The Melco S10 is an all new product which sits above the existing S100, Melco launched the S100 switch in 2019 and it since then it has proven to be an incredibly popular product. If you listen to music from a streaming service like Tidal / Qobuz or you are a Roon user, or you simply move audio around over a network the S100 makes an instant and obvious improvement to the quality of music.
Less noise, more detail, improved bass and weight, cleaner and a more open presentation – the S100 has elevated itself to once of the most popular Melco products from across their entire. and it never takes long for one to impress.
Fast forward to Spring 2022 and Melco are soon to be releasing another switch, this model is called the S10 and is a 2 box design, 1 box is the switch and the second box is a high performing power supply, this doesn’t replace the S100, but rather sits above it in the range as an even higher performing alternative.
The S100 isn’t just an S100 with a power supply, the main S10 head unit has been improved upon compared to the S100 in a number of way, better build quality and greater rigidity with a more substantial internal framework, the single box of an S100 is 2.5kg, the 2 boxes of the S10 is 13kg.
I’ve not heard one yet, but I’ll have my demo S10 in due course, at some point after Munich all being. I’ve been asked numerous times over the past couple of weeks how an S10 with compare to an S100 (when coupled with an Plixir Elite PSU) and the honest answer at this moment in time is I don’t know!
I’ve not had the opportunity to put one through its paces compared to an S100. Knowing how Melco work and how all of the previous models have compared I’m sure it will be an obvious step over and above an S100, they wouldn’t release one otherwise!
Priced at £4995 the S10 is a significant financial step up over an S100 and is likely to be used in bigger systems or for those who simply want to extract the best performance from their streamed music. Watch this space, a more detailed blog post will be coming once I have had the opportunity to sit down with an S10 both as a standalone item and compared to an S100, benchmarks with the Melco range in general and the Taiko SGM Extreme so no stone will be left unturned!
