Matrix Audio Element M - First impression

[JMF]

Hello Cao,
- I don't use usb so i can't try this option.

- The playing page is trying to load the next song. the wheel spinning arround pause botton. "loading status".

- The stop happen to with the lower definition "normal" of tidal, too. I always have it set to MASTER.

Can i put the ip of the Element M from dinamic to static? I have the theory that the problem could be a conflict of IP's in home.

Some other ideas?

Thank you.

Dear Cao,
I am in touch with Matrix Audio Xina and we are doing several tests to my ELEMENT M. It seems that the problem is with the app. If I put a queu of Master TIdal Music and i put the flight mode in my Iphone 7, the system works well. Strange but real.
I will do more tests with android an roon to watch the results.

I will keep you informed.

Thanks.

 

[somy]

Dear Cao,
I am in touch with Matrix Audio Xina and we are doing several tests to my ELEMENT M. It seems that the problem is with the app. If I put a queu of Master TIdal Music and i put the flight mode in my Iphone 7, the system works well. Strange but real.
I will do more tests with android an roon to watch the results.

I will keep you informed.

Thanks.

Thanks for the update!

 

[Snowbuffalo]

I think most of the issues are software related and if 1) and 2) are not hardware issue and the SQ is good I'll keep it. The sad thing is, there are not many choices in the market that does Tidal streaming with MQA support. Another option which I used before Element M is Audirvana + external DAC. To be honest Audirvana is way smoother to use. I'm kind of surprised in the HIFI market the technology/software is way behind, any TV box regardless of price can handle all the music files and provides much better user experience. But obviously they're not engineered for SQ.

Thank your for your review. The Matrix units, including the M, measure extremely well, and I've been considering an upgrade to my Cambridge CXN (V2) streamer. The Cambridge CXN doesn't support MQA, and Cambridge doesn't publish THD+N or SNR for the CXN, but I suspect it measures much worse than the Matrix based on the Wolfson DACs. Now, they have released the DacMagic 200, which uses ESS ES9028Q2M DACs, supports MQA, and has respectable dynamic range. However, it's a DAC, not a streamer. The CXN is absolutely fantastic in terms of user experience - I use it almost exclusively as a Roon endpoint, but I live with a family who uses Spotify. Having Spotify Connect is critical for me - not from an audio quality perspective, but so that the rest of my family can use the stereo. As you may know, Spotify Connect is not wireless streaming from a phone, it's an app that lives on the streamer and just takes directions from the phone - it pulls a higher quality version of the music from the network (in my case wired ethernet), not from the phone via Bluetooth. The reason the CXN is so cool is that I can be playing a song on Roon, from my library or Tidal, and my wife can just start up a song on Spotify and it seamlessly just plays it - right away. It switches contexts instantly. This feature set is somehow very difficult to find in the marketplace alongside the performance that the Matrix units offers. I have also considered 1) waiting for Cambridge to release a new streamer that has performance comparable to the DacMagic 200, or 2) looking at the Gold Note DS-10 (it is very expensive, but does seem to offer the right feature set - any Cambridge kit would likely be less expensive).