Going Non Ferrous - a Cat's Tale

I'm coming out of my 'hibernation' to fill in a few gaps and clarify some of the rumours that I hear have been flying around regarding stands and so on. Firstly, this is a rather long post, so please bear with me. It backs up a lot of what Tony Lonorgan has been claiming for a while, and at the same time fills in some of the facts behind the recent Mana bust-up. You might find this interesting

As you might recall from some other threads, I've been fairly open-minded about hearing some of the newer equipment supports recently. I had been using a Mana Phase 8 system, comprised around a three-tier rack and soundstages with reference top on the top. I'd worked my way toward this from the early days of my Arcam amps and cd-player with my LP12. Under Arcam amps, Mana does wonderful things. Much of the weaker aspects of the Arcam sound, and those that would of course attract criticism here (i.e. a somewhat wooly bass and laid-back presentation), were reversed by the Mana. Mana gave the lazy Arcam amps a kick up the ass and injected a sense of pace and energy which had been lacking somewhat. On this premise, I'd slowly built up my Mana into a mini oil-rig, as many others have done.

Along the way, I changed my amps, my LP12 fell off the wall and died, and the resulting insurance settlement allowed me to change my CD player, get a better turntable and part-fund a new preamp. In other words, in a few months my entire system changed (except for my Neat Speakers) and took its place upon the Tower of Mana. Everything initially seemed fine, but I increasingly had the sneaking suspicion that something wasn't quite right. Whilst I was getting an incredibly fast, open and detailed sound, there was a slight edge to the sound which didn't rest easily with my ear. It sounded just a little 'crystalline', or 'etched', not terribly so, but something which became apparent after living with the system for a short while.

My first thoughts were to check setup and allow some further break-in time; Mana racks do need to settle, and if the setup wasn't spot on, the settling would reveal this. Perhaps I'd knocked the rack or upset it on removing my old gear. Perhaps it was some other thing altogether, but nonetheless, the setup of the Mana needed to be checked. I decided a complete re-setup was required. Having reset my entire Mana stack (levelled correctly using the spirit level, all shelves in tune and bolts tightened by a tiny amount past finger tight, with the spikes low, i.e. by the book) and allowed for a bit of settling, I was still a little stumped by the fact that the 'crystalline' sound was still there. In an investigation to discover what might be wrong, I moved the DNM preamp (which had been sitting on one of the shelves of the rack) away from the rack and onto a handy (but slightly wobbly) MDF shelving unit. Thus, the plastic pal preamp was now a couple of feet away from the Mana and the other components.

Result? I was shocked and stunned to find that the sound improved vastly. I was in a bit of denial, as anyone who is a regular here will know that I was as passionate about my Mana as anyone else, and I was admittedly a bit reluctant to put two and two together and admit what was happening. To all intents and purposes, the Mana, or the proximity of other items of equipment to the preamp, was ruining the sound. I didn't know which.

Using a spare flattop+glass on the floor (thus eliminating proximity to other components as an issue), I found that the sound was indeed cleaner than it had been near to other components, but still not right. The preamp sounded better on the floor or the MDF shelf, a most unusual and contrary observation. I simply refused to accept that my beloved Mana could be the problem. I put it down to perhaps ferrous influence rather than anything about the Mana itself.

I looked into the possibility of keeping the preamp on its own, perhaps on a wallshelf, but in a moment of weakness I decided to borrow a non-ferrous rack from my dealer. Curious about the experiences of Tony Lonorgan, I was keen to try the QS Reference. I borrowed it for a weekend, and initially tried just my preamp on it. Things sounded a heck of a lot better than they'd done on the floor, and the improvement over the preamp on Mana was incredible, although I again was reluctant to accept what my ears were telling me.

