THE CONDUCTOR BY MATISSE

The Conductor is a passive equipment with a sophisticated circuit Which works to suppress the interference from HIGH FREQUENCY NOISES generated by all digital equipments. ( e.g. C.D. Player, C.D. Transport, D/A Converter etc. ) These HIGH FREQUENCY NOISES can be measured and recorded on an ocilloscope.  Based upon our research, we found these HIGH FREQUENCY NOISES is one of the major causes for the unnatural sound we hear from any compact disc.  With the Conductor, the sound from any high quality compact disc will become much more musical and natural.  Now, the sound has been improved to a point that can be compared to a good analogue source.  The effect is just magical.  The Conductor will also benefit any analogue equipment such as L.P. record play through a system with digital equipments plug in.  We, at MATISSE is really proud of the Conductor and feel it is one the greatest invention in the digital era.  With the Conductor, the full potential of the compact disc can be fully explored for the first time.

JIMY HUGHES   June 99, HI FI CHOICE
     Just connect The Conductor by Matisse to a spare input on your amplifier and you'll get a noticeable improvement in clarity and cleanness. It's 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 CD 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 the heatsinks look pretty cool. No circuit details are given and, because the innards are potted in epoxy resin then sealed into the aluminium casework, it's difficult to tell what's inside. But work it certainly does; you can really hear the 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 glare. A two-position switch alters the frequency at which The Conductor operates, allowing you to tailor it to your system.
        After many comparisons, settled on position two, which seemed to give better instrumental separation and 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 amplifier, it proved even more effective when attached to a spare socket on the Meridian 518 digital processor I use between CD transport and DAC. This makes sense. After all, it's 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 rin-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. I made a few adjustments elsewhere to sweeten up the sound, thereby getting the very best of both worlds.

ULTIMATE AUDIO Fall 2000 Vol 4 No 3
In late March of this year I attended the Festival du son l'image 2000 in Montreal. It was a terrific event, showcasing major international brands as well as a surprising array of  locally developed, yet to be discovered products. The high-end audio scene in the francophone province of Quebec must be one of the liveliest and most inventive in North America.

One of the rooms in Montreal featured Verity Audio Fidelio speakers driven by the British made Matisse electronics and fronted by the new, and utterly amazing Dodson DA-217 MK2-D DAC. The sound was very good, indeed! I spent a lot of time in this room and eventually noticed a small cylindrical device sitting on top of the Dodson. I queried George Chan, Canadian importer of Matisse, about this device and he explained that it was the Matisse ConductoR. "It can have a wonderful effect on the digital sound," he said, "and it is completely passive. It is not in the signal path." That was mysterious enough for me, but the sound in the room was so smooth and detailed the it intrigued me. Before I left, George handed me a ConductoR to try in my own setup.

The Matisse ConductoR is a $850 device with, on one of the flat butt end, a two position toggle switch and a three foot single conductor wire terminated to the ground collar of a WBT RCA type plug. The round sides are completely covered by cooling fins, which are probably purely decorative. In some respects, the ConductoR looks similar to one of the smaller Musical Fidelity devices.

You plug the ConductoR into one of the empty input connectors on your line stage or preamplifier (it does not matter whether left or right). The two settings of the toggle switch clearly affect an area in the upper frequencies. Most obviously between, say, 3 and 6 kHz, but the effect is said to go much higher. The effect is clear, but subtle. Overall, the sound gets cleaner and better focused, and appears more transparent. One of the settings makes the sound subjectively more detailed and spacious while the other setting makes it smoother and "rounder". According to the literature the ConductoR has "a simple yet sophisticated LCR network which works to suppress (attenuate) the high frequency noise generated by all kinds of digital equipment (CD, SACD and DVD audio). Since it is only attached to the ground, it will not change all alter the signal itself."

I have no clue as to what resides inside the ConductoR. It cannot easily be opened because the screw head holding it together have been drilled in such a way that no tool will work on them. This and the cooling fins make me skeptical. However, the whole thing obviously works and it appears to have a beneficial effect on CDs, especially those that have aggressive sibilance, strings or other other similar problems. And, it can certainly liven up and enhance duller, lifeless recordings, I like the effect of the ConductoR, so it'll remain in my reference system.

-Lars Fredell