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Review and Measurements of Matrix Audio Element X DAC/Streamer/Amp

Vladimir_Kl

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I wondering why Element X may sound bad as preamp, because I have exactly opposite results - I replaced Bryston BP-173 preamp with Element X and the difference is stunning - much more transparent sound and zero noise level. Connected to Bryston 4B3 amp.
 
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I wondering why Element X may sound bad as preamp, because I have exactly opposite results - I replaced Bryston BP-173 preamp with Element X and the difference is stunning - much more transparent sound and zero noise level. Connected to Bryston 4B3 amp.
Connecting directly does sound too forward for my taste. And not as revealing either. Could be the type of amp it is connected to I guess, although I would not complain about mine.
 

Playskool

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Would not describe it as problem, just what it is. Connecting it directly to FirstWatt F5T would give me headache after 10 minutes of listen and I assume any other amp as well. Connecting it to Pass Labs pre and then to the same power amp is the game changer; while being very detailed it is also quite musical.
Yes it is exactly the same thing that happened to me... I connected it single ended or balanced directly to my Luxman and Benchmark power amps and it sounded dreadful... Very narrow stage, lack of low frequency, I quickly regretted my purchase and contacted Matrix Audio several times to try to understand the reason behind this. After messing around with digital filters, equalizers, software enhancement, extended warm-up and other voodoo... I plugged it using my passive Khozmo preamp in balanced mode to the Benchmark and what a surprise! It was night and day, bypassing the internal volume control gives an almost "holographic presentation", the bass register is revived, I cannot which for more when it come to the DAC! Where I am still a bit sad is that I purchased this "all in one" unit to downsize my system but the poor volume management defeat its purpose... I feel that the internal headphone amp is also plagued by the volume control issue... Anyway there is many more important things to care about in this world.
 

somy

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How do you bypass volume control? By setting fixed output gain?
 

Vladimir_Kl

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May be something is broken with volume control in particular Element X unit. I have some lags when changing volume from Roon and several times got switching input to USB from Network when controlling volume from IR remote. But these are software issues that will be fixed hopefully and don't affect sound quality at all.
 
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You have to set the DAC to ""line-out mode 0db fixed".
In my case it was line-out. Set to the lowest volume first, and then gradually incremented.
This is their other model, but it goes in the same direction,
at about 4:20 - "How is the quality as pre-amp, ... ohm, it's ooook, adequate ..". Personally I would not live with it unless there is a good pre-amp after it.
 

Playskool

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In my case it was line-out. Set to the lowest volume first, and then gradually incremented.
This is their other model, but it goes in the same direction,
at about 4:20 - "How is the quality as pre-amp, ... ohm, it's ooook, adequate ..". Personally I would not live with it unless there is a good pre-amp after it.
Very interesting video! Thanks aigo for sharing. So at 4:29 he goes "ideally I guess you would add a preamp"... That's quite amazing because I believe that people ready to spend this kind of money for a DAC are looking for the best possible sound. If it's a known issue with other Matrix combo DAC's, it could be interesting for them to sell a standalone DAC unit at a somewhat lower price.
 

Vladimir_Kl

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Element X is a passive preamp and has hybrid volume control that prevents losing dynamic range on low volumes. Given excellent measurements it's not obvious why it can be a bad passive preamp. May be gain / impedance mismatch with power amplifier. Or some build quality variations between units which is worse. It's probably a good idea to compare with another Element X unit.
 

