That is no doubt substantially right. The cost of cases, especially substantial aluminium, ones would amaze many. I expect people may be surprised at just how much of the cost of their Vivaldi components is down to that. The problem that high end audio manufacturers have is that the product would still be expensive if it was available in just a folded steel case but how many enthusiasts would then buy? Spend , say, 15 grand on something and I think all of us who are being honest with ourselves will want it to look like it cost 15 grand. Incidentally the Melco base N1 comes in a folded steel case. The N1Z is functionally similar but has a solid aluminium case. It is £2K more. What did I buy? The more expensive one of course as it looks more in keeping with those lovely Vivaldi cases 
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Do you have Melсo N1A mk1 or mk2 (EX) ?
How do you find the difference in sound through its Player port and directly from the switch?
Are there any differences between the network part of mk1 and mk2, or are they completely identical in this point?
Somewhere in interntet photo I saw a rather empty case for the mk1, perhaps there are some changes for the mk2, for example, an improved power supply or something like that?
How noisy can Melco’s switching power supply be to be connected in Torus with my system?
Perhaps the option Melco N100 + my Farad S3 will be preferable to one N1A? Do you have any experience with the N100?
Indeed, the ‘brain & processing power’ of such IT equipment purely rely on the semiconductor chip vendor design. The Broadcom chip is probably 1 million times more complex to design than the Melco’s Hardware/PCB.
There is not much makers like Melco can do to improve a so complex System on Chip like this Broadcom chip. They can only take extreme care of;
- Power supply
- Clean ground with neat PCB layout
- Proper galvanic isolation for I/O’s
- Check for spurious RF emissions and counteract them.
- a few more tweaks but not many.
An audiophile IP switch is very difficult to comprehend. However many’s have reported an enhancement; so, from where does it come from (my guess…; it is mostly related to a cleaner Power Supply and not noisy ground)???
I don’t have any experience with the N100 or any of the Mk2 units, just the N1A Mk1, so, I can’t tell you what the differences are.
I don’t use my N1A’s Player port as it’s not better than the fibre based isolation my dCS currently enjoys. So my Melco is, for all intents and purposes, behaving as just a (silent) NAS.
I have no idea.
I’ll just say this though, when you have proper (clean) power feeding your dCS, you really don’t need to worry too much about the Melco especially when using it’s Ethernet port(s) as opposed to USB (which I do not recommend), and ideally kept a respectable distance away. 
A worthy question, but for another thread perhaps 
I just upgraded from Ansuz X to A2 switch, huge step! I tried Melco S100 as well but it was too bright in my chain. Apart from that I run a Melco EX 2x3TB and before that I had a Innuos Zen.
Many folks claim that NAS or switches are voodoo but I can say for sure: it‘s not (even my wife had to agree😄)
Wow, this is the price! ¥660000
I wonder if there is also a Broadcom chip inside? 
Ouch! Actually to me it just looks like the S100 plus LPS instead of the SMPS that comes with the S100. So in gbp terms a little over 2 grand for the LPS.
Well their local S100 costs ¥151800
Quite a big difference for the aluminum case and LPSU. You can probably estimate how much the S10 will cost under the Melco name)))
Means they build the gear for Melco?
yes, Melco and Dela are the same company. Dela is a local brand.
Melco is a division of Buffalo Technology who are the largest computer peripherals manufacturer in Japan. Hence they have a lot of resources to draw upon even to the extent of making dedicated drives for music storage/replay ( so they advise).
Actually, the original N1A Mk1 uses Seagate HDDs - models designed for 24/7 Video surveillance - I know this for a fact because I swapped my NA1’s drives out for solid-state ones. And I believe the N1Z Mk1’s Solid State Drives were Toshiba OEMs.
Things may be different for the Mk2 units, but I doubt it 
That is amusing Anup, as may also be the blurb ( I mean press release) when they increased the guarantee period for their streamers with storage :
Amazing what a stick on label may bring 
NB: sadly my machine predates the offer.
What do you use for optical isolation? You seem to have ER, have you tried using it as optical isolation?
I find the M1A mk1 EX Player port quite pleasant in sound, relative to an regular switch (in my case, this is Linksys WET610n wifi bridge + Farad S3 12V)
This is very unexpected for me, because Melco looks like the usual set of computer components.
But I do not hear the difference between a file on my WD NAS played via DLNA through Melco and the same file located on Melco and played directly to Bartok.
Then it would seem that a Melco may not be for you. Does the file sound the same with the WD connected to Bartok ( via a switch ?) without the Melco in the chain?
Without Melco in the chain, file from NAS and streaming sound a little worse than through Melco.
But file from WD with Melco in the chain sound same as from Melco directly.
Apparently all the streams going through Melco have been improved.
That’s interesting. I wasn’t expecting that.
Melco calls it Ethernet Purifier. Probably all outgoing traffic from the Player port is magically cleared 
I also have a suspicion that when playing files from Melсo directly, its disks and SATA-controller create additional noise, so I may not hear the advantages over playing from WD with Melco in the chain.
I also read that Melco recommends putting S100 switch after their Melco NAS. And I read the experience of one user who claimed that files from his Synology with LPSU and from Melco in the chain play better than the same files directly from Melco.
By the way, I was able to cheat the direct network mode Melco for Bartok. I gave out fixed IPs for Bartok and Melco, then added some albums from Melco to the Mosaic queue and pressed play. Then I disabled Melco’s LAN port and the playback continued. Since I can partially control the playback of Bartok with the remote control from my ATC SCA2 preamp, I could pause tracks and switch to the next or previous track. In this case, I easily managed the playback of the queue that I added to Bartok before the LAN port was turned off. I am still at a loss to say about any improvements, but for purists this could be the way. Of course, in this case, streaming will not be available, for this you will have to connect the LAN port back to the network.
Right now I’m using a TRENDnet 100Base-T Fiber Media Converter with (low-power) 100Base-FX SM-SFPs, directly into a (all SFP) MikroTik CRS-309 Ethernet Switch that I have dedicated for audio. Powered by Keces linear PSUs.
I’ve played around with my EtherRegen, it delivers zero benefits in my setup, so it’s just collecting dust somewhere in my storeroom
That “purifier” is delivered through discrete TDK Pulse Transformers for each Ethernet conductor pairs (so 4 transformers per Ethernet port), and through software bridging. Thats all. There’s no other magic 