Hi,
I have received Matrix Audio Element M today and spent the whole afternoon and evening with it, I think I'd share some of my thought here maybe helpful for someone who are interested in the Element series
It is my first impression of the product, and I will continue to add more while I'm using the product.
Good parts first:
1) Very good build quality, and the remote is also very nice
2) The mobile app is very powerful, not only can you control playback of music but also can you adjust all settings, change input/output, and even wake-up/sleep, so you can use the device without the IR remote
3) I like the auto input selector, which seems to work for me most of the time.
Things can be improved:
1) The LCD display looks in poor quality - you can see the attached photos of how English text are displayed. It's not about sharpless, but some pixels are missing for certain letters. "On" looks like "Dn" for example.
2) The device is not completely silent. To my surprise I can hear some eletrical buzz from the device (not sure if it's the internal transformer), the sound is auditable 1 meter away when the device is waken up. Not a big deal for me as I use it for speakers, but might be annoying for some.
3) WiFi and ethernet cannot be enabled at the same time, and swicthing between them takes the device 15 minutes to connect again. It doesn't bother me much as I probably won't swith network very often, but why on earth does it take 15 minutes to connect?
4) For those who plan to use it with NAS, it only supports SMB 1 and SMB 2 ( my NAS by default support versions above 2.1)
5) When the device is restarted, the network share containing local music is disabled, and I need to manually enable it to rescan the content. For my small library it takes about 10-15mins, and during the period the app doesn't allow me to play music.
6) Looks like the device will download album covers from internet instead of using already embedded cover art. About 30% of my albums (most classical) don't have cover, even though all of them have cover art embedded. I think the better logic would be to download cover art only when local one doesn't exist.
I spend some time to look into the scan result and found that there are multiple albums with the same tracks. In fact I have 217 albums in total but Element M thinks I have 247 (30% albums don't have cover art). I then disabled the library and re-enable it to force rescan of the content, now I got 139 albums! The scanner simply doesn't work properly and I'm kind of surprised nobody mentioned this. All my albums are nicely sorted and tagged properly, with folder.jpg for cover art. I have no problem with other scanners like Music Station, Emby and Kodi.
7) When playing Tidal streaming via WIFI I got many interuptions/pops during playback. The WiFI speed is definately not a problem as I can stream DSF with much bigger bitrate from my NAS without problem (and I have 1Gbps internet connection). Changing to Ethernet solved the issue, so forget about WiFI if you want stream Tidal.
8) Switching Tidal tracks sometimes delays the streaming by 1-5 minutes. I saw others also mentioned this problem, so guess it might be a bug in the software.
9) The mobile app is not very stable. I have received the error saying I'm disconnected from WiFI please retry a few times today. Not sure what caused it but I don't think my phone is disconnected and the signal is always full in the living room. Also experience the app freezes and I had to restart (multiple times today)
Only experienced this once during today and I can live with it.
10) Now my most annoying problem (not solved yet) - I use Logitech Harmony Hub to control all my AV/HIFI devices, it works very well and with HomeBridge you can also use Siri to control them. Element M unfortunately is not in Harmony database, which means I have to teach Harmony Hub all IR commands. For some reason Harmony hub doesn't recognize several commands successfully, so I had to repeat multiple times and so far I got most working but not all. It would be nice to have a profile in Harmony database. In relation to IR control, it is the only device in my AV/HIFI rack that doesn't receive IR signal from my Harmony hub. Looks like I need to really point to the device to make it work. I planned to use Harmony to turn on power AMP together with the player, but I think I have to give up due to the above problems.
Manage to solve this however it would still be a lot easier if Element M is registered in Harmony database.
Will add more when I get to know more about the device. So far I spent most of time to test and configure, I expect to spend more time listing to it so I can write something about its SQ.
Updated 18th Sep: I managed to get Harmony to work. I can live with 3, 5 and 8.
@MatrixAudio: it would be very helpful if you can comment on 1, 2, 6 and 7.
I did some listening sessions today.
My previous setup is:
Laptop/Audirvana -> Cheap HDMI -> Onkyo AVR TXNR906 (more than 10 years old) -> RCA -> Stereo AMP -> B&W 804S
AudioAero Prima CD -> VHD XLR -> Krell Steron AMP -> B&W 804S
The new setup:
Element M -> VHD XLR -> Krell Steron AMP -> B&W 804S
My initial thoughts on SQ:
1) Sound stage is wider, instrument separation is better than Audirvana, same level as my CD player at least, maybe slightly better
2) Mids and highs have auditable better clarity, better than my CD player and PC
3) Darker background, very good dynamics not as good as my CD player though (strange!)
