Audio Control Maestro 4 – Audiophile 7.1 AV Preamp SRP: $6000
Posted on May 18th, 2012 in rc-car | No Comments »
Published on May 17, 2012 Audio Control Maestro M4Audiophile 7.1 AV PreampSRP: $6000 Specs: 7 stereo pairs analog audio inputsNominal input sensitivity: 500m V-4VInput impedance: 47 ohmsS/N: 100 dB1 8-channel analog audio inputDigital audio: 3 coax, 4 opticalVideo: 5 component, 5 composite, 5 S-VideoHDMI: 5 Maximum level: 6vOutput impedance: <50 ohmsFreq. response: 2-Hz to 20kHzHDMI: 2 assignableMain audio: 7 channels plus 3 subwoofersDigital audio: 1 coax, 1 opticalMain video: 1 component, 3 composite, 3 S-Video 12v trigger outputs: main, zones 2 & 3RS-232 serial control: 1 DB-9IR Receiver input: main, zones 2 & 3IR emitter output: one Standby power consumption: 3 wattsSize: 17” W x 16.5” D x 7” HWeight: 27 lbs. AudioControl22410 70th Ave. WestMountlake Terrace, WA Intro AudioControl is not a household name for most humans but they have been in business for over 30 years. They formulate instrumentation for the car, home and professional markets and their productions are disseminated worldwide. The office is outside Seattle, WA. An increasing amount of their business is habit AV systems and multi-room systems. They give rise to professional audio test equipment, AV distribution systems, and home AV equipment, including AV amps, preamps, receivers and processors. I introductory read with regards to them in a CES report. After researching them, I became mesmerized in attempting out their preamp/processor. Past models have received very positive reviews. I have been waiting for a new AV preamp for regarding four years now. There have been for the most part two price ranges in AV preamps in the past: under $3000 and over $9000. In the under $3000 range were the Marantz, Integra, Adcom, Onkyo, and Emotiva. Outlaw has been promising a new AV preamp for at least four years. A couple of years ago I was hoping the Outlaw with the Trinnov processing would become a reality, but no such luck. Emotiva has offered a for less $700 preamp, but from remarks on their internetlocation it has been somewhat problematic. Denon has an AV preamp at with regards to $7500. In the over-$9000 area there are the McIntosh, Mark Levinson, Classe, Krell, Lexicon, Cary, Meridan, and Anthem products. Some of these audiophile AV preamps are over $30,000. Limitations of cash and space require that I combine my video and audio systems into one system. It would have been much more comfortable for me to find an AV preamp if it was just for video. I am introductory of all an audiophile, so any preamp must be competent to fabricate audiophile sound on music to be considered. In the stores I have heard the Marantz, Onkyo, Integra, McIntosh and Anthem preamps. The Anthem and McIntosh were in systems in excess of $50,000. None of them gave me a sentiment that they had promise that they could construct audiophile sound. For me to take them home to try, I necessitated at least a heap of sense that there was audiophile sound there. To me they all seemed to have more theatre sound than musical sound. They all sounded a bit sluggish and undetailed in their sound. I would think that these elements will have to sound far better than they did. I will confess that a store circumstance is not a good way to judge the sound of a component. At home, my scheme is in a highly-treated room with a highly-tweaked system. In a store circumstance I have only heard 10 or 12 schemes in stores that sound good in 35 years. Stores have difficultnesses with using a large total of tweaks. A client who purchased a factor in a store that had a highly tweaked scheme would in all likelihood be very disappointed with the sound when he got home with the element and put it into a non-tweaked system. There is likewise the cost of the tweaks and the fact that a good deal of of the tweaks don’t look that good. Most dealers do not like admitting that tweaks may be very cost effective improvements in sound. I have been very pleased with the sound of my system using a heavily-modified Outlaw 950 AV preamp. But I wanted video switching, newer digital chips and more flexibility. One audiophile friend questioned replacing my old preamp because I had such good sound with my old one. I ought to confess that I had worries myself. First of all would running my video signals through a preamp reduce the quality of the video? The second was whether it would sound as good as the old preamp. To be fair, I will say that most of the good sound of the old scheme was using a Jena Labs-modified Oppo 83SE with multi-channel bypass on the Outlaw. Appearance and Build Quality The unit came in a big reasonably heavy box (by today’s standards). The unit is somewhat huge and weighs 27 pounds. I was enjoyably astonished by the looks. It actually looks rather nice. The face plate is surrounded