Does anyone really know the Matt Audio brand? I admit that before evaluating the electronics we bring to these pages, I knew absolutely nothing about them. Where are they from? What do they make? A visit to the ubiquitous Google search engine turns up no fewer than 5,300,000 possible results for "Matt." It can’t be that I still don’t know the brand. If we add "Pre-Comp," the trade name of the unit in question, to the search, we drop to 394. And if we manually filter out the results that clearly have nothing to do with what we’re really looking for: none. That makes more sense. Now I certainly understood why I knew nothing about it.
Only the user manual gives a web address: www.mattaudio.com.
From the look of the preamp-compressor we’re analyzing today, I knew I was facing a "different" product. First, because it falls outside the big, well-known brands, but above all because of the label printed on the unit’s chassis: "Handmade." It’s been so long since I came across a handmade product in the professional world… I almost shed a tear.
But the surprises don’t end there.
Spanish origin
Matt Audio, as its website states, is a company of Spanish origin, or at least it has its production plant in northern Spain, specifically in Vizcaya, very close to Bilbao. They are mainly dedicated to designing and producing professional tube audio compressors and equalizers, keeping alive this oasis overwhelmed by the latest impersonal transistors. "At MattAudio we only process high-quality equipment," they say; but I will confirm (or not) this bold statement a few lines below. I like this other sentence I took from their website: "Every sound engineer in the world seeks the highest audio quality, as well as the ability to add nuances to that sound that enhance the results."
The products section lists only the COMP-S2 compressor and the EQP-S1 equalizer, with no trace of the Pre-Comp 1942, the model we bring you here (probably because the website hasn’t been updated yet). In any case, if you like, visit the website and you’ll see some pictures of the inside and the manufacturing process of the two models mentioned, which certainly adds interest and curiosity. Let’s focus on our test bench.
At first sight
I’m being very honest when I say that I don’t like the look of our guest. I gathered that the company works with an excellent team of sound and/or electronics engineers, capable of achieving the results we discuss later. But they have let the "visual design" slip, the thing that makes a product appealing at first glance (which is, honestly, unfair, because what matters is that it works, and works well). In the case of this MattAudio, the first impression is that it’s a copy of those old electronic units, although, to be honest, they could have taken a little more care with the details. As you can see in the pictures, the screen printing (besides being somewhat imprecise) is not up to the standard of the rest of the unit, with "retro" touches like drawing nonexistent parts, or completely forgetting the meaning of symmetry (a better layout would help enormously to understand and know how to use the unit). Someone during the tests managed to define very precisely the feeling this unit gave off just by looking at it: "laziness."
Its 4U height is justified only by the need to cool the tubes, which are visible at the back, without forced ventilation (and therefore without noise). Since it is a single-channel preamp-compressor, we will surely want to buy two, four or eight units, which mounted in a rack would take up a significant amount of space in our studio. One of the most popular and ubiquitous preamp-compressors in almost any recording studio, the Avalon VT737SP, takes up half the space, includes other features such as a parametric equalizer and doesn’t skip the tubes either. The Avalon’s look, besides achieving a much more efficient and logical control layout, oozes modernity, robustness and reliability.
The Matt’s asymmetrical layout, its use of large controls and a certain visual chaos at first glance are not, however, representative of what we analyze further on.
Turning the unit around, we find only two inputs and outputs, A and B, with XLR connectors only. The brief user manual (which suddenly becomes an indispensable tool) tells us that the inputs are balanced, as are the outputs, except for the preamp output. The manual is sometimes somewhat imprecise, as with the previous sentence, because which preamp output does it mean? A or B? The user constantly has to resort to deduction. A longer, more complete user manual would have been desirable, although the company is probably working on a new one.
Although this unit will clearly find its use in studios (and therefore in fixed installations), that doesn’t mean its connection panel has to be as limited and sparse as it is. We deduce that input A, again via XLR, is the one that feeds the preamp, while B corresponds to the compressor. A switch on the front panel labeled "Link" and a huge left-to-right arrow helped us understand, together with the few words in the user manual, that there were two possible connection options. Both inputs have their own outputs, also on XLR, although, as mentioned above, the preamp output (that is, the one labeled simply "A" on the rear chassis) is unbalanced. One option is to connect output A to input B, which lets us use the preamp and then compress an input signal. The "Link" button makes this physical connection unnecessary, so we feed the signal into A and take it out of B. If we don’t want to use the compressor, another switch lets us "bypass" the corresponding electronics. This would be the most logical way to connect it, but it’s somewhat short of what other units offer in terms of connections. In fact, apart from a high-impedance input (labeled "Line IN") on the front panel, impedance matching according to the input has to be done by stepping the gain value, something unusual that nowadays is solved more quickly, although it does point to more precise control of the input signal. It would have been desirable to include more connection types and more insert and bypass options. Not that it’s absolutely essential, far from it, but its competitors do offer them.
