MELCO

[baddog]

Hello,
This a slightly modified version of my posting in the other thread Melco vs Aurender.
My brief history:
Almost one year ago I bought D200, later upgraded to D400 with Sonus Faber Amati Futura II speakers. streaming from Synology NAS from PC via AIR ended up with usual white noise problems. Playing via Oppo 105, digital out to D400 from NAS was much better, but in terms of SQ still not very satisfactory. Later started using an Intel NUC with WIN8, JRIVER, built in Samsung 850 SSD with all music content connected via USB (Audioquest Carbon) to D400. SQ was worse than Oppo 105D. Replacing the USB cable with AQ Diamond brought big improvement to SQ. Of course I was still not very happy. After a short demo session by comparing Aurender X100 and N1Z (SSD) , for me Melco was much better, but was too expensive for just 1TB storage. When Melco introduced N1ZH60, I became active again. Unfortunately I had no chance to have a demo and decided to order one unit during High End Munich. N1Z arrived yesterday and it's now operational via USB (Jitterbug+Diamond). Really great SQ, tight bass, excellent detail, great sound stage. I know for audiophiles or generally techno-crazy people the search never ends; but for the time being I would like to give a long break to my search and enjoy the music.

Regarding FW 3.0. I was not patient enough and upgraded from 2.30 to 3.0 before I started using N1Z. The above remarks belong to N1ZH60 running with FW 3.0. I first tried to use Kinsky from my IPAD, but switched back quickly to Jriver. For me Kinsky is a strange and not a user friendly app and needs a lot of improvement.

The new hybrid controller setting allows the user to use apps like Kinsky and Jriver at the same time without configuring either 0 or 1 in the settings, but to select 0 or 1 is still possible.

My Jriver runs currently on a PC in the network, library is created in the same PC. Content is stored on Melco, where playback is via USB from Melco directly to D400. Jriver is controlled by Jremote on the IPAD. I have a few small issues on the GUI and currently trying to identify the source of the problem. These are not related to playback SQ.

Cheers

Some very interesting posts from yourself esom, good to have you on this little forum! 

I am particularly interested in your comments regarding JRiver.  I while ago I was corresponding with Alan Ainslie (Melco UK, a very helpful chap).  He explained that it is possible to use Kinsky on a PC and use the PC as an interface to control a Melco, as opposed to the normal method of control via an app on a tablet.  This appeals to me greatly, so I did try running kinsky on my PC, to see how I got on with it.  OK, being polite, I found Kinsky to be a little old fashioned and very limited in functionality.  It does the job, but to be honest I would struggle to put up with it for very long.  In your post above you mention you are using JRiver.  JRemote is about 100 times better than Kinsky, so the appeal of JRiver is obvious.  However, I am interested in the concept of controlling a Melco via a PC.  Have you ever tried this with JRiver and your Melco?  If so, any observations regarding how well this works?  (maybe this is what you are doing?)

As a final note for those that think I'm bonkers, after all, for many the idea of a Melco is to take computers out listening equation all together.  For me, sometimes I much prefer accessing music via a full PC screen, a tablet app gives limited functionality versus a 'full screen' PC, plus the convenience of a real mouse and keyboard.  Sometimes I'm happy with app control, but not always.

The question is, does this work with JRiver and a Melco?

Maybe you should try Kazoo as opposed to Kinsky as that is where Linn has been investing their development efforts as of late. I am making a leap of faith that if Kinsky works with your system than Kazoo should as well.