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HDMI HDbaseT Matrix (No Hassel AV)


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Howdy all,

Built my house in '09 and we decided to give it a big refresh this past fall.  Part of that was new (much bigger) TV's.  Probably hard to believe, but we had still been rocking component using the old Sony Component Video switcher (never died, a beast).   We had to upgrade to HDMI and move to an HDMI matrix.  I got pricing from all the big players, including C4, and the numbers just blew me away.  We have 10 TV's so no small solution for us.  I had read an old review hear about No Hassel AV on these forums and called them up to see what's doing.  Long story short picked up their new 8x16 HDbaset 4K HDR ARC Matrix for $4k, everything included. 

Dropped the thing in my rack, connected the receivers to my CAT5, HDMI to the TV's, connected the matrix, and fired it up.  Took about five minutes to setup the EDID and output settings on what was a remarkably good web interface, and I was off to the races.  The analog audio output worked like a charm and down converted perfectly.   Control4 programming was quick and easy and the driver worked off a serial interface.  Like all my projects I promised the wife a couple of hours and normally spend a couple of days.  With this matrix I was done in one hour and blew the other hour playing with the dog.

I will say, the name of the company could use a bit of polish and the all amazon all the time website probably saves them a few bucks.  But the company was quick to pick up the phone (and a real human) , they were knowledgeable, and nice.   All around a winner. 

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I've seen their stuff, but I find it weird they have 5 star reviews that read like disasters. Meaning the actual review is bad, but the stars are 5. Seen several where the gear fails. No idea if these are real reviews or trolls or what. I wondered if they had paid reviews, but since they don't have a large number that didn't seem logical. I think its cool they have a matrix that supports Atmos or claims to support it. The other thing that bothered me is that on at least one of their products it says returns are not possible due to hazardous material. Very odd.

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41 minutes ago, Shoe said:

I wondered if they had paid reviews

They do slip in a little card in most of their boxes stating you can receive a credit for Amazon if you leave a review. That said...

There stuff works very well and the cost is a bonus. Support is surprisingly very good. Phone, email, and even iOS/iMessage Business Chat (which is surprising given their size). I had one of their 8x16 HDR units that supported Dolby Vision, but getting the EDID to work consistently with Dolby Vision was making things rough and the WAF was not good. I also realized I really needed to have TrueHD/Atmos and DTS-HD MA/-X downmixing (which their matrixes don't support) so I switched to a AVoIP solution instead that had downmixing baked into units. 

Still would recommend them for large installs on a budget.

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8 minutes ago, witt312 said:

Do their newer 8x16 models down-mix audio as well or just pass along the extracted hdmi-audio?

They will only pass along HDMI-extracted audio that is PCM -- it can not pass along any non-PCM audio.

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