Mana from heaven on the front porch

Posted by: Joe Petrik on 10 September 2000

As I came home on Friday night, walking down the path that leads to my place, I saw two beige boxes sitting on the front porch. Weird, I'm not expecting any delivery... some courier must have delivered these boxes to the wrong house.

But as I walked closer to resolve the writing on the side I could begin to make out a word in a gothic typeface: M - A - N - A. Someone has delivered Mana to my place. What are the odds of me *accidentally* getting some hi-fi nutter's Mana order, I thoguht? But as I checked the waybill I saw that it was no mistake: the consignee was me.

Of course, my wife, Suzanne, thought I had placed a secret order and had just been caught, so I was getting that look she gives me when I bring stuff home just to try out. But I really didn't order anything. Honest. I got married two months ago and have just moved to the U.S., so I’m hardly replete with cash. And what savings I had took a beating when it was converted from Canadian to U.S. dollars.

A couple of phone calls revealed that Vuk, Joe Pellizzari and Randy B. had given me a Sound Frame and that some kind folks in the UK had given me a Power Supply Table! Thanks guys! That was very generous, and, as you’ll discover, greatly appreciated.

I opened the boxes to set up my new widgets. Damn, I have 12-mm and 14-mm wrenches, but not a 13-mm one... and the hardware stores are now closed. Not to be dissuaded -- and knowing that I wouldn't sleep without trying them -- I set up the platforms best I could, tightening the nuts as much as possible by hand. I put the Sound Frame on my custom-built p9 stand and the Power Supply Table on my custom-built CD2 stand, then placed the respective components on the Mana.

Unbelievable! Even though the Mana was only very crudely set up and placed on top of non-Mana supports I got a inkling of the Mana effect — what used to be an amorphous bass blob had become individual, distinct notes played with conviction; what used to be harsh, grainy and distorted noise had been resolved into musical detail; and what used to be disconnected sounds had been ordered into music. It seemed like an across-the-board upgrade, as though I had installed a better cartridge, upgraded the preamp, and jumped to the next power amp. And it was consistent. Record after record, CD after CD, I got the same kinds of improvements. Who would have thought angle iron and glass could be so much fun?

The next day I bought a 13-mm wrench and did the set-up properly, getting an even greater improvement. It’s not hard to do, but it takes some patience to adjust the spikes until the glass platform rings and the platform is levelled. Mana's certainly not plug-n-play, but you won't need an advanced degree in mechanical engineering to get it right.

Is Mana for you? If you enjoy Muzak played through a mushy tube system you probably won't like it. But if you like music with played with verve, emotion and conviction you owe it to yourself to try these products.

Joe

Posted on: 14 September 2000 by dave simpson

Hi Bob,,

You very well might have experienced Mana set-up correctly, but I do have my doubts. With the internet bringing alot of us together, I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that few Mana and naim rigs are set-up correctly. More a problem for Mana with *no* dealers.

Regarding your statement about preferences. I agree.... sometimes a cigar, is just a cigar. We all have ours, diversity is good, happiness is all!

regards,

dave

Posted on: 15 September 2000 by Former member

Mick, the ears have never been better. Thanks though.

The main reason for my shift away from Naim (I am loth to really call it a downgrade) is because the addition of more supports strips away the benefits of supposedly better gear. Of course without better supports you *will* hear benefits (sometimes big ones -- but those are rare once you get used to kind of benefits you get from better supports)...

One particular brand changes the rules so dramatically that the performance that separates and differentiates gear is levelled out -- but *only* when on proper supports. Thus a NAC72 on more supports than an NAC82 will sound better, an 82 on more supports will sound virually indestinguishable from a 52 on less or none.

I've spent a lot of time confirming these results to my satisfaction. It flies in the face of any conventional upgrade strategy -- thus I can see why certain people want to silence me... it suggests there is another way.