I'd also noticed that the pointy aluminium feet on my turntable did not really like the glass:spike interface of the Mana stand, so (just as an experiment) I tried the TT on the QS Reference. I was surprised to hear an improvement, but in a musical, foot-tappin'-rather-than-hifi way. I had expected a regular-QS-style 'muffling' of detail and wooliness in the midrange and bass. However, nothing was further from the truth. The best way I could describe the improvement was like comparing a quality hand-printed colour photograph (QS Ref) to a Photoshop'd scan and hi-res inkjet print (with sharpening and saturation) (Mana) - i.e. I felt that the QS Reference let the true music flow out in a way that Mana emulated, but never quite achieved in the context of my system*.

I was hearing the tune, the essence of the music in all of its true glory, for the first time. As Steven Toy had alluded, the musical sense and purpose of whatever I played on the system was so much more realistic, enjoyable, clearer and, well, better.

I realised then that if I ever made my feelings on this vocal, I would tread a very troubled path indeed. This was confirmed, of course, in my run-in with the Mana Faithful - it was inevitable!

And, yes, that run-in: A lot of bad-blood, misinformation and storms being brewed in teacups. A lot of it was pretty nasty, with threats, backstabbing and personal slurs from certain members of the Mana Faithful. I had expected some kind of abuse, but was very surprised in the extremity of the response. My dealer, who actually deals in Fraim, QS Ref and Mana was shocked and stunned by the whole thing - after all, they said it well: "Whose business is it anyway which stand one prefers?" - and they are correct. Of course, at that point in time the fact I was planning a 'defection' was circulating as a rumour rather than a confirmed-by-me fact. However, the run-in should by now be water under the bridge now and I hope everyone has moved on.

Yes, I have indeed defected from Mana to QS Reference, following the path that others have taken before me. It could well be that it's just that the Mana sound doesn't suit everyone - it's certainly not down to tuning or setup, as was claimed in another place - it was interesting to watch them attempt to discredit me as they had tried with others before... tsk tsk. What they forgot is that nobody would ever get as far as Phase 8 unless the stuff actually worked - which it did - it is just that it doesn't work well for my current system and I tell it like it is.

As an interesting aside, I have actually added Mana underneath my speakers and there it works wonderfully, which goes to show that the product may well compliment your existing kit beautifully, in which case you will be very happy with it. On the other hand, it could ruin the sound, in which case you will not. More likely is that bits of it work better than other bits (e.g. Mana under the speakers versus under the preamp in my case). Something to bear in mind, no question.

I still have a lot of my Mana - the three tier, a few flattops and a PSU table - the rest is now sold. I should have my own QS Reference fairly soon now, and will post a proper review of it, compared to Mana Phase 4 (which is what I have left) early next year. I'll try it with the Nait-2, my system, my old Arcam amps (which these days do AV only) and extend the invitation to several others who (like me) remain open-minded about such things.

I'm glad that this side of things is now out in the open, it's been a point I've been itching to make! To the Mana people, I am really honestly happy that you are happy with what your Mana does to your systems - and that, ultimately, is what it's all about. The Music, no more, no less.

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

* One thing I refuse to do is overtly criticise the Mana support system. It worked for me for long enough, and does enough good things to justify its place as a fore-runner in the support wars. However, it's not perfect and as I have discovered, with some gear it imparts a rather unpleasant harmonic imbalance - my preamp and turntable clearly sound worse on Mana than on the QS Reference - other manufacturers obviously have taken note of what Mana does and doesn't do and improved upon it. If you'd have told me this three months ago, I'd have laughed at you, but that was before I'd tried it for myself. The fact is that, whilst the Mana rack was wonderfully 'impressive' and 'exciting', it wasn't really musical to my ears with my latest kit; the QS Reference destroyed it in this regard, although until I had decided what I was going to do, I played this down for fear of retribution!! The fact that Mana didn't work well and QS Ref did I have put down to a synergy issue, and suggest anyone who is considering Mana try the QS Reference and the Fraim too (if it's in your price bracket - it was too expensive to be realistically considered in mine). I can no longer recommend Mana irrespective of the kit you will place on it. CHris Koster may well have been right - and I owe you a big apology, my friend, for being so blinkered in the past. Feel free to say "I told you so!"