Just got the new Mytek Manhattan in for review. I'll be writing a bit on it for Stereomojo, but you'll get a first hand view of what I think as I put it through its paces against the mighty Lampi, Horus and Playback Designs.
Mytek Manhattan
- Thread starter Bruce B
- Start date
Awesome Bruce. I very much look forward to your findings. Some very stiff competition it will be up against.
The two things I find fascinating about it will be the optical inputs for use with Sonoma/Playback Designs and the LP analog input option.
Wow, that is hard to believe..well..the Stereo 192 had FW..but I never used it.
Now I really can't wait for your initial impressions!
Love the look of it. A sucker for the lathe turned front panel. Look forward to hearing your opinion after you have taken the measure of it.
Someone like me who's about to end his never ending chase for the next best thing in audio, Manhattan with both EMM Lab optical interface and MC/MM phono options will be the final piece... In my case if the Dr. Burce's verdict is reasonable, it will solve, handling files, and playing silver and black discs for good. With its simple Apple remote for volume control and perhaps addition of Manley Skipjack for expanded RCA inputs for my other sources, I can get rid of a whole rack full of stuff if Manhattan plays music respectably. Wishful thinking?
Now, if Mytek would just put out a Manhattan with 6 Channels of playback for Multichannel DSD downloads....
Now, if Mytek would just put out a Manhattan with 6 Channels of playback for Multichannel DSD downloads....
The current Mytek can be daisy chained to sync the clock for MCH playback. May be this device supports the same architecture.
And do you know if your model already has the forthcoming "DSD 256 upsampling" upgrade ?
From what I read in the Polish magazine High Fidelity (http://www.highfidelity.pl/@main-2273&lang=), it seems that by doing this upsampling (for PCM and DSD signals), the ESS Sabre chipset is not used :
Very bad translation, I admit, but interesting feature : do they use an FPGA, or a simple filter, to do the DSD 256 to analog conversion ?
I do not believe this language suggests that the ESS chip itself is bypassed when using the DSD 256 oversampling. What they most likely mean is that the by oversampling externally to DSD 256, they are bypassing the ESS chip's IIR filter section, (but the ESS will still have to change from 1 bit to at least 6 bits in DSP) and sending the data directly to the modulator. This could have sonic advantages, or not, depending on if Mytek's own oversampling algorthms are actually better than those in the ESS 9018. Given the limited silcon footprint of the ESS 9018, it is certainly possible that one could do a better job oversampling externally in a powerful FPGA, if one writes a good algorthm.
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