by black shiny metal raised metal with a clear plastic covered black plate over most of the front panel. On this panel is a big display with blue selective information display, 11 little buttons and a huge volume control knob. The buttons have a little blue light description over each, and is readable from a distance. The unit is 1.5 inches taller and deeper than my Outlaw 950. It is designed for either rack or non-rack mounting needs and has both balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA outputs. It also weighs with regards to twice as much. Build quality is very good and it looks much better than the other AV preamps I have seen. Input and Outputs One strong point of the AudioControl Maestro M4 is it is a great deal of selections of inputs and outputs. It has 5 video inputs. These are AV, DVD, DVR VCR, and satellite. Each of these has four possible video inputs. This is very utile for users that have older video equipment. Most innovative preamps have annihilated the composite and S-video inputs and have fixed element inputs. It has 3 audio-only inputs, altho any of the unused video inputs likewise have audio inputs. They are CD, Tape and Phono. It has 7.1 analog inputs. It has 3 coax and 4 optical digital audio inputs. Some preamps now are not including phono inputs any longer. It likewise has Ethernet and USB inputs. The Ethernet connection is applied for updates and for Internet radio. The USB connection is for updates and playing musical files. It has programing and control RS232 inputs, along with a mike/AUX input. It has zone 1, 2, and 3 IR and trigger inputs, plus 2 HDMI outputs. It likewise has zone 2 and 3 S-video and composite outputs, with zone two shared video on zone 3. There are also VCR, DVR, and Main composite and S-video outputs, and it has a factor video output also. On the audio side it has 7.3 RCA and balanced main outputs. That’s right: there are 3 distinguished subwoofer outputs. There are also optical and SPDIF digital audio outputs. It has RCA analog outputs to Tape, VCR and DVR. plus a headphone output. All of these inputs and outputs are the reason for the huge chassis. Setup Unless you are intimate with AV setup, you may need to have help from your dealer. The connections are somewhat straight forward. Care ought to be taken to not hook up two dissimilar audio or video connections to the same input. With 4 dissimilar ways to hook up to each of the 5 video inputs, it may happen. Audio may be input to any of the video inputs in 3 ways. HDMI, optical or SPDIF digital, and coax analog. The tape and CD inputs may have either digital or analog connections. The phono input has an analog input. The Maestro only has a basic room setup for audio, doing speaker distance and volume. This may either be done mechanically with a supplied mike or manually with test tones, tape measure and a sound meter. I preferent the manual method. The identification screens for the inputs may be a bit daunting. The remote (which costs $115 extra) is on the huge size, but reasonably easy to use. It is unquestionably not your popular cheapie remote. The backlighting for the keys is very useful. The manual covers only the basics. A indepth manual for this unit would be more than a hundred pages. I am a scientific routine writer, so I have some idea when it comes to what that would take. What the Unit Doesn’t Include As already brought up the Maestro itself does not have room correction for frequency response like Audyssey room correction in the under-$3000 units or the proprietary room correction of the more costly unit. AudioControl offers this in a distinguished unit called the Diva. McIntosh is coming out with a for less unit at with regards to $6000. One of the main divergences in this unit and their $13,000 unit is the lack of their proprietary room treatment. I recognise various people that do not use the Audyssey because they feel that it hurts the sound. I would like to have heard the Trinnov processor, which corrects for frequency, speaker angle, distance, sound level and phase of each speaker. No one has veritably got it to completely work in an affordably-priced unit. The Maestro M4 doesn’t have an AM/FM tuner. [I would find that an odd omission...Ed.] The under-$3000 units and the Anthem have this. I have never employed the AM/FM tuner in my Outlaw. What It Has Extra First, it has a five year guarantee, Dolby volume control, the most recent HDMI 1.4 with 3D pass-through, and Wolfson 24/192 DACs. It converts all progressed AV audio formats and converts bequest video formats to greatest or most complete or best possible video quality thru the HDMI outputs. There are spacious automation integration capablenesses and Internet radio capability. It would have been nice to have DVD-Audio and SACD conversion in the preamp would be nice. More info on the display of what digital