[Roy G. Biv]

What a confusing mess:

1. He says the wall-wort makes noise
2. He says the Mani 2 scores near the top of all phono stages for s/n and then suggests his test is not completely accurate
3. He complains about the switches on the bottom (he always bitches about Schiit design, but never about any Chinese brand design aspects)
4. He recommends it, but never listened to it.

Is this a review or someone tinkering with test equipment and calling it "science"?

Thanks for summarizing so the rest of us don't have to give his site any more traffic than it deserves. That site is an utter waste of bandwidth.

 

[bcowen]

Thanks for summarizing so the rest of us don't have to give his site any more traffic than it deserves. That site is an utter waste of bandwidth.

It's the modern day version of Stereo Review. Anybody remember that waste of paper? "Of all the phono stages I've tested, the Mani 2 is one of them." Julian Hirsch

 

[Zachik]

It's the modern day version of Stereo Review. Anybody remember that waste of paper?

I think the said website is worse!
With the magazine - at least they had lawyers, and liability was taken into account before slandering a manufacturer.
With the website - a guy who likes playing with measurement equipment tests god only knows how, gets to the wrong conclusions many times, and cause good equipment come up really badly...

 

[Plautus001]

Thanks for summarizing so the rest of us don't have to give his site any more traffic than it deserves. That site is an utter waste of bandwidth.

I try to do my part

Felt like homework for my high-school electronics teacher.

Once during a test to see if our handmade "radios " worked with a stereoscope, he tested mine first and said, "unfortunately yours doesn't work because I can't get a reading!".

I replied, "are you sure?"?

He replied, "whose the teacher"?

I responded, "you are sir, but the stereoscope may work better if you plug it in". Best trip to the Vice-Principle's office ever.

 

[Runrunsmithfly]

I think the said website is worse!
With the magazine - at least they had lawyers, and liability was taken into account before slandering a manufacturer.
With the website - a guy who likes playing with measurement equipment tests god only knows how, gets to the wrong conclusions many times, and cause good equipment come up really badly...

I used to read Stereo Review 50 years ago and liked it. Of course I liked Rolling Stone 50 years ago too.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

What we really need is a balanced Vali 2+, to go with the Modius (in a Jotunheim/Lyr chassis). I'm not very hopeful that we'll see one, though, given that the Lyr's FAQ states that it wouldn't fit.

Welcome to the thread, @bimperl . A balanced Vali.... perhaps an oversized Lyr 3.x with both balanced/unbalanced outputs (with the appropriate electronics inside). Remove the expansion port to fit the necessary balanced circuit. Dunno. Does Schiit want to consolidate their product line? Is inexpensive (Magnius/Modius/Bifrost 2) balanced outputs still a hot market that Schiit wants to satisfy/chase? Again, I dunno.

My Lyr doesn't get as much use as my Valhalla, Asgard, Vali, and Heretic (weird, as my Lyr is more expensive than my other individual amps). I can see me buying additional DACs to pair off each of these amps and set up satellite listening stations all over our next home. My current living space has too much noise pollution and the walls are singing with EMI (high-density housing... good for reducing urban sprawl... awful with sensitive HiFi). Meh, I'm happy with my kit.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

or just wait for the Manius Maximus. You know, the Yggy sized version with remote control and other crazy schiit courtesy of the feverish mind of @Jason Stoddard

Re: Manius Maximus (Roman names). I'm listening to the History Of Rome podcast.... up to episode 156 (jockeying for position) ... my highbrow self-education. And now, I'm thinking of my lowbrow self-gratification (some of those cheesy & sleazy names used in Mel Brooks' History Of The World, Part 1).

 

[433521]

I went with silver, in part to

Although this is mainly regurgitating what's in Schiit's press release, an article like that at darko.audio often presages a video review:

https://darko.audio/2022/02/the-schiit-mani-2-is-your-next-phono-pre-amplifier/

And there's a good chance the other usual suspects on YouTube will be releasing discussions within the next few days/weeks.

I offered one to amir at ASR but he was already posting his review!

 

[Jason Stoddard]

For the record: the bottom-mounted dip switches are not because we hate you. It's because they are the least expensive, lowest noise way to switch gain stages/loading/etc.

When you get to a device with 100-1000x gain (the typical headphone amp is 1-5x, for comparison), noise is an issue. So running traces around the board (like, to front-mounted switches) is not a wonderful idea if you're looking to maximize performance. And when you usually set the switches once (or zeroce, if you're using an MM cartridge and get a Mani 2), then why stress about it?

Now, if you had unlimited money, sure, you could put relays everywhere and switch locally with front-mounted switches. Heck, you could manage everything with a microprocessor. Heck, you could even go full bonkers and have a "calibration mode" where you play a test record and the preamp sets the correct gain and loading by itself!

