John
You might think that Mytek Digital operates only out of New York but it’s very much a transatlantic operation. European Branch Director Marcin Hamerla and Tech Support Guru Adam Bielewicz staff their booth at Munich Hi-end 2014. Hamerla and Bielewicz both hail from Poland where most of Mytek’s product development and manufacturing takes place. A new budget model is on the horizon (no details yet) which will see Mytek ultimately phase out the use of Firewire. I ask why and Hamerla cites the dwindling supply of good quality receiver chips and the protocol’s waning popularity.
That said, Firewire still features on Mytek’s new Manhattan: a pre-amplifier, headphone amplifier and (of course) DAC. Hamerla tells me that whilst their Stereo192-DSD DAC (which was DAR-KO awarded here) started life in the pro audio space, the Manhattan is Mytek’s first product aimed squarely at the consumer market. Check out the case work (which recalls the luxurious look/feel of Resolution Audio).
The Manhattan deploys ESS Labs’ Reference 9018 D/A conversion chip to support DSD64/DSD128/DSD256 and PCM up to 32bit/384kHz.
Digging deeper we note Femto clocking, switchable headphone gain, [close to] zero headphone output impedance and a pair of power supplies – one each for digital and analogue stages. The Manhattan maintains all of the connectivity of its predecessor: USB 1.0, USB 2.0, Firewire, coaxial, optical, AES/EBU. An analogue input tells us Mytek have again optioned digital and analogue attenuation. Single-ended and balanced outputs round out the feature set.
One hundred units have been made thus far with the first fifty being made available at an introductory price of US$3995, after which the Manhattan will revert to an RRP of US$4995. That plonks it right next to the Resonessence Labs INVICTA MKII and in terms of competition.
The Mytek Manhattan will be begin shipping July 15th with pre-orders being taken now. Shipping is free from Mytek Digital’s online store to anywhere in the world.
Further information: Mytek Digital
