Last week was the Munich High End Show and as with every year I was there for the duration of the show. It’s my favourite show, it’s great to see all of the brands exhibiting and getting the opportunity to hear lots of new exciting equipment and potentially look for a new brand, but equally important is the ability to meet up with all of the manufacturers I deal with in one place, it’s was an incredibly productive few days.
Melco announced the arrival of their new N5 model at the show, priced at £7499 it sits in-between the N50 and the flagship N1, it comes with a 5TB HDD. As you can see from the images it takes its design cues from the N1, the case work is slightly different, as is the power supply.
In terms of connectivity there are 2 USB ports on the rear plus 1 on the front and as always with Melco the N5 has 2 ethernet sockets, the Player Port and the LAN port and just like the N1 this new model also sports a single fibre optic sockets to use with either an S100 or S10 switch (or with one of the ADOT converters)
This effectively completes the Melco line up with the current line up as follows
N100 – 2TB HDD £2149
N50 H60 – 6TB HDD £2999
N50 S38 – 3.84TB SSD £4999
N5 H50 – 5TB HDD £7499
N1 S38 – 3.84TB SSD £11995
As well as the music libraries there is also the D100 CD Ripper, S100/2 Switch and the 2 box S10 Switch
The N5 will be arriving on demonstration soon and the N5 product page will be up and running over the next day or so, more information can be found here.
In performance terms the N5 is an obvious upgrade over the very popular N1ZH and the N1 sits apart from the N5 at the top of the range. I had the opportunity to listen to the N5 just before Christmas in my demonstration room and it is a great sounding machine and it will serve as a really good upgrade for anyone who can’t stretch to an N1!
More will follow on the N5 in due course.
