INDIO TMA-1

I took delivery of the TMA-1 two days ago, so what follows is only a first preliminary account.

The first thing that struck me when I opened the box was the size of the main receiver unit. It is tiny. Its footprint is about that of a paperback. Subjectively the case which is made of black brushed aluminium has a reassuringly “solid” feel, and it looks quite nice as well. The receiver is also surprisingly light. The display has the same number of dots (128 x 64) as the Indio Petite, but that’s where the similarity ends. The TMA’s display is smaller than that of the Petite (5.0 x 2.6 cm versus 6.3 x 3.5 cm) so with the number of pixels being the same, the TMA’s display looks considerably sharper. Also the effective viewing angle is wider than that of the Petite, and further there is noticeably less “smearing” when scrolling text is displayed. In all, the TMA’s crisp display is a welcome and significant improvement over that of the Petite.

The two loudspeakers are also smaller in real life than you might think when viewing online images of the TMA-1. Again, they have a solid “quality” feel and look, sharing the piano-black gloss with the likes of the Roberts WM-201, Sangean WFR-20 etc. For their size, they are relatively heavy. The connections to the receiver unit are easily made using the supplied speaker cables.

The remote is the same as supplied with the Petite. It works well, but those who are lucky enough to own an iPhone, Android smartphone or iPod Touch are advised to download the Reciva Remote app, as this will make life even easier.

The external power supply unit is not a compact wall wart but a fairly large 5 x 11 cm box that can deliver no less than 2.5A at 12V. I don’t know if the receiver actually pulls 2.5A at any time.

Although I am intending to use the TMA-1 primarily as a receiver in combination with an existing Rotel hifi stereo system, I set it up first with the supplied speakers. It surprised me that these small units are able to deliver such a good sound. As an audio source I selected some of the AVRO high bitstream channels including the 320 kbps AVRO Light Classical station. Unlike the loudspeakers that are supplied with the very similar Grace GDI-IRMS300 marketed in North America, these boxes have a single driver, but that clearly does not stop them from delivering a very pleasant and well-balanced audio. The output of 12W per channel (as claimed by the manufacturer) is modest, but is adequate for small to medium size rooms.

The TMA-1 found and connected to my WPA network without any problems. According to the Apple Airport router the TMA duly connected via 802.11n.

There are six equalizer presets in addition to separate 10-position treble and bass adjustment controls. I found these very effective but I have so far left the setting at “flat”.

When connected to my hifi system via the line out (analogue only – there is no digital output) the high bitstream channels sound almost as good as CD. It is possible to switch off the loudspeaker output via the menu, but whether this only serves to save power or whether it affects the quality of the line out signal is unclear – the manual does not elaborate. The equaliser setting has no effect on the line out signals.

I have not yet tried to play tracks from a USB stick or disk since I don’t have any FAT 32 formatted media handy. Streaming tracks to the TMA-1 via UPnP with EyeConnect running on a Mac generally works fine. But it doesn't stream a CD quality WAV of 44.1kHz/16bits/2ch (1411kbit/s) (causes repeated buffering, as other users of Reciva radios have reported here before). Also I have not managed to stream flac audio to the TMA-1, I tried a variety of different Mac UPnP servers (Eyeconnect, Allegro, TVMOBiLi). In all cases the server is detected, but the radio reports “no music found”. I intend to investigate this further, but if anyone has had more success with streaming 16-bit flac from a Mac to a Reciva radio via UPnP, I would like to hear from you.

If the radio is left in standby mode for a while, say a few hours, it fails to reconnect to the WLAN, even if the wireless connection during standby is set to be maintained and auto-DHCP is selected. This is a problem that has been reported before for other radios and seems to be caused by failure to reconfirm or re-establish an IP address with the DHCP server after a certain time of standby. A new IP address is successfully obtained after a power cycle, but the best solution is probably to use a static IP address (I have not tried it yet).

EDIT: This network reconnection problem appears to have been solved by installing the latest firmware v265-d-254-a-269-a-195-a-027. The new firmware also adds a new item to the menu, allowing switching between mono and stereo sound.

Some readers will be pleased to note that a headphone jack is located on the front of the receiver rather than at a hard to reach position on the back as with most other internet radios.

There is no LAN Ethernet port, but the USB port is designed to handle a USB-ethernet adapter (it needs to be based on a RT8150 or DM9601 chip) (not tested). This will automatically add a “wired/wireless” item to the Network Config menu.

For those who are interested - the hardware ID of this unit is 608 and the factory-installed firmware is 265-d-254-a-269-a-195-a-007. A newer firmware version is available, but I have not installed it yet as I am awaiting further information about the changes in the new version from Avox or Reciva (the new firmware 265-d-254-a-269-a-254 is mentioned on the Avox website, however no further details are given).

This shipment of the TMA-1 only included a printed German version of the user’s guide, but English and French versions can be downloaded from Avox.

Clearly, the specifications and features offered by the TMA-1 are better than that of any other Avox radio, including the Petite, and perhaps most of the other mainstream Reciva radios that are currently available. (The low-level background noise from which some of the earlier Petites were suffering is absent.) The improved display, 802.11n compatibility, USB media playback possibility, quality amplifier and compact size of the units especially the receiver are attractive features. Unless you consider yourself to be an audiophile listener, the performance of the included loudspeakers will be perfectly satisfactory for most, but it will be reassuring to know that the qualities of the TMA-1 can always be exploited more fully by connecting it to a decent hifi stereo system. Regrettably for those who already own a hifi system, the TMA-1 is currently not available without speakers. This is something Avox may want to consider – for example, by offering the speakers as an optional extra (as in the case of the recently introduced Cocktail Audio X10), the price of the TMA-1 receiver could perhaps go down to the €180 mark.

Although a comparison with other recently introduced devices such as the CA NP30 is not entirely valid, it seems to me that for those who are mainly interested in internet radio listening and less so in audiophile WLAN audio streaming, and who do not require 24-bit audio, the TMA-1, which can be had for less than half of the price of the NP30, represents better value for money.