4) I don't enjoy bass as much as mids/highs, the extension is not as good, it feels more boomy and the depth is not impressive.
Overall I'm happy with SQ except for the bass, I don't expect it to beat a CD player that costs twice 15 years old. It's noticeable better than PC/AVR and very close to my CD player.
I have received Matrix Audio Element M today and spent the whole afternoon and evening with it, I think I'd share some of my thought here maybe helpful for someone who are interested in the Element series
It is my first impression of the product, and I will continue to add more while I'm using the product.
Good parts first:
1) Very good build quality, and the remote is also very nice
2) The mobile app is very powerful, not only can you control playback of music but also can you adjust all settings, change input/output, and even wake-up/sleep, so you can use the device without the IR remote
3) I like the auto input selector, which seems to work for me most of the time.
Things can be improved:
1) The LCD display looks in poor quality - you can see the attached photos of how English text are displayed. It's not about sharpless, but some pixels are missing for certain letters. "On" looks like "Dn" for example.
2) The device is not completely silent. To my surprise I can hear some eletrical buzz from the device (not sure if it's the internal transformer), the sound is auditable 1 meter away when the device is waken up. Not a big deal for me as I use it for speakers, but might be annoying for some.
3) WiFi and ethernet cannot be enabled at the same time, and swicthing between them takes the device 15 minutes to connect again. It doesn't bother me much as I probably won't swith network very often, but why on earth does it take 15 minutes to connect?
5) When the device is restarted, the network share containing local music is disabled, and I need to manually enable it to rescan the content. For my small library it takes about 10-15mins, and during the period the app doesn't allow me to play music.
6) Looks like the device will download album covers from internet instead of using already embedded cover art. About 30% of my albums (most classical) don't have cover, even though all of them have cover art embedded. I think the better logic would be to download cover art only when local one doesn't exist.
I spend some time to look into the scan result and found that there are multiple albums with the same tracks. In fact I have 217 albums in total but Element M thinks I have 247 (30% albums don't have cover art). I then disabled the library and re-enable it to force rescan of the content, now I got 139 albums! The scanner simply doesn't work properly and I'm kind of surprised nobody mentioned this. All my albums are nicely sorted and tagged properly, with folder.jpg for cover art. I have no problem with other scanners like Music Station, Emby and Kodi.
7) When playing Tidal streaming via WIFI I got many interuptions/pops during playback. The WiFI speed is definately not a problem as I can stream DSF with much bigger bitrate from my NAS without problem (and I have 1Gbps internet connection). Changing to Ethernet solved the issue, so forget about WiFI if you want stream Tidal.
8) Switching Tidal tracks sometimes delays the streaming by 1-5 minutes. I saw others also mentioned this problem, so guess it might be a bug in the software.
Only experienced this once during today and I can live with it.
Manage to solve this however it would still be a lot easier if Element M is registered in Harmony database.
Will add more when I get to know more about the device. So far I spent most of time to test and configure, I expect to spend more time listing to it so I can write something about its SQ.
Updated 18th Sep: I managed to get Harmony to work. I can live with 3, 5 and 8.
@MatrixAudio: it would be very helpful if you can comment on 1, 2, 6 and 7.
I did some listening sessions today.
My previous setup is:
Laptop/Audirvana -> Cheap HDMI -> Onkyo AVR TXNR906 (more than 10 years old) -> RCA -> Stereo AMP -> B&W 804S
AudioAero Prima CD -> VHD XLR -> Krell Steron AMP -> B&W 804S
The new setup:
Element M -> VHD XLR -> Krell Steron AMP -> B&W 804S
My initial thoughts on SQ:
1) Sound stage is wider, instrument separation is better than Audirvana, same level as my CD player at least, maybe slightly better
2) Mids and highs have auditable better clarity, better than my CD player and PC
3) Darker background, very good dynamics not as good as my CD player though (strange!)
4) I don't enjoy bass as much as mids/highs, the extension is not as good, it feels more boomy and the depth is not impressive.
Overall I'm happy with SQ except for the bass, I don't expect it to beat a CD player that costs twice 15 years old. It's noticeable better than PC/AVR and very close to my CD player.
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