 Five years ago I reviewed the first iteration of the Magna Mano, which at that time was good for the money. In this review the third incarnation in which some things are hardly changed, while others are, drastically. The Magna Mano Ultra MK3 Farad, which I will call the Mano Ultra from here on, still is based on a Raspberry Pi, version 3B in this case. Making it easy to use the same hardware with several software options, but simply replacing an SD card through a hole in the bottom of the Mano Ultra. Magna lets buy this side on Logitech Media Server, Rupee XL, Volumeo and Mood. More important, they have active support for all options. Let's see how to use the Mano Ultra. The Mano Ultra comes with an external power supply, the Magna Farad 5 volts. This is the new, previous versions that the power supply built in. The Farad power supply is connected to the Mano Ultra over the supplied cable and to the mains of course. Then the Mano Ultra is to be connected to a home network over a network cable to make contact with the internet and when desired to your computer or NAS. The output of the Mano Ultra is to be connected to a digital to analog converter, DAC for short, over I2S using an HDMI cable or AES-EBU using a 110 ohm XLR cable. The DAC is then connected to an amplifier using either RCA or XLR cables. The amplifier is connected to loudspeakers with loudspeaker cable or alternatively a set of headphones. A tablet or smartphone is used for music selection. As said, the Mano Ultra comes with a second box of the same size that contains the power supply. The measurements are 132 x 190 x 48 mm for each box, adding up to 96 mm height for both boxes when stacked. The Mano Ultra weighs 0.26 kilos, the Farad 1.57 kilos. Together 2.23 kilos. On the front the Mano only has a power button with integrated LED. The Farad only has a power LED on the front. On the rear there is more to show. The Farad has an IEC mains input on one side and a 5V DC output on a GX16 aviation grid connector. Next we hit the reset button to restore normal state after an error. On the Mano Ultra we see the same GX16 connector as 5V input. Next we hit the I2S output on HDMI that uses the low voltage differential signal and system, LVDS, that has good common mode noise rejection. It uses the PS Audio pinout as used by AudioGD, Denofrips, Holo, J's Audio, Matrix, Syncser and more. The HDMI plug might mislead people thinking that it can be connected directly to the HDMI input of an AV receiver, but that is not the case. Next to it the AES-EBU output that is transformer balanced but uses the speed of voltage level of 0.59 volts peak peak. That will normally be sufficient for consumer equipment but might not always work with professional equipment that wants to see a higher voltage. But these are rarely seen in the consumer market. I had no problems with the DACs I used. Alternatively, you can order the single ended, SPDIF output on RCA or BNC instead of the XLR. Then we come to the connectors of the Raspberry Pi, the network connector and 4 USB 2 connectors. Although these can be used to connect the DAC, the quality of the signal will be less than of both other outputs. Connecting a USB drive is fine though. It depends on the software installed if a USB drive can be used. Inside the Farad we see the large toroidal transformer, three supercapacitors with a total capacity of 3.3 Farad, then four 10,000 microfarad Cornell WA electrolytic capacitors, two Scottkey rectifiers known for their speed and even an optional synergistic research purple fuse, an upgrade of 179 euros. When we open the Nano Ultra and follow the DC input from the GX16 connector to the power switch and from there to the circuit board, we end up in the two Tendlabs shunt regulators. We have seen the extensive power circuits in the Farad and yet rather costly but very good shunts are used here for further refining the power. These operate in Class A and offer much lower noise, true wideband and a linear output impedance. That leads to a lower noise on the ground plane while the stable voltage provides a more stable reference voltage. All reducing jitter. See my presentation at Noir et Blanc in Brussels. The Tendlabs PCB are mounted on the Mano Ultra board that in turn is mounted on the Raspberry Pi 3B, not visible in this photo. The I2S signal coming from the Pi is reclocked, timed by two Crystals 957-25 V2 clock crystals and sent to the AudioGD HDMI LVDS I2S output module. The same I2S signal is sent to the Wolfson interface transceiver that converts it to an AES-3 data stream that then is sent to this transformer and from there as a balanced signal to the AES-EBU output. How the Mano Ultra works depends on what software you choose. If you choose the Logitech Media Server option, a small server program is run on the Mano Ultra or alternatively on your computer or NAS. In both cases the Mano Ultra becomes a squeeze box so it is a network music server and player. Tidal, Cobus, Spotify and Deezer are supported. You can play music from a USB drive or a share on a NAS or computer and internet radio is supported too. The rupee option makes it a music renderer aka endpoint. I chose this option since I used Rune as a music server and the Mano Ultra is immediately recognized by Rune. Since Magna Audio installs the XL version of rupee, it also functions with Airplay, Spotify, HQ Player NAA, Squeezebox and DLNA renderer. It turns the Mano Ultra into an endpoint that plays music sent from a serving program elsewhere. If you have for Lumio installed, see my review, the Mano Ultra becomes a complete streamer, like Sonos and Blue Sound, meaning that it builds its own metadata database, so you can connect a USB drive and play music from there. But also DLNA servers and Samba shares are supported. Furthermore Airplay, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and WebRadio are supported, while