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"Once experienced, the Conductor is difficult
to live without. The enhanced clarity, transparency and resolution
axe highly addictive. I made a few adjustments elsewhere to sweeten
up the sound, thereby getting the very best of both worlds."
Just connect The Conductor by Matisse to a spare input on your
amplifier and you'll get a noticeable improvement in clarity and
cleanness. ItÕs as simple as that.
Magic? Not quite. The Conductor is designed to absorb high-frequency
noise present on your amplifier's ground rail. Matisse principally
targets the noise produced by CID players and other digital components.
But the modern world is a 'dirty' place and the atmosphere is
heavily contaminated with RF noise, so every little helps.
The unit itself comes in a small heavily finned package, looking
not unlike a tiny power amp. However, it doesn't get warm, although
heatsinks look pretty cool. No circuit details cause the innards
are potted sealed into the aluminium. It to tell what's inside.
work it certainly does; you can really hear difference. Subjectively,
The Conductor cleans up the sound reducing high-frequency hash
and graininess. The music sounds clearer, more transparent and
more crisply focused, with less A two-position switch alters the
frequency at which The Conductor allowing you to tailor it your
system. After many comparison , settled on position two, h seemed
to give better instrumental ration and to do so later.
Slightly firmer low frequencies. Position one was marginally warmer
and a shade more diffused - although either setting was cleaner
and better focused than the sound without the unit.
Although The Conductor produced a worthwhile improvement connected
to my pro amplifier, it proved even more effective when attached
to a spare socket on the Meridian 518 digital processor 1 use
between CD transport and DAC. This makes sense. After all, ifs
better to kill noise at source than try to do so later. So, if
your CD player has a spare phono socket (analogue or digital),
try The Conductor here too. It might even be worth using more
than one Conductor - say, on the amplifier, and on the CD player.
Using two Conductors you'd have the option of setting the frequency
switch to different positions, thus dealing much more effectively
with RF noise.
Matisse suggests that, after the unit has been fully run-in, you
might want to make fine adjustments to your system. Because The
Conductor enhances resolution, you'll be able to hear the effect
of subtle changes that would probably have been masked before.
But this works both ways. In my system, the upside was a cleaner
more sharply delineated presentation, greater dynamics, and superior
fine detail; the downside was a more forceful 'projected' sound,
which sometimes made the music seem less sweet and beguiling.
The extra clarity brought with it a slight increase in tonal hardness.
Nevertheless, once experienced, The Conductor is difficult to
live without The enhanced clarity transparency and resolution
are highly addictive.1 made a adjustments elsewhere to sweeten
the sound, thereby getting the very of both worlds. At £349.99,
it's certainly well worth trying
The ConductorÕs
fintastic aluminium casing contains highly effective circuitry
- but it's all sealed inside.
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