But all of the above takes money.

As in, say, a phono preamp with balanced outs, discrete stages, and front-mounted switches, plus the management to make sure it didn't go boom when you changed the switches when the product was on, that's gonna be $400-500 in Schiitconomy Bucks. And if you're talking about something with 256 options for loading and auto-setup, that might be in the four figures in those same bucks.

And I'm not sure if you want a more expensive phono preamp from us (and, perhaps more importantly, I'm not sure we're the company to build and support such a device.)

Not fishing for comments, just saying...this is a price/performance issue at its most pointed.

 

[Clemmaster]

I went with silver, in part to

I offered one to amir at ASR but he was already posting his review!

He had already prepared his photoshopped plots before receiving the actual unit?

 

[Zachik]

Now, if you had unlimited money, sure, you could put relays everywhere and switch locally with front-mounted switches. Heck, you could manage everything with a microprocessor. Heck, you could even go full bonkers and have a "calibration mode" where you play a test record and the preamp sets the correct gain and loading by itself!

Here you go... the Manius Maximus that I predicted a few posts ago!

 

[tincanear]

my $0.04

re Bal vs SE OTL tube amplifiers:
tubes have intrinsically high output impedance (several k ohms for small signal tubes), and use feedback to lower the closed-loop impedance to allow for driving of headphones. a balanced output stage can be thought of as two SE stages, one for the negative output wire, and a second one for the positive output wire, with output impedance being twice that of single SE stage. so going balanced out means FOUR tubes / tube sections (2 for each output phase) to get the same output impedance. Lots of $2K and up well-regarded all-tube OTL HP amps out there, and all SE (not balanced).

re Mani dip switches:
yes, DIP switches are the shortest signal path length solutions to allow for user selection of the cartridge loading. for those that have multiple cartridges and tonearms, likely the cartridges (and perhaps just the headshell-tonearm wires themselves) cost more than a Mani 2. just get multiple Mani 2's and preset them for each cartridge. On those MC and other lower output cartridges, if the full-scale signal is a half a millivolt, then microvolts are audible.

Perhaps a Mani 2 Uber with front panel switches to control relays for the low-cut filters (0dB bypass / 12 passive / 24dB active filter slopes)?

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

Here's what the bottom of my phono preamp looks like:

JC

 

[bcowen]

For the record: the bottom-mounted dip switches are not because we hate you. It's because they are the least expensive, lowest noise way to switch gain stages/loading/etc.

When you get to a device with 100-1000x gain (the typical headphone amp is 1-5x, for comparison), noise is an issue. So running traces around the board (like, to front-mounted switches) is not a wonderful idea if you're looking to maximize performance. And when you usually set the switches once (or zeroce, if you're using an MM cartridge and get a Mani 2), then why stress about it?

Now, if you had unlimited money, sure, you could put relays everywhere and switch locally with front-mounted switches. Heck, you could manage everything with a microprocessor. Heck, you could even go full bonkers and have a "calibration mode" where you play a test record and the preamp sets the correct gain and loading by itself!

But all of the above takes money.

As in, say, a phono preamp with balanced outs, discrete stages, and front-mounted switches, plus the management to make sure it didn't go boom when you changed the switches when the product was on, that's gonna be $400-500 in Schiitconomy Bucks. And if you're talking about something with 256 options for loading and auto-setup, that might be in the four figures in those same bucks.

And I'm not sure if you want a more expensive phono preamp from us (and, perhaps more importantly, I'm not sure we're the company to build and support such a device.)

Not fishing for comments, just saying...this is a price/performance issue at its most pointed.

And if I might add: many value-priced phono stages give you no loading adjustments at all. If some consider bottom mounted switches to be a pain, there are options to avoid switches -- and adjustment -- altogether. Further, there are many very expensive phono stages that don't make adjustment very easy. I remember the Audio Research Reference phono that I had for a short time to audition. $6500 in 1999. Resistive and capacitive loading were 'adjusted' by soldering a couple pins to a resistor (or capacitor) and plugging them into an internal DIP socket (after removing 20 screws to get the top cover off). The Art Audio preamp in my big rig has a built-in phono stage with a rear-mounted rotary switch for selecting 6 discrete resistive values. But no capacitive load switching -- that requires soldering a couple capacitors in place. Just a couple examples out of many.

Personally, I think Schiit's implementation here is exemplary. Lowest cost and lowest noise approach to offering tuning capabilities that don't often exist in a product at this price level. And mounted in the most efficient manner possible for something that will very rarely need adjusted anyway.

 

[bcowen]

Here you go... the Manius Maximus that I predicted a few posts ago!

It'll need at least two holes in the top for the tubes to poke through. Maybe 4.