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It was an all in one solution, never used NAS. Now I use the Melco directly connected to a Devialet Expert Pro as DAC.

I went the DIY way, then the Mac way (Mini then Macbook Pro) but didn't hear much of a difference. Have the Melco for nearly 2 months: it's magical, a stunning experience, I especially apprecaite ability to mix 16/44 with 24/192 files on the fly. Gorgeous experience.

You're right, I just found the section. Thanks!

Hi all. Living in Japan, I decided to add a N1A to my system (except it's called DELA here, not Melco). I'm still undecided for the 1x 2 TB or 2x 2 TB version since my collection is so far ~600 GB. Question to current users: I read that upgrading the disks manually is possible, would you also know if the 1 disk version has all necessary cables to add a second drive? Thank you.

Agreed.

Thank you both for the feedback. Yes, it seems that there's a lot to win, but switching to a smaller body just frightens me.

Hi all. I'm torn on this one: I moved back from a house in countryside to an apartment in downtown Tokyo. Obviously my B&W N804 (from 2000, purchased as second hand in 2007) are a bit oversized now, I could keep them or move to the new latest-and-greatest 805 D3. The 804 D3 are not an option now, it would be a waste in my apartment (68m2 in total). I would love to hear your opinion: I heard the 805 D3 which sounded extremely nice. I don't think I will move back anytime soon to a house: do you think I'd better keep my Nautilus 804 or that the timing is now good to move to the latest generation? Thanks. Music style: mostly classic (symphonies or piano), then rock & jazz.

Sorry I forgot to mention: yes I also tried HD800 with both normal and balanced cable to an HDVD800. There was more power to drive the HD800 it seemed, but the sound wasn't spectacular, only analytical. It's a very high level amp but I had at least a good experience with the Oppo.

Went to Akibahara area in Tokyo and tested two Oppo HA-1 units. Both excellent, though the two shops environment wasn't as quiet as my home for a perfect test. The sound is simply phenomenal, tested with Sennheiser HD650 and HD800 and Oppo PM-1. Benchmark DAC wasn't available for comparison but BMC PureDAC and a Chord Hugo were. In the end I found the Oppo perfect to my ear, possibly also due to some placebo effect: both classical and jazz samples sounded just right, pop music wasn't as aggressive as some other units I tried. Bought an Oppo, will receive it late August (Japanese specs). Thank you all for your advices.

Thanks. Did you match one with a HD800? Also no balanced headphone output, right?

Thanks. Yes I had read it when you mentioned BMC, unknown yet to me. Looks like a good match.

Hi. Don't mean to pollute your thread but am interested in the same topic, and you don't seem fixed on the OS so I'll risk it. Until now my music server was also home computer: iMac then Mac Mini. Very good choice, reliable, also loved the custom SSD that I added to speed things up. Output: Wireworld Starlight Silver USB cable to my DAC, so I think that any computer in the world would be equally as good (with loads of RAM). Also: I used it to output HD movies once in a while. Now moving to Windows for my workhorse and happy with it: was thinking building a specific PC, as you mention here, and have a pretty stupid question. In the music server business, in terms of SQ, wouldn't the cheapest Dell 3647 fit the bill? I was looking at individual components, but really I think the dell box is quite competitive. Would increase RAM though, but USB is there for DAC output so is there anything I'd miss - except silence when idle maybe?

I used a FS (the old NAS) for 2 years without major trouble. I'm crazy for the simplicity of Drobo: no maintenance, nothing, and above all you can feed it with any drive of different speed/capacity. Very happy but so slow. Last year switched to 5D: excellent choice. Reliable, changed numerous times the drives without issues. I don't like NAS because I want to be able to shut down easily my storage server. Used with iMac and Mac Mini: no problem. Thunderbolt was faster. Now I dumped Mac in favor of Windows, can't use TB anymore. USB3 a little slower but Drobo still as reliable and lovely as before. There is not so much competition in term of reliable direct attached units. LaCie 5big also quite big but quite good. My 5 cents: from this generation (~2013) Drobo finally came to speed and the product is good. Now let's be clear: it will fail down, so there must be backups elsewhere, a lot of backups.

Yes, it seems that only Oppo HA-1 has both 2x XLR + 1x headphone balanced output. I hear your comment for HD800. I heard "a" difference between both but I'm sure if that's worth it, thanks for the feedback.

Hello Mockingbird. I'm resurrecting this thread because: 1) I'm in the market to buy a HD800 together with amp 2) I love Luxman 3) I also happen to live in Japan ;-) What did you find to fullfill your ears? Basically I would like my DAC to integrate the headphone amp stage and use it both for balanced output to headphone and balanced output to my integrated amp (Cairn for the moment, may be Luxman L-550 in the future). So for me no Luxman fits the bill, I'm looking at Oppo HA-1 and CA 851D for the moment.