You don't usually happily downgrade from a CDS to a £200 Sansui (to be replaced with a DVD drive and some special cables that also add to the improvements) unless you know another way of getting a better sound. I've put my recouped money where my ears tell me the biggest improvements lie and for me that is with better supports.

Your trial by fire is nearly over on the other forum so you'll soon get to the next stage which is to try the stuff in your system, and then you may see how I have taken my findings to their logical conclusions and shown the "better box" upgrade strategy to be, for me, a waste of money. I get better upgrades by adding more supports.

Mick, not many people can go from a CDS to a £200 Sansui and say "yeah I can live with the difference" but what I found has made me realise that supposedly less capable hardware can sound a lot more musical on certain supports than the expensive stuff...

It also comes from realising that there is HiFi beyond Naim. I tried both the cheap Denon and Arcam tuners which I think made every bit as good a sound as my NAT02 tuner, but in the end I plumped for a Magnum Dynalab because it sounded a lot better than the NAT02 on the same amount of supports.

Sorry to be a pain, but that's my finding. Sticking within one HiFi family is no way to build a killer system.

In pursuit of that, my system is now almost completely Naim free because I have found stuff more to my tastes (the ARO and the Prefix remain -- as does NACA5 although that will change very soon because I need longer lengths soon and I have found something that in a dem worked better with non Naim Power Amps.

My system sounds far better for it, a few people have commented on the system's VAST improvement since I sold the 82/Super/135s/CDS/Armageddon,NAT02 -- reinvesting it in new supports and non Naim kit. I'm free of the insane upgradeitis brought on by dissatisfaction with traditional upgrades. I just slowly add a level here and there where I feel things could be brought a bit more into line -- and I bide my time. I'm happy.

This may indeed be my last post on the Naim forum. I have so little Naim gear now it makes no sense to even be here.

Signing off (for now)

[This message was edited by tf on FRIDAY 15 September 2000 at 10:57.]

Posted on: 15 September 2000 by bob atherton

Hi Tony,

As I do not wish to incur the wrath of Paul's censorship pen I will be brief about the product I designed & marketed.

It is called Greenline & is basically a glass Isoplat ( though in most peoples opinion sounded infinitely better ) with special polyurethane feet as opposed to sorbothane. It was sold by myself & branches of Radford Hi-fi about 10 years ago. There are many happy users and a small trickle are still sold by myself.

I soon discovered that glass had very special properties. It is the only thing that I have found that can have a large effect on sound when the glass & product sat on it is outside of the room and virtually free of airborne excitement. I have come to the conclusion after many hours over many years that the glass is damping out
resonance's within the product on top of it.

The only thing in common with my tests is the 50 Hz in the UK mains. I have it on good advice that this resonance manifests itself in products without a transformer, though is not so serious.

Once I had established this special property with glass tests were made with 6, 8 & 10 mm. 10 mm clearly had the greatest effect. I did not go beyond 10 mm for cost of glass & carriage weight restrictions.

I tried smoked glass for a more sophisticated look, but sonically did not match the clear float glass.

I hope this is informative & possibly useful.

Best wishes,

Bob

Posted on: 15 September 2000 by Kevin Hughes

I don't doubt that what TF has writen above works for him, but my own experience is diffrent.

I have just upgraded to an 82 and decided to do some experiments comparing the two as I don't have buyer for my 102 yet. In short I prefered the 82 in all cases, even with a fully warmed up 102 + NAPSC + Hicap on phase 4 Mana I still prefered the cold 82 with no hicap on no Mana.

Kevin.

Posted on: 15 September 2000 by Mark Dunn

Hi tf and Kevin:

I'm able to see how tf's can be 'downgraded' but still sound 'better'.

It might just be a preference or perhaps another factor such as the mains quality or room. If either of the latter two (or something else) then this effect could be effectively leveling the field or 'dumbing down' the systems. I've experienced this several at several venues.

Best Regards,
Mark Dunn