NOTE: THESE ARE MANO REVIEWS, THE MANO ULTRA IS AN UPGRADE; MORE NATURAL AND REAL PRESENTATION
DIGITAL OUTPUTS
- I2S HDMI – LVDS signal processing (PS-AUDIO “STANDARD”) – Compatible with all Holo, Singxer, Matrix and Audio-GD DAC’s)
- RCA SPDIF – 0.5V pp @ 75Ohm
- Optional: BNC SPDIF 0.5V pp @ 75Ohm
- Optional: AES/EBU 110Ohm
FILE TYPES
- Supported File Types: AAC, AIF, ALAC, DIF, DSF, FLAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WV and WMA
DIGITAL OUTPUTS
- HDMI I2S LVDS = 44.1 Khz – 192 Khz | 16-24 bit
- SPDIF OUT = 44.1 Khz – 192 Khz | 16-24 bit
Mano ULTRA mk2 is compatible and preconfigured with:
- Logitech Media Server solution (piCore)
- iOS iPeng9 and Android app Squeeze Orange
- Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, and Deezer, Spotify Connect
- local USB / NAS storage
- Radio Stations (TuneIn Radio)
- Localized in many languages including France, German, Dutch, Spanish
- Song Lyrics in app
- Ropieee (XL) a ready-to-go solution
- RoPieee is specific endpoint software that can be used with ROON Software
- Volumio Audiophile music player
- Supports all filetypes: FLAC, Alac, Aac, Vorbis, Mp3, DSD etc
- UPNP Playback
- Airplay Playback
- DSD Over PCM support
- Integrated WebRadio
- Mount USB drives and NFS Network Attached Storage, with an auto-discovery function
- Localized in many languages including France, German, Dutch, Spanish
- Native TIDAL and Qobuz Integration (MyVolumio Virtuoso)
- TIDAL Connect (MyVolumio Virtuoso)
- Alexa Integration (MyVolumio Virtuoso)
- MoOde™ audio player (supports Airplay, Spotify, Squeezelite)
- Radio Stations
- Mount USB drives and NFS Network Attached Storage, with an auto-discovery function
- Airplay, Spotify, Squeezelite
- UPnP A/V and OpenHome renderer for MPD
- MiniDLNA UPnP A/V media server
- UPnP browser with folder scan
- Qobuz and Tidal access via UPnP
INPUT CONNECTIVITY
- 1x RJ45 LAN Gigabit Ethernet port
- 4x Local USB hosts for media (USB drives)
- Optional: Integrated WIFI antenna 2.4/5 Ghz
STREAMING SERVICES
- Spotify, Spotify Connect
- TIDAL, TIDAL Connect
- Qobuz
- Deezer
- Pandora
- Internet Radio (Tune-In)
- Radio Stations
- Airplay (Apple)
TECHNOLOGY
- Automute I2S signal when switching between sample rates
- Supports volume control from application (Can be disabled)
- Finished with a beautiful HiFi-Tuning Supreme³ Silver Fuse Furutech IEC Inlet
- Fully re clocked I2S over HDMI output PS Audio / Audio-GD / Holo Audio / Singxer compatible
- Galvanic isolated and reclocked SPDIF output (RCA or BNC or AES/EBU Connection)
- 2x CRYSTEK FEMTO Clock’s. FIFO Oscillators designed specifically for High Definition Audio (HD Audio). It features a typical low close-in phase noise of -100 dBc/Hz @ 10 Hz offset, and a noise floor of -169 dBc/Hz. With this extreme low phase noise performance, you will “Hear the Difference”.
- Ultra low noise Tentlabs shunt regulators for oscillators and digital audio circuit. The shunts drop in instead of commonly used industrial types of regulators. Having much lower noise, true wide bandwidth and linear output impedance, they’ll bring improvement to sound in terms of: Higher resolution, better transparency, clean low ends and increased dynamics.
- Low noise Class-A Power supply provided without generating unwanted noise and without passing it along into the sensitive digital signal path.
- High quality R-core transformer. The R-core transformer has high isolation degree. it can improve the signal-to-noise ratio, isolate the harmonic interference, reduce the noise, make he background cleaner. R core transformer can fully improve the quality of sound.
HDMI LVDS I2S OUTPUT
- THE HDMI I2S output is “PS-Audio compatible”. Most of the manufacturers of DACs with HDMI I2S input use this format.
- I2S is like USB asynchronous connection. Compared to standard S/PDIF where clock signal is integrated in data stream a complex process is required in the DAC to transform signal back to asynchronous.
- With I2S the shortest possible signal path from streamer to DAC to analogue conversion is achieved.
