Oz Audio Matrix Elite 180CS
rrp: $999 (2007)





I fell in love with these speakers when listening to Rob’s (Fudd) Eunos nearly two years ago at a CAASQ comp. I was at the time running some VDO HPC1700 splits, which were very good and provided plenty of mid-bass, they were however very, VERY poor in comparison to Rob’s Oz splits. The Oz had such kick in the mid-bass and clarity in the top-end, especially when Rob threw on some Michael Jackson that I was blown away with how good they sounded.
From that day, I knew I had to have these speakers in my car.

The 180CS set consists of two 6.5” mid-woofers with mineral-filled polypropylene cones, butyl rubber surrounds and a four-layer, pure grade copper voice-coil which is thermoset onto an aluminium former. The copper to aluminium arrangement allows maximum power transfer while even the epoxy used over the voice coil is designed to get stronger as it heats up.
The tweeters have a 1” silk/cotton blend diaphragm with extremely high transient response controlled by the neodymium iron-boron motor structure. Ferro-fluid is used within the thermoset coil to maximise temperature control.
The crossovers use a zobel impedance network to maintain a smooth impedance curve, while phase (0/180deg.) and tweeter attenuation (0, -3dB, -6dB) allow control over the final sound.
The woofer diameter is 6.5”, mounting diameter 5.625” and mounting depth a very imposing 3”!!

I originally had these speakers installed in the stock locations of my VR Commodore (with some modding of the spacer to make them fit) with the tweeters sitting up on the dash firing up into the windscreen. The sound was very clean, with a wide soundstage and good height. After now having the woofers moved into custom made fibreglass pods, with the tweeters mounted in the a-pillars, about 4” up from the dash and aimed at the opposite passenger, I can immediately notice an improvement in mis-bass performance, with the woofers now given a chance to perform on-axis and more importantly (I feel) with ‘breathing’ space behind them (as they were RIGHT up against the outer skin when in the stock location).

I am running these speakers actively with all control via my Alpine CDA-7998R headunit, with the mid-woofers powered from my Soundstream Reference300 amp (2x75wrms) and the tweeters from my Soundstream Reference Class A6.0 (2x50wrms). The speakers have an amazing sense of realism to them, with vocals and mid-bass sounding very lifelike and smooth. Top end is very accurate and easy to listen to, without being overly ‘bright’ or exaggerated. Running active though, they do require a little eq ‘out of the box’ as the mid-woofer’s do have a very full, rich bottom end which can be a little overpowering, especially in a system where the sub is playing past ~65Hz. The tweeters as I mentioned are very smooth and laid back, and if you were to do a side-by-side with something like a Focal TN52 you may think the Oz tweeter has a roll-off from around 14-16kHz. This is not necessarily the case, its just that the Oz tweeter doesn’t seem to ‘sparkle’ or jump out at the listener. This is most obvious at higher volumes where other tweeters may become hard to listen to, while the Oz will continue to be accurate easy to listen to.

Having heard these speakers also ran passively in another car, it is possible that the Oz crossover network helps overcome these two ‘issues’ by smoothing out the response of the woofer’s bottom end and providing a little more clarity in the mid-bass, while seeming to open up the top-end of the tweeter, allowing it to sparkle without becoming harsh at high volumes.

Definitely one of the best two-way systems available, providing competition to the more popular Dynaudio 240, Focal 165K2P, Morel Elate and Boston Pro component sets.


For:
Excellent mid-bass ability
Smooth top-end, even at high volume
Excellent crossover network
Has just been updated with a new design, improving on the already ‘perfect’ (IASCA perfect score) reputation of these speakers

Against:
Can not be bi-amped
Mid-woofer mounting depth means mods in all but the largest doors

good write up spyne!

are these the old version or the new updated version? would be interesting to hear a comparison between the two

these are the older ones, i have been meaning to do this write up quite a while now, and its probably a litle redundant now with the new models out, since the newies are completely different to these 'older' ones

i absolutely love my matrix's, i overcame the large mounting depth with 24mm baffles to get them into my pulsar.

Excellent article Adam

.... they do sound nice don't they

i didnt think they were that deep
i had to do custom build outs on the eunos but also that was for SQ anyway.
they fit in the stock locations in my Lux with no problems.


awesome speakers. still love listning to them!

Midbass has a good low-to-mid extension that makes this driver is good for 2 ways application, however the midbass frame structure has a poor heat dispersion... the tweeter is not too bad except for the look... I have to agree that it has a good crossover in terms of design and functionality... the new midbass isn't sound as good as the former Matrix Elite...

Price wise... IMHO, if only they can reduce the price around 20%-30% should fit well in the market... anyway, I have one on sale for AUD400 but location is in overseas... somehow, it is not as popular as in Australia...

Ill add a little of my opinion of these speakers after listening to them. I think they are a fantastic set of speakers for the price.

Running of the stock crossover, I found the lower midrange to be emphaised a little to much, this was brough out on Domingos voice. I also find the tweeter a little unforgiving, and lacking overall smothness.

But, this is a very rough go at these speakers, as I was comparing them to speakers twice their price. For their money the Ozs are very hard to go past, and, I wouldnt mind a set of these in my car.