audio and video signals was being input. I do not mean the audio surround formats. I mean audio signal sample rate and digital video selective information transfer rate. But no preamp I have seen has this. A couple of more analog-only inputs could also be useful. Performance My worries with regards to putting video signals through the preamp were quickly eliminated. It put through a outstanding video signal and I found it nearly the same as a direct video feed from my Oppo thru HDMI. The digital conversion of CDs was somewhat better than the Oppo digital conversion thru analog output. It had the added bonus of being competent to synthesize surround from the CD. On Cyndi Lauper’s great album At Last, Cyndi’s voice rings out clear and strong. Both the recording and performance are on the edge and the Maestro lets you listen it all. On the digital conversion from surround formats thru HDMI versus the analog outputs of the Oppo, it was a little mixed. The Oppo had a lighter more airy sound with more or less more little detail. The bass and dynamics were unquestionably better on the Maestro and it also had somewhat more inviolable effigy focus. On Patricia Barber’s Companion album The Maestro had tighter bass, better dynamics and a more solid image. The Oppo was a little more spectacular sounding, but a little less focused. On the Arts Audio 96/24 DVD Percussion XX the Maestro proved to have better bass, dynamics, and imaging, but the Oppo had more or less more air. The Maestro is in all likelihood going to get even better as it further breaks in. I have in regards to 40 hours on the Maestro. It commonly takes from 100 to 200 hours before a factor is at it is best. The next question is how the multi-channel output of the Oppo through the Maestro and my old heavily-modified Outlaw 950 compared. They are both on audio bypass mode. This is for the most part for SACD and DVD-audio. On the Runnicles Telarc Carmina Burana, the voices are better separated and clearer with the Maestro. The bass and dynamics of the Maestro brought my sound to a new level. The Internet radio is a bit cumbersome to work with. I have expended only various hours with it. It would take numerous hours to go through the hundreds of stations available and put them into your favorites, so you may more without apparent effort find them. Most of the stations are 128 kbps MP3. The sound that I have heard is like mediocre CD sound. [But there are some at higher sampling rates that sound fine. My Integra provides a list of the most eminent quality ones...Ed.] Conclusions To say the least the Maestro M4 has met and exceeded my expectations. Its video processing and bypass are both excellent. The audio bypass sound is the best I have heard. It beats out my heavily-modified Outlaw, which I had antecedently considered one of the best preamps I have heard—and that includes stereo preamps. Its digital decoding matches or beats the Jena Labs modified Oppo. (The modified Oppo is one of the best sound roots I recognise of.) The unit looks better than most AV units. The Maestro has as good or better input and output sets than I have seen on any preamp. It has capacity for automation and multi-room setups and gives the listener a assortment of sound options. If you have a problematic room you might consider adding their Diva room processor or another unit. The Diva is $10,000 and is a professional quality component. Unfortunately I can’t compare it is performance with the other high end AV preamps, because I have not had them in my system. I notwithstanding do not feel I need to, since I am very happy with the Maestro and am going to add it to my system. I am very glad they put the cash into audio quality rather than extras which I do not need. My System Preamp: Outlaw modified 950 and Maestro M4Main amp: Crown Macro ReferenceSurround amps: Sumo, Parasound and AdcomMain speakers: Eminent Technology LFE-8 ribbons with AV-123 super tweetersSubwoofers: Thorough Bass Magellan VIII SU with MDG-200 amp and crossoverCenter and rear surround speakers: LinaeumSide speakers: Chapman Mini monitorsTV: Sony 65 HX292 XBRDisc Players: Marantz 5000 blu-ray, Samsung BD-UP5000 blu-ray/HD-DVD player, Jena Labs Oppo BDP 83SEVideo: 3 Direct TV HDVRs and JVC Super VHS playerCables: Cardas, Kimber Silver and Jena Labs interconnect, digital and speaker cablesPower Cables: Marigo, API and KimberPower: 2 20 amp committed power lines with distinguished ground from main house and custom- built power conditioners.Room: 20’ by 20’ by 9’Tweaks: Bright Star Big Feet; mpingo, Avalon, and Marigo isolation feet; Shatki Onlines, Stones and Sonic Hallographs; Corner Tunes; Tube Traps; TeknaSonic speaker dampeners; lead sheets and bricks; and 5-step disc treatment. audiocontrol.com/t35/16462/736800/Theater-Processors-and-Receivers/Maestro-M4-HD-Theater-Processor-with-3D-Support.html |