- No additional encoding and decoding steps are required. USB does require this.
- The HDMI cable from streamer to DAC is less impacting the sonic quality and no expensive cables are required to obtain best sound quality.
The only disadvantage you could think of is I2S is not really a standard, although more and more vendors are supporting I2S as external in or output.
R-Core transformer
R-core transformer has high isolation degree. it improves the signal-to-noise ratio, isolate the harmonic interference, reduce the noise, make he background cleaner. R core transformer can fully improve the quality of sound.
Finished with a beautiful HiFi-Tuning Supreme³ Silver Fuse Furutech IEC Inlet
CORE SPECIFICATIONS
- Quad-core (ARMv8) 64-bit @ 1.4GHz
- RAM: 1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM
- Networking: Gigabit Ethernet
- OPTIONAL 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
- Storage: Micro-SD
DIMENSIONS
- Dimensions (mm): LxWxH: 245x185x72 (MkII was 255x210x70)
Andrea –
The magna ultra mk2 paired with the gd audio dac r2r1 is awesome! Thank you.
Saluti from italy
Yoram (verified owner) –
Jos and Rob are incredibly knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. The Mano Ultra MkII is an outstanding streamer. Build and sound quality is superb, stability and reliability are excellent also in wifi mode, and the ability to stream in maximum resolution – in addition to Spotify, Qobuz and other services – also Pandora is quite unique. Not enough words to express my satisfaction with Mano and the guys at Magna HiFi.
Vegard (verified owner) –
Got it set up with Volumio and TIDAL Connect ?
There is sound…….GREAT sound.
I’m happy, running I2S at last ?
Again, thank you for your great support.
Wesley (verified owner) –
I decided to order the magna mano ultra and do not regret it! I will come back to magna for some upgrades.
Jeff –
Streamer performs beautifully. It arrived super fast to me in the US. I have never had customer service like this.
Thanks Rob
Buy with total confidence!
Nick (verified owner) –
First of all, thank you for the speed with which you sent the streamer. The streamer plays beyond expectations and that even with a standard power cord. I had lost hope a bit regarding streaming audio, after I came to the conclusion several times that a my CD transport is much nicer. I am very happy with it, it plays beyond my expectations!
Ron (verified owner) –
Excellent streamer, great sound and works perfectly as a Roon endpoint.
Thanks Rob for the great service!
John (verified owner) –
Great help making the correct purchase (configuration) as well as getting everything setup correctly. A beautiful sounding product and a great value. Thanks!
Andre –
Just a thank you after the long telephone session this morning. A fantastic service!
The Mano sounds really nice in combination with the Audio GD DAC!
Thank you very much for the telephone support and your patience.
Suhail (verified owner) –
Fantastic product, solidly built, sound great
Great customer service
Ronald (verified owner) –
I run Roon Rock on the NUC, and put roon sd card in the Mano. Boot it and in one word: flawless!
Ronald (verified owner) –
I’ve been using Mano ULTRA for several weeks now and the streamer is great. Haven’t had a better one yet! Only the auralic aries might have come close.
Bill (verified owner) –
This unit has fantastic SQ!!! I was a doubter on how a streamer could affect sound. I changed 2 things when I began using this: 1. I2s connection and not using my PC as the front end for music. So, I can’t say which contributed how much, but it doesn’t matter. This item is HUGE!
Jason –
Hi Rob,
What an excellent piece of kit! It represents a proper upgrade on my Allo Digione Signature build & Shanti LPS.
More clean, fast bass ?
More detail & separation ?
Much richer articulation of tone & timbre! ?
Better
I’m really happy & impressed.
I couldn’t of hoped for more from an upgrade. Thank you for making such a wonderful thing! ?
Phil –
I’m using the Mano Ultra for more than a year and it is sounding and working excellent using the Logitech Sqeezebox Duet Remote Control and the good old Audio-gd DAC-200. I’m very pleased with the clear and effortless sound. Well done, Magna Hifi !
Peter (verified owner) –
Just wanted to report that the Mano Ultra working as a Roon end point with the I2S HDMI output going to my PS Audio DAC.
It sounds just terrific. Noise floor seems non existent and it seems to me the dynamic range has been expanded. I am so pleased and excited! Thank you for your ongoing efforts to help me get this squared away. I LOVE it!
Max –
Fantastic purchase, perfect object and sonically superior to objects of much higher cost (Mana ultra mkII). Exceptional remote assistance (Rob & associates). Well done keep it up Max
Thomas (verified owner) –
Was ist das für ein Klang!
