The North American manufacturer Schiit has presented a new Phono preamp: the Schiit Mani 2. As you can imagine, it comes to replace the Schiit Mani, one of the affordable preamps best valued by the public and audio lovers. The previous model already offered very good sound quality and great compatibility with different types of turntable cartridges, so it was very easy to recommend. However, the new model comes with some important new features. Among them a most advanced charging system which makes it even better to be used with affordable MC capsules.
For those of you who don’t know her, Schiit was founded in 2010 by two audio industry veterans: Jason Stoddard (who worked at Sumo) and Mike Moffat (who worked at Theta). Today the manufacturer is very focused on offering solutions for the world of “personal audio”, although that does not mean that they do not have products for speaker-based systems. As we mentioned before, the Phono Schiit Mani preamp was a bestseller thanks to its great value for money.
Schiit Mani 2: improving what was already good
The Schiit Mani 2 maintains the four gain settings from the original Mani: 35, 45, 50 and 60dB nominal gain. As well adds additional resistive and capacitive load, allowing a resistive load of 47k, 200, 47 and 38 ohms; and a capacitive load of 47, 100, 150 and 200 pF. This allows the Mani 2 to handle many more MC (Moving Coil) type phono cartridges, but also MM and MI models, both high and low power.
On the other hand, the Schiit Mani 2 adds optional 6 dB/octave or 12 dB/octave passive low-cut filters, centered at 15 Hz, to reduce the effects of noise and warped records. Based on the TI OPA1612 with a DC servo, the Mani 2 uses a passive RIAA equalization stage based on 2% film capacitors and 0.1% thin film resistors. It is also fully coupled to direct current.
According to Schiit’s Jason Stoddard, “where before the signal had to pass through three capacitors, in the Mani 2 none are used. We took what we learned in the stages of Phono Ragnarok 2 and Jotunheim 2, and applied it to Schiit Mani 2.”.
Schiit has taken care of all the details of the Mani 2. In addition to improving the power stage, they have included a 100% linear power supply with dual stage regulation. It includes a filter stage that reduces noise from the power supply and contributes to the performance of the Schiit Mani 2.
In short, the new Schiit Mani 2 follows the path of its predecessor but improves in some key aspects. It remains a flexible and affordable phono preamplifier that offers a lot for very little money. And it is that the Schiit Mani 2 It has been launched in the United States with an official price of $149 for the black finished model and $159 for the silver finish model.
Via | Ecoustics
