DELA N1 Digital Music Library

The N1 S40 is DELA’s flagship music library, it is a complete redesign over the previous Melco models and is completely new from ground up in terms of casework and the internals, it has a new mainboard and new power supply, in its new DELA form the N1-S40 comes with a 4TB SSD, the Melco N1 used a different 3.84TB SSD, but they are identical other than that.

The N1 offers 5 USB ports – on the rear there are 2 USB DAC ports (one rated at USB 2.00, the other at USB 3.00) giving a wider range of compatibility with more DAC’s than ever before. If you are using the USB 2.00 DAC port, the USB 3.00 socket can be used for a D100 for ripping CD’s.  There is a Back Up USB socket and an Expansion USB socket, there is also an additional USB socket on the front so there is no shortage of connections.

The N1 S40 has LAN and Player Ethernet sockets and critically the N1 also has a single SFP Fibre socket so if you already own a suitable Melco / DELA switch you can do away with Ethernet altogether and connect to your network via Fibre. All of the Melco / DELA switches have at least 2 fibre connections so you can use an ADOT back to your router as well.

There is also an external clock input as well which can further enhance performance.

The menu system will be familiar to anyone who has used a Melco previously, although the N1 is running with new firmware and we have Minimserver 2 and Twonky UPnP servers, SongKong and it remains Roon Ready as well as having the same auto-downloader functions from High Res Audio and Qobuz.

When connected to a USB DAC Tidal and Qobuz streaming are available as well (Roon only works when using the USB ouput)

The fit and finish of the N1 is a significant step above all previous models, the chassis is manufactured from 3mm thick stainless steel and the solid corner pieces are incredibly solid and are a nice contrast and really sets off the look of the machine, along with the 2 vertical lights than run down the front.

In terms of performance the N1 is a huge upgrade over any previous model as well, including the N1ZS (all variants) and the N10 and N10/2 – DELA / Melco have really gone back to the drawing board with this machine and it is very obvious when you sit and listen to it. It’s incredibly musical, transparent, very fast and clean sounding.

Available in black or silver and as ever part exchange is welcome!