C100 by Melco, a posh Ethernet cable!
In a world of pure digital music, the Melco C100 cable is a slightly counter-intuitive product. We expect digital to be just that, immutable and pure. Yet it is accepted that a cable with better shielding from the outside world of RF has to be a good thing, hence high end HDMI and Ethernet cables. At a £125 get- out-of-bed price for a 1m cable, this is considered keen value for your digital hifi pound! I need to hear a comparison to see if I am able to tell…
Here’s the skinny!
Tokyo, Japan, 8 December 2022: Melco Audio, the Japanese digital music expert, has launched a high-performance yet low cost Ethernet cable featuring a number of noise-reducing design properties, priced from just £125 (EUR 149) for a 1 m length.
The new C100 directly replaces Melco’s debut Ethernet cable, the C1AE, and introduces a number of upgrades to reduce noise and improve networked audio sound quality.
The C100 benefits from asymmetric drain wire grounding, where one end of the cable features a ground point. Unwanted noise, either external or from connected devices, travels in one direction to the ground end, (indicated by a Melco logo on the connector plug), not interfering with delicate signal transmission.
The opposite (non-grounded) end of the cable features an innovative ‘floating’ shield, which is not attached to the connector plug, meaning unwanted noise cannot transfer to connected audio devices downstream. Further benefits include gold-plated connectors, a smooth cable outer to avoid tangling, plus a double shield for additional protection. The C100’s conductor thickness has also been improved over its predecessor. The C100 is a wide bandwidth design rated at 600 MHz, 6x the speed of CAT 5e and 2.4x that of CAT 6. Lengths include: 1 m, 2 m, 3 m, 5 m and 10 m.
Price and availability
The C100 is available now priced from just £125/EUR 149 (1 m).
Audiophile Digital Music Masters Ltd. audiophiledigital.co.uk +44 (0)7899 896848
About Melco
Melco (Maki Engineering Laboratory Company) was established by Makoto Maki in 1975 in Japan. Maki, an enthusiastic audiophile, established the company to design and manufacture the finest audio components of the time; the undoubted masterpiece of the Melco line was the turntable (introduced into the UK in 1980) which set new standards in music reproduction.
From those early beginnings, Melco developed into the largest computer peripherals manufacturer in Japan (Buffalo Inc.), offering advanced products based on rigorous R&D. These included wireless routers, Ethernet data switches and storage devices such as NAS drives. Now, the company is proud to revive the highly respected Melco brand, offering discerning audiophiles high-technology network audio components in the spirit of those much-revered early Melco products, while incorporating the very latest research into reliable, high-performance networked devices and storage. Melco-audio.com