Schiit's First Phono Preamp - The $129 "Mani"

Interesting..Im definitely enjoying mine...I can really compare it to anything except a cheap portable TT that Im sure had a terrible phono stage in it because it easily betters that but honestly it should. So for sure Ill be looking forward to you findings with the mods.

 

I want to be clear. The Mani basically has a nice, bold, authoritative sound. I really thought though because of the amplifier chips and the RIAA topololgy they used that this unit could do the finer points better than it does. I really think that there is a hiccup in the design and once that is found the gates of heaven will open and angels can come flying out of this little box. If I thought this was just another low cost preamp I wouldn't have pulled the trigger on buying it.

 

Mine does too

 

So I did my A/B with the Mani today. I used Heart Shaped Box from the 2013 45 rpm remaster. I figured that was a good song because it has the loud/soft dynamic.

At first I wasn’t sure about the Mani, and I thought the Lux had it beat. But upon further playback, the Mani is the winner. It has more oomph, detail and clarity. The Lux, at the same volume, sounded a bit muffled. I’m not a big fan of the mid tone, because it can sound too canned or muffled to me. The Lux at higher volume has too much mid.

So the Mani was a good purchase.

 

Getting closer. I took all the supply rail filter caps out and am now installing the caps I use in Lounge. This effectively lowers the impedance the amplifier chips see as they look back at the power supply.

Anticipation!

 

Any further evaluations?

 

Yeah Robert, inquiring minds want to know!

 

Bump.

Also, I just pulled the trigger on one. I hope that it easily betters my (original; not v. 2) Musical Fidelity V-LPS. I am a little tired of my relatively 'sterile' setup which is a KAB Technics SL-1210M5G (no mods) coupled w/an Ortofon Concorde Pro S40. I wonder if a different cart, combined w/the Mani, might help my vinyl rig 'sing' a little more?

 

Sorry guys, been busy. Almost there!

 

While I am not a vinyl guy, I recommended the Mani to an old friend who was looking for a phono pre, in no small part because of this thread. He was bowled over. Thanks for helping to reinforce that I remain an audio god in my friends' eyes.

 

Waiting to pull the trigger on a Lounge or the Mani in the new year

 

I've had my lounge for a month and I love it. One of my best purchases !

 

See my thoughts on the Lounge earlier in the thread

 

One more cap to be soldered in and I can test the modded Mani.

 

Jason just posted a chapter on the Mani in his Head-Fi thread
http://www.head-fi.org/t/701900/sch...s-most-improbable-start-up/4155#post_11117374
Talks about where the Mani came from.

 

Thanks for posting this, an interesting read. It's kinda cool hearing a die hard digital audio guy admit the sonic virtues of LP's.

 

Agreed, great read. I love Rina's reply to Jason's reaction.

 

The hot rodded Mani is playing in the Lounge lab. Just about as I expected, the better caps I put in to fool the IC's into seeing a lower power supply impedance are working. A distant view is being made evident of the lost opportunity this design had because of the power supply. I have to listen more to soak this in.

 

@morinix what exactly did you do to it?

 

also, how did your mod improve it?

 

Replaced the filter caps on the DC power supply rails.

It seems to get better detail with low level sounds. I'm still listening though and the caps I put in are breaking in as I type.

 

I have a Man phono as well, though it does sound good, I also have an issue with hum and soft white noise. I tried moving it around to different outlets and even brought it to my friends house but these did not work for me like it did for the other poster who moved his around.

 

Any updates Morinix ?

 

I got my Mani today. Listened to two sides so far on it: side 1 of Wilco's excellent Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, a record that I'm intimately familiar with; and side 1 of the Classic Records reissue of Big Star's Radio City, which is known to me as a very sibilant cut. I previously had a Bellari VP-130, and I've heard the very inexpensive Behringer 440 in my setup, too. The Mani easily bests them both.

First, the Mani has loads of gain and a very high signal to noise ratio. It doesn't take much to really crank it. On Yankee, the sound was lustrous and there was no noise between or during tracks.

Second, and this is hard to verify, but the Mani might do better than the Bellari did on handling sibilants. My Radio City copy is still very sibilant with my cartridge (the Ortofon 2M Red, which has a reputation for reproducing sibilants with a lot of noise). But I though it was less so than the Bellari, going from memory, which as we all know is not very reliable.

Finally, I'd had problems with radio frequency interference with the Bellari that I'd posted about in another thread. It's environmental; I didn't have the problem at my old home in DC but have had it at two different locations in Richmond. I'm moving again soon, and the vinyl rig is going in the finished basement. I hope that will tame the RFI, finally. But I will note that the solid state Mani is amplifying the interference less than the tube electronics on the Bellari did. At my normal listening levels, I don't notice it on the Mani, and I can't say that for the Bellari.

I haven't yet noticed any problems at all with the switching power supply, which forum member morinix discusses in another thread. I doubt any such problems will surface, but I'll report back if they do. For now, I'm chalking this up as a nonissue.

In short, you'd be hard pressed to find a better phono preamp for $129. I'll be recommending the Mani to anyone I know who wants to get into entry-level vinyl playback.

My system: Pro-Ject Debut III w/Ortofon 2M Red, Pro-Ject Speedbox S, Herbie's Way Excellent Mat-->Schiit Mani-->Schiit Sys (just a 2-input switch, in my setup, with my DAC also connected but not being used here)-->Schiit Asgard-->Sennheiser HD 555 w/595 mod.

 

I just did an experiment, the results of which surprised me. Using the switch button on the Schiit Sys, I switched in real time between the Jeff Tweedy track "I'll Never Know" playing back on my vinyl setup and the same track on my digital rig, which consists of Audirvana Plus on Mac OS 10.10.1 via USB to an HRT Music Streamer II to the Schiit Sys and Schiit Asgard.

I was pleased to find that I didn't have to adjust the level to make a meaningful comparison between the analog and digital track. With my MM cartridge and the Mani's excellent low-noise gain, the levels between sources were roughly equivalent, though slightly different of course.

I was greatly surprised to find myself losing track of which source was analog and which was digital. The analog signal was slightly quieter, but that was the only way I could remember which I was listening to. Sure, I knew that the switch on the Sys was in the out position for one source and in for the other source. But still, I found myself forgetting. I'm not sure what to make of that. For this track, at least, the analog and digital sources sound very similar through my gear. I've got sizable collections of both vinyl records and CD-ripped tracks, but I've long been a vinyl romantic. Maybe I'll modify that stance if I find enough similarities. Maybe not.

Maybe I'll try repeating this with other masterings I've got. I'm really interested to see if I can tell a difference between the recent MFSL digital and analog releases I've got dupes of in both formats. I would expect those to be pretty close, too. I'm guessing I'll find that good digital can sound like analog, and vice versa.

This isn't to say that the Mani sounds digital. That's not the conclusion I'm drawing, and you shouldn't either. This source was digitally recorded, for one thing.