with plugins also Rune endpoint and for instance Cobus functionality can be added. Mood does about the same as for Lumio. By the way, all the options that support DLNA can work as a DLNA renderer aka network bridge or endpoint for programs like Odevana, Amara and J River Media Center. That's a lot of options and all due to the use of Raspberry Pi. And it's easy to change from one software program to another for you just exchange the mini SD card through a hole in the bottom of the Mano Ultra. Magna offers micro SD cards for each of the four options at €20 each. But you can also download these programs self and burn them on an SD card. Regardless of the software used, the output is capable of 44.1 kHz to 192 kHz 24 bit sampling. I used my setup one to test the Mano Ultra. On the input side it was connected to the SOtM S&H 10G network switch over network acoustics muon at Ethernet cable. On the output side was the Corde Dave DAC connected over Siltac AES-EBU cable. The analog output of the DAC was connected to the Air Acoustics AX520 amplifier over Grimm Audio SQM XLR cables. The amp drove the PMC FAC12 signature loudspeakers over AudioQuest Robinhood Zero loudspeaker cable. I had Rupee XL installed and used an Intel NUC i7 running Roon ROG controlled for my iPad Pro. Where I found the initial version of the Mano good for its price but nothing more, the Mano Ultra on review here was a shock. It sounded extremely clean, yet warm and musical. The sound of a digital source is defined by the amount of electric noise it feeds to the DAC. That can be face noise, ground plane noise, jitter course by a varying voltage line and so on. Again see my presentation at the Noire Blanc Brussels Hi-Fi Show 2022 from 20 minutes and 26 seconds onwards. Links at the top right of the screen at the end of this video and in the show notes. This is a very good sounding streamer that outputs a signal quality found with streamers of twice the price or more. Magna also included two optional power cables for the use in between the Farad and the Mano Ultra. The first, called Level 1, uses 4 strands 18AWG tin-plated copper wire and comes with gold-plated carbon-damped barrel connectors. It raises the price with €69. The second is called Level 2 Silver. It has four times two strands of 0.4mm 99.999% silver wires. This raises the price with €264. The Level 1 cable does further increase the speed and accurateness, especially in the mid-range. It is a relatively subtle difference but justifies the price completely. The Level 2 Silver cable further improves sibilance and refinement if the rest of the equipment is able to reproduce it. It would be my choice, but I wouldn't blame someone that would go for the standard cable, for the standard Mano Ultra will probably bring an overwhelming sound improvement to many. And you can always further upgrade by buying the higher level cable later on. Magna Hi-Fi prefers i2S over other digital connections so I asked them if I could also borrow a high quality DAC that has an i2S input so I could compare it against AES EBU. They kindly sent me a HoloMay Level 2 R2R DAC that I have reviewed two years ago when it already left a very good impression. But now, with my reference setup on the upgrades, I think that I will take some time to evaluate it again against my court Dave. Now it is for comparison of i2S against AES EBU. To do that I had the court replaced by the Holo using the same cabling. Then I connected it over i2S using an AudioQuest Pearl 48 HDMI cable Magna Hi-Fi sent with the equipment. The difference between the two connections was extremely small, if there was any. Both sounded stunningly good with no trace of jitter in the direct sense. I couldn't resist comparing the Mano Ultra over AES EBU to the Grim Audio Mule 1, a comparison that looks totally bunkers. The Grim costs a 10 fold, holds an Intel Nock i3 and has an upsampler next to the reclocker. To make it a fair comparison, the upsampling and the minus 3 dB headroom output control were switched off. The deep lows from the Grim were somewhat more powerful and had more texture and overall the sound was slightly more relaxed while having better micro-dynamics. Although that might sound like a letdown for the Mano Ultra, it is the opposite. For even in the configuration with the expensive Fuse and the Level 2 Silver cable, it's one seventh of the price. While the sound quality at best is 20% less or so. Anyway, it places the Mano Ultra in the middle of my setup 1. This Magna Mano Ultra MK3 Farad is an extremely good sounding streamer, or network bridge, whatever you want it to be. It can be a total streaming solution for 1295 euros when using DnLay with for instance Minim server on a computer or NAS. Or Volumio or Mood with an attached USB drive. You can then later upgrade the Fuse, the cable and for instance buy a lifetime subscription to Roon. Alternatively you can buy it all at the same time if funds allow. Then you pay close to 2500 euros including VAT for a modest looking network solution that sounds far beyond modest. I have to commend Rob and Joss from Magna HiFi for their continued drive to improve the sound quality while keeping the price within reach of many. They surely succeeded with this product. Which is a fine line to conclude this video with. I'll be back next Friday at 5 p.m. Central European time. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to this channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed on new videos around. Help me reach even more people by giving this video a thumb up or link to this video in the social media. It is much appreciated. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially, especially in these times. It keeps me independent and lets me improve the channel further. If that makes you feel like supporting my work too, the links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.