DELA N5 Digital Music Library

The N5 is a high performance music library from DELA (formerly Melco) with comes with a 5TB HDD so it has ample storage for large collections.

The N5 follows the same design as the flagship N1. It is all new internally with a new main board, new power supply, superior to that in the N50, but not the same PSU that is in the N1.

The N5 offers 3 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. There is also a further USB socket on the front of the N5, more than enough for most users. If you have a USB DAC the spare port on the rear can be used with a back up USB drive, a D100 CD drive.

The N5 has LAN and Player Ethernet sockets and critically it 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.

A high-performance power connection is also specified, using an EMC-filtered IEC connector giving true system ground reference. The N5-H50’s power supply uses multistage linear regulation following a high-specification audio-grade toroidal transformer on a special vibration-cushion mount device.

The menu system is same as previous models although the N5 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 available as well.

The fit and finish is superb, it looks like an N1, but it’s not quite the same but you look carefully, but still a beautiful design.

I had the opportunity to play with an N5 in December 2022 and in it is very impressive, a clear step up over an N1ZH, N1ZS and also the N50.

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