to the player or streamer. As a result, you have a direct connection without the need for a network switch. This design approach should result in less jitter and timing errors.

There are three USB ports including a conveniently located front connection. This includes a dedicated USB output for a DAC or DAC equipped amplifier. The other USB ports can be used to import or play music from NAS devices or CD drives. You can also backup to an external drive.

What is DSD?

DSD was devised as a way of archiving old analogue recordings. It is an accurate and efficient way of encoding music and uses a much higher sampling frequency than CD. CDs use Pulse Code Modulation to encode the data, while DSD uses only 1 bit.

The sample rate of a CD is 44.kHz and the bit depth is 16 bits per sample. The data is uncompressed and the audio quality is high. Notably, PCM is not efficient, in the way it stores data, hence DSD was developed. The signal is read by seeing if the current sample is higher or lower than the previous one. Only 1 bit is used, a 1 is output if the sample is higher and a 0 if it is lower. The sample rate is a multiple of the CD sampling rate at 11.3Mhz for QUAD DSD.

The Melco music libraries all support QUAD DSD. Moreover, Melco has developed a cleaner version of DSD. This does not use the packet markers usually utilised, and is known as Markerless DSD. This data stream does not have the same overhead for the processor and as a result, is the purest possible audio signal. Most high-end DACs can play Markerless DSD.

Notably, the Melco N10/2 uses 1-bit DSD for the output.

Great usability

Melco software includes the MinimServer and Songkong apps. The library is also Roon compatible as well as streaming services such as Tidal and Qobuz. It can also be controlled via an App. This can be used for error free hi-res downloads without the need for a computer.