By ear
We carried out the tests at La Bucbonera studio in Caldes de Montbui, run by the esteemed Tomás Robisco. For this we relied on his experience and his gear, which in this case included a Neumann U87ai and Luis Robisco’s Spanish guitar.
The incomplete screen printing chosen leads to illogical things, such as some scales running linearly from 1 to 10 when they should clearly indicate time or dB values (that is, a logarithmic scale). Hence my earlier comment about needing to make friends with the user manual, since it gives the values corresponding to the printed scale. It’s not very convenient.
But one look at engineer Tomás’s face, and even musician Luís’s, was enough to confirm what we suspected: sonic excellence everywhere.
Our guest’s work as a preamp is immeasurable. There isn’t a trace of unwanted coloration, and although it’s a bit slow to dial in the right amount of preamplification, the result is tremendously powerful. The MattAudio analyzed here is the kind of unit that shows the difference between cold, modern "all-in-one" transistors and the good results you get when electronic engineering and a good choice of tubes come together. Luís Robisco’s guitar gets the body and strength every engineer is after, as we said without obvious coloration, although I would add an extreme smoothness in the highs that makes the sound "very warm" (there is coloration, but it’s controlled and very pleasant).
The preamp output (the stage before the compressor) includes an output level control; therefore, it determines the compressor’s threshold values, which makes adjusting and using the unit a little more complicated. If for any reason we need a bit more output level at some point, we can only change the preamp output value, so all the settings made on the compressor (if we’re using it, of course) have to be adjusted again. It would have been more sensible to place the output level right after the compressor stage. This, and only this, is the one (small, very small) drawback in the audio department. And although I admit I always look for something "bad" in a product, I can’t be unfair, and I must also acknowledge the excellent performance of the compressor stage. And why is that?
To begin with, because it greatly respects the very good work of the preamp, something that seems logical but isn’t always the case. The tonal consistency between both stages is very good, which allows both resources to be exploited efficiently without losing any of the fidelity of the audio signal. The compressor’s available controls (although you still need the manual to understand some omissions in the screen printing) allow perfect control of the signal’s dynamics, delivering at the output a powerful, desirable sound that is, above all, free of any new destructive coloration and, no less important, of any trace of distortion. Even with transients, which on other mediocre compressors clearly lead to audible distortion, on this Matt they translate into a smooth transition and absolute control.
Conclusions
It’s inevitable to compare our guest with any other "reference" product. When we talk about a "reference," we sometimes mean not a product "beyond all rating," but the standard product found in most recording studios. Focusrite (the ISA430, although that’s an example of how far solid state can go) and Avalon are two clear examples, and in fact I have already used the Avalon as a reference above. Personally, and in a direct comparison, the Matt surpasses the Avalon’s compression and preamp, well and by a wide margin, although the Avalon, at almost the same price, offers something more (such as EQ, as well as its look and connectivity, which are nothing to sneeze at). For example, the Avalon delivers a somewhat harsher sound, easily bettered by the Matt’s sweet finish.
But that doesn’t stop my surprise (and therefore that of our guests Luís and Tomás Robisco) from being very pleasant in the face of a unit carefully built by hand, capable of offering a sound and performance we only find in higher-end products.
The Matt is not a toy, far from it; it’s a very high-class preamp and a compressor in every sense of the word. It has its shortcomings, such as its look (which doesn’t do justice to its sound, not by a long shot) or its somewhat limited connectivity.
We considered using it as a compressor at the final stage of a recording, which, given the results, would be an excellent choice thanks to the compressor’s speed and lack of coloration (though with the "warmth" typical of tubes) and the magnificent performance of the preamp; but this would mean using two units for a stereo production. This is where we find another small limitation. It is a "mono" unit, so two independent units will be needed for this purpose. This requires the calibration of both to be perfect, and also the settings to be as identical as possible. An option allowing one unit to "control" the other in slave mode would be desirable, avoiding possible problems in adjusting both, which would be easy given our guest’s extreme precision.
As a channel preamp and compressor, we have already seen, and I think I’ve made it clear (and if not, let these lines say so), that it is magnificent.