Playskool

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Element X is a passive preamp and has hybrid volume control that prevents losing dynamic range on low volumes. Given excellent measurements it's not obvious why it can be a bad passive preamp. May be gain / impedance mismatch with power amplifier. Or some build quality variations between units which is worse. It's probably a good idea to compare with another Element X unit.
Hi Vladimir,
Thank you for your comment. That is very interesting. I would be keen to rule out gain or impedance matching as the main factor for degraded sound as I have tried my Matrix DAC in balanced and single ended mode with two different power amps having quite different input impedances (20Kohms and 50Kohms) and different gains... Adding to that the Benchmarks AHB2 has a 3 modes for gain selection (9.2db, 17db, 22.9db) and none of them was improving the Element X sound when connected directly (for the record my luxman has fixed 29db gain)... Anyway it is an interesting problem and I kind of confirmed that I was not the only Element X owner disappointed by its sound when plugged directly into a power amp has it seems that Aigo was also not satisfied with the sound reproduction of his DAC when connected this way. Also Aigo's amp has an input impedance of 101Kohms and a gain of 15db which are also different than what I have tried... Amirm measured an output impedance of 1.9Ohms for the Element X which is ridiculously low and would probably match 99.9% of power amplifiers. Now, your Bryston amplifier has measured 20Kohms unbalanced and 29 Kohms balanced input impedances and switchable gains of 23db or 29db. These values are still very comparable to our amplifiers so it kind of demonstrate that the problem lies elsewhere than gain and impedance matching (please correct me if I am wrong). I recognize that my perception of sound improvement is subjective as I don't have the proper tools to measure the full frequency spectrum of what comes out of my speakers but in this respect I have tried my best to match listening volume with an android app not to be biased by simple volume increase. Also my external volume control is 100% passive (10Kohms 64 stepped ladder type attenuator ) so I am not adding any "coloration" or harmonic distortion to the DAC output and if my math is correct my cumulated input impedance (10Kohms for the passive preamp with 50Kohms for the Benchmark AHB2 amplifier) is 8.3Kohms, it may look "low" but it is actually plenty enough to match the 1.9Ohms of the Element X... Before using an external volume control I was not able to listen to this unit more than 15-20mn straight and I was not enjoying the experience at all (Aigo mentioned that he would have had headaches after 10mn of listening). Today my wife is complaining because I spend too much time enjoying good music with the kids dancing around the speakers
 

Vladimir_Kl

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Btw I have +10 gain on Element X output and 23db gain on 4b3 input. I also measured my system with Rew and MMM - no major differences with or without preamp. This is very rough estimation of course - I use Rew and PEQ for fixing 50hz room mode only.
 

Kesi

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Would not describe it as problem, just what it is. Connecting it directly to FirstWatt F5T would give me headache after 10 minutes of listen and I assume any other amp as well. Connecting it to Pass Labs pre and then to the same power amp is the game changer; while being very detailed it is also quite musical.

I have the same experience connecting element X (line out mode 0db fixed) directly to my amp. Lifeless, boring, flat, no bass, thin sounding and I feel like listening to a megaphone. But when I use a pre amp (ifi pro ican) in between the element x and my amp,.. everything changed. Very musical, detailed and bass is present even if I set the Xbass feature of ifi pro ican to OFF. The same experience when using the headphone out of element X and ifi pro ican. What causes this sorcery?
 

raykkho

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Perhaps this is similar to some users preferring standard preamp over passive ones. I have a Wyred4Sound STP preamp, which has a buffered passive/active design, the first few clicks of the volume the preamp is basically in a passive mode, once get pass volume step 6 the preamp becomes active and you can feel the bloom and body come in. I think this is probably not limited to element X, when a DAC with volume control is used as a preamp driving speakers directly.
 

raykkho

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So how do I use the tidal app? Am I required to use the matrix app?
Yes you use the MA App for Tidal. I've used it and it works fine. I'm a Roon user so others here might have more experience on the MA App
 

Playskool

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I have the same experience connecting element X (line out mode 0db fixed) directly to my amp. Lifeless, boring, flat, no bass, thin sounding and I feel like listening to a megaphone. But when I use a pre amp (ifi pro ican) in between the element x and my amp,.. everything changed. Very musical, detailed and bass is present even if I set the Xbass feature of ifi pro ican to OFF. The same experience when using the headphone out of element X and ifi pro ican. What causes this sorcery?
Hi Kesi,
That's strange because if you were using the line out mode (0db fixed), then you were bypassing the volume control of the DAC and you were using the built-in preamp of you integrated amplifier to adjust the volume.
Could you please tell us what is your amplifier?
 
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