The revival of vinyl implies also the revival of phono preamplifiers. And the problem is, most of the people who consider buying a turntable these days - after a few friends started to gift albums, because they had no idea what else to give and the covers look cool - have no idea they need "a phono thing". And that is why we can now buy turntables that have one directly hidden inside, and offer "normal" line outputs, so no one needs to deal with "phono".
But for those who fully embrace the inconvenience of vinyl, there's no accepting turntables that come with built-in cartridges, or Bluetooth, or even built-in speakers (!) - those platters need to stand proudly connected to multiple boxes, starting with a phono preamp, maybe connected to a tube stage, before it feeds the two mono power amps on the floor, feeding vintage-looking speakers - preferably reconditioned JBL L300s!
That's who Schiit Audio designed the Mani 2 Phono Preamplifier for. The people who carefully study every record before they even start planning a listening session, and will have multiple cartridges and styluses, knowing their Moving Magnet from Moving Coil or Moving Iron, or even consider drifting from the RIAA curve.
"There’s simply no question this is the highest performing, most flexible phono preamp you can buy, even at several times the price,” reinforces Jason Stoddard, Schiit’s Co-Founder and head of analog development. "It delivers measured results that are 10-15dB better than the original Mani — results far in excess of its competition — while also simplifying the signal path, eliminating all coupling capacitors and two gain stages for a more direct connection to the cartridge and superior sonics. And, if that wasn’t enough, we added many more loading options and selectable low cut to help eliminate rumble problems, features that weren’t available on the original Mani, and are typically not available at this price point.”
The Great Mani Two retains the 4 gain settings of the original Mani — now 35, 45, 50, and 60dB nominal gain, for compatibility with all cartridges, from Decca to low-output moving-coil models. It also adds additional resistive and capacitive loading, allowing resistive loading of 47k, 200, 47, and 38 ohms, and capacitive loading of 47, 100, 150, and 200 pF. This allows the improved phono preamplifier to accommodate many more MC cartridges, as well as MM and MI models, with both high and low output. Furthermore, the Mani 2 adds optional, passive 6dB/octave or 12dB/octave low cut filters, centered at 15Hz, to reduce the effects of rumble and warped records.
Based on the TI OPA1612 with a DC servo, Mani 2 uses a passive RIAA equalization stage based on 2% film capacitors and 0.1% thin-film resistors. It is also fully DC coupled. “Where Mani’s signal had to pass through three capacitors, Mani 2 doesn’t use any,” adds Jason. “We took what we learned on the phono stages for Ragnarok 2 and Jotunheim 2, and extended them for Mani 2.”
Mani 2’s attention to detail extends far past the gain stage, to include its 100% linear power supply with dual-stage regulation, including a filtering stage that reduces power supply noise and contributes to Mani 2’s stellar performance numbers.
Like all Schiit products, the Mani 2 is made in the USA — and this one specifically, designed and built in the company's Texas operations. The vast majority of the total cost of the product, including chassis and PC boards, go to US-based companies manufacturing in the US.
www.schiit.com
