-Sounds like a plan, and I hope it goes well.
Well gosh, you come in here, a known Uptone appreciation society, telling us about a new brand we should consider. We were fine being in the dark, but no, you have to give us something to ponder.
I think you owe it to the group to buy both and answer your own question. Yes sir.
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Keces and Matrix are both owned by the same company, Power Holdings, so a normal recommendation by a Matrix dealer or distributor.
Looking at the back of the that PS I see USB power, a DC power option and switch to choose between the 2. Is there a way to power 2 devices at the same time with this PS?
I think you need to be careful here. If you use a psu with 2 outputs then presumably any rfi being emitted by one of the powered units would travel down the power lead and up the other power lead to the other device. The whole point of a separate power source for the matrix is it to ‘disconnect’ the source rfi on the usb 5v rails getting into the ds.
I thought Power Holdings was simply the USA distributor for Matrix and Keces (among other brands).
I bought one these:
I will see how good it is in a few days.
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You’re correct but my point was that the recommendation by the Matrix seller of the Keces was logical as they are part of the same family.
What have I done? I ordered a Matrix SPDIF-2. And a WireWorld Audio Silver Starlight 7 HDMI (1m). It should all arrive end of next week. I then have 14 days to make up my mind if this improves the signal.
It will compete against USB (AQ Diamond 1,5m) from a SOtM sMS-200Ultra (powered by a SOtM sPS-500) fed by an Innuos Zenith MKII (via AQ Cinnamon Ethernet 1,5m) into my DSD.
It’s all your fault. Thanks a lot!
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Indeed. We cannot blame enough this forum for spending an excess and futile amount of money. All the nanoscale improvements, the rare smiles, the insane drive to share ideas and experiences cannot outweight the cost, time and energy we could have spend on better things!
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I’ll be curious to hear of your impressions since I will also be upgrading using my sotm sms-200 streamer even though it’s not an ultra like yours. Definitely let us know if you get a chance! I’ll post my Impressions here too once I get things up and running.
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By the way…add me to the list of Matrix owners! While I haven’t listened to it yet through my sotm streamer I have simply through my laptop and it already sounds better 
can’t wait to hear through my streamer.
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I am so curious about the head to head with the SOtM and having it added to the chain after the SOtM!
Also, quick question, did you ever try the SOtM usbultra? I added that to my chain before the sms200 ultra neo. I did spend a fortune on Shunyata sigma and alpha usb in that chain… this hobby is not cheap, I should just start drinking again…
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Your statement about streaming from your computer via the matrix sounding great makes me even more nervous now…
Yes, I’ll for sure report back my subjective findings in a non-native language on my unique system combination and cabeling from my suboptimal room and setup, listening to music some dislike on speakers few ever heard (of) with very low SPL, while the baby sleeps. And you all gonna read it…
Hey, it is my hobby, too.
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Haha! I wouldn’t be nervous. I streamed from my computer for several months using Audirvana directly connected to my Gain Cell DAC, so I was familiar with the setup and certain of the upgrade quality when adding the SOtM SMS 200 into the chain instead of the laptop. So, I’m excited to hear how the Matrix sounds when I get my SMS 200 back into my system (hopefully tomorrow).
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No, I have not heard or tried the usbultra, limited budgets being my only excuse.
And yes, I’ll try the matrix in the chain after the SOtM and also will run the Innuos direct to the DSD and compare that with the matrix in-between. I’ll also try the new beta option in Roon settings from Innuos to allow using the internal player (based on the Squeezebox integration), enabling RAM playback (which RAAT does not do).
I’ll need a few drinks afterwards…
that’s pretty damn funny.
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I’ve had a chance to listen to several very familiar tracks through my new Matrix using PS Audio’s I2S cable, and in my situation I can confirm a noticeable upgrade in sound quality.
I won’t get into too many details as I haven’t had a chance to listen for hours on end, but there’s more inner-detail, more “air,” blacker “blacks,” and just more musicality in general. I’m already hearing elements of recordings that I haven’t heard before, and instruments sound that much more natural. It’s fascinating, and quite obvious. Excellent recommendation!
And at the very least I can confirm the upgrade is quite noticeable using a Steller Gain Cell DAC in my system. I know I’m in the relative minority here among DSD users.
*As a small side-note, I was able to fix my SOtM SMS 200 streamer MPD/DLNA problem using the new SD card they shipped me. Nice to know this fixed the problem, but frustrating it happened nonetheless as I’ve read in other places this has been a problem for some folks. Hopefully this won’t happen again.
I didn’t need to install any drivers from Matrix, and it worked just fine using the the PS Audio driver that was already in place and running through Audirvana.
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Sweet!
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