Ich habe so etwas noch nie gehört! Ich hätte niemals gedacht, dass es solch einen großen sUnterschied zu meinem Oppo-Player ausmachen könnte und auch nicht zu meiner gepimpten Squeezebox Touch. Die beiden Geräte sind schon gut. Aber das sind noch einmal Welten auf meiner Avantgarde Acoustic Zero 1 XD. Scheint perfekt zu harmonieren.
Vielen, vielen Dank das ihr euch so viel Mühe gegeben habt das Streaming zu perfektionieren und uns daran teilhaben lässt. Krasse Dynamik, krasser klarer Sound! Wow!
Uwe T (verified owner) –
Mano ULTRA Streamer has just arrived, was installed without difficulties, Qobuz was activated and it plays wonderful. Excellent service and very fast communication plus response to any question by the Magna Hifi team. I am sure it was not my last purchase at Magna Hifi. Highly recommended.
Lennart (verified owner) –
I would like to tell you how happy I am with the sound! Quite marvellous! As usual it takes a bit of time to be accustomed with new equipment and the special sound signature but now I am so pleased. In fact it exceeded my expectations!!
Jorn –
Ik ben heel tevreden over de streamer en het geluid, het mooiste in NOS stand.
Heel blij, via hdmi heel mooi geluid ik hoor dingen die ik niet eerder gehoord heb.
Ik wil jullie nog bedanken voor de goede service en alle geduld.
Charles from France –
The Mano is playing music flawlessly and I’m really pleased by the sound quality.
It’s clearly better than my cxc. I have the both plugged in my dac so it’s easy to compare.
The Mano is better everywhere, it’s like upgrading the dac, awesome ?. You’ve build a real good product. I definitely don’t regret my choice with the Mano. Keep me tune of any software updates. I’m using IPeng on my iPad, it’s very convenient. That’s a winning combo.
That’s rewarding for me after all the efforts to upgrade my system to have some results!
Christian M. (France) –
Roon fonctionne très bien avec le Mano ULTRA!…. Suis content, car je peux regrouper les zones avec le Mano et ma Digione Signature (ce que je ne pouvais pas faire avec PicorePlayer)
Là je profite de la musique
Le Mano fonctionne vraiment très très bien, vraiment un très bon appareil!
Et tout cas merci pour tout
Cordialement
Christian M
Bruno –
The mano streamer sounds perfectly with Qobuz and i’m very glad.
I still have to find how to read my flac files from a hard drive.
Many thanks for your responsiveness, your professionalism and your kindness.
You are the best !
Bruno
Jan (Sweden) –
Great work and product!
Sound is much better than from PC with HQ player, so real and clear!
Many thanks for the great service too.
Jan
Steven L. (USA) –
After some weeks I wanted to let you know my feedback on the Mano ULTRA.
Just AMAZING! … What a great product did you created, really … congratulations!
I am really happy with it, all worked perfectly and smooth, and of course awesome sound!
Ronan –
Ik heb de Mano Ultra gekocht ter vervanging van mijn ter ziele gegane Logitech Transporter. De Mano Ultra bevalt me prima. Wat een geweldige streamer is dit. Ik ben uitermate tevreden.
Kurt Martin –
After more than two weeks of burnin I think I can send you my final feedback.
Now after 2 ½ weeks the sound is very detailed at the top end but at the same time very clean and delicate with no sign of harshness. Bass is very controlled and full and the overall tonal presentation is very balanced, natural and musical. Imaging improved only slightly in depth and width compared to the PS Audio Bridge II but voices and instruments are better separated.
Overall a significant improvement and needless to say that you won’t get the Mano back ?.
I use Archphile software which is a very minimalistic distribution and it is configured to make use of core isolation so that the MPD player runs on a dedicated core. YMPD, the web interface of the MPD player, runs on a different core and you can also disable it completely if not used.
I also underclocked the CPU to 400 MHz (constant clock speed) and SDRAM also to 400 MHz slightly lowering the CPU and SDRAM voltage settings. In my system the Mano has nothing to do as the Media Server runs on a different system and the files delivered do not need to be modified in any way before they are send to the DAC by the MPD player.
As already mentioned, a proper burnin is key. There is no point to listen to device before it has approx. 330 hrs on the clock. The sound impression within the burnin time can vary from “OK” to even “very bad” but there is no comparison to fully broken in device.
Thanks for all your help and congratulations to a great product. There a certainly other products in the market that may be better but at a much higher price point. The cost / benefit ratio of the Mano Ultra might indeed be hard to beat. One may argue that is basically a pimped Raspi 2 but a quality PSU and an a dedicated output board reclocking the signals and all of that in a nice casing also has its price point. In addition you can use any Player Software or streaming service you like.