What Oft Was Said but n'er so well expressed

Those of you who have enjoyed what I call "real hi fi" for more than about 15 years will recall a company called Mana Acoustics.When the products it developed and marketed were at the height of their fame every hi fi magazine (from those who catered to the mass market e.g.What Hi Fi? to those whose target audience were termed as audiophiles - in other words very rich with a tendency to extremely heavy and powerful american amplifiers or amplifiers of the valve variety,usually accompanied by a view of cd = bad and vinyl = good) all agreed that the equipment supports supplied by that firm were excellent.It is the only company I can recall where there was no divergence of opinion.So,where are they now?I don't know but what I do know is that the combination of steel,glass and spikes assembled with the aid of an allen key made an outstanding improvement to any equipment used to deliver music.The first time I experienced the "mana effect" was an occasion I will never forget.Baselines were more pronounced,sound staging and the seperation of instruments were refined and enlarged and the overall impression was one of how much improvement you were hearing.

I very seldom see any products manufactured by Mana on eBay.That is a pity because those who have not had a mana experience are missing out.Could it be,I ask myself,that the many people who bought such a product simply cannot bear to part with it?    

When I originally put this piece of writing  together I had little idea how accurate my thoughts were about why Mana products appear so infrequently.What I have ascertained is that the number of items being auctioned will actually decrease as time goes on.the reason is very simple - the company does no longer exist and therefore the amazing products they designed, manufactured and marketed are  finite in supply.Furthermore although I do not have meticulosly detailed empirical evidence to support the following contention:-

"those who have Mana Acoustics equipment know that the value of the products will increase as the years role by.There is an important point here in that the products were manufactured to such a high quality that evenif they are in constant use they will not deteriorate - well not for a couple of 100 years or so.They are maintenance free apart from emoving collected dust from the glass shelves every other month.No doubt they will get scratched and you must make sure that you test the interface between metal and glass to ensure that the item is "tuned" if your lucky enough to have a sound frame that is.What about shelves being broken?You would need to be pretty idiotic to drop one but I doubt it would smash or crack.The reason I say that is because the glass (using my own soundframe as an example) is almost a cetremetre thick and weighs in at close to 3.5Kg.They were certainly designed to last - no built in obsolescense here.No my remarkable soundframe will go on and on and on...very low maintenance with optimum performance - or rather facilitating the CD player or amp or turntable to operate at their best.

I also have a smaller version of the soundframe - manufactured to the same standard as its bigger sibling.Being a bit of a tweaker I have put all manner (get the pun? manner/mana) of products on the young pretender -and I have never been less than astounded by the difference it can make.

My proclivity to experimentation led me to try out something within an AV set up.The 5.1 set up was reasonable.Not expensive but suitable for someone who only uses it to watch a DVD or a broadcast in surround sound.I thought it would be interesting to set up the system (total cost excluding the speaker cables about £350-400) for the duration of the Olympics.I actually used it as a platform on which I put my very inexpensive centre speaker.What became apparent within the first seconds of a broadcast  was the amount of detail I had been missing.In addition voices were projected out into the listening triangle and the clarity and space surrounding a voice or an instrument was quite remarkaable.But that wasn't the end of the revelations.The way that sounds were shifted across the 3 front speakers and the timing was increased substantially.

All of a sudden I felt I wanted to see how some of my more action packed DVDs would play."Apocalypse Now" took on a quality I did not know was there!Bullets pinged from centre speaker to front right then front left and the scene in which fighter bombers napalm trees was stunning.The piece of that film that really took me by the throat was the scene when a helicopter firstly flies from front right to rear right but then suddenly changes course so that an effect is such that it hovers overhead with the synchronisation between the visuals on screen and the audio being produced was perfect.

It did not only have a beneficial effect on films.I have about 45 music DVDs.I have always preferred the sound from these to be reproduced using the stereo mix.However,listening to them with this new set up arrangement gave it an entirely different quality.And if you have a particularly well recorded disc encoded with theatre surround sound system then the audio performance is improved across the frequency range.Bass takes on a dominant but well articulated expression and there is far better seperation of instruments and voices.The entire disc oozes atmosphere and ambience to an extent not previously even imagined.

So, there we have it.This remarkable piece of steel conjoined with a sheet of glass and carefully tuned to maximise the audio system being used is moe valuable, more flexible and more enthralling than ever.

Pound for pound I do not believe that that any other single upgrade to a system can match the improvement that these isolation systems and equipment racks manage to do.

When I began to get into Mana some 14/15 years ago the cost was prohibitive,but even at these prices there was universal agreement (something exceptional and rare in high end audiophile circles) that if you could afford to buy these mystical and majestical objects then you would be a fool not to.This view was prevalent at the time when MA was  enjoying its place at the very top of  every hi fi lover's wish list - order books were full and supply could not keep up with demand.I don't know if this had an impact on the company and its eventual demise.What I do know is that if you get the chance to buy some of this "stuff" then you should seize it with both hands.I am certain that you will be delighted with your purchase.After all what is £200-400-800+ when you are being allowed to get closer to the holy grail of musical nirvana than ever before.