I wrote the first Mana review for "Listener." I think generalizations about racks, stands, and isolation devices are usually foolish since it's been my experience that the performance of these things is very much dependent on the system and the environment. A rack that sounds great on the second floor of a balloon framed house might sound wretched on a concrete slab in a basement, for example. That said, the improvement rendered by a Mana stand compared to a Target stand (probably the most widely used stand in the '80s and early '90s) under my Xerxes was so obvious that a cinder block could have heard it. Art Dudley burst into surprised laughter when I demonstrated the difference to him by moving my Xerxes from the Target rack to the Mana stand. The downside to the Mana stands is that set up is tedious and time - consuming, and Mana auteur John Watson's instructions were intentionally abstruse. You were told to tighten the nuts on the spikes "finger tight" and "snug" but not too tight, for instance. Since this tightness has some critical influence on the sound of the rack Watson could and should have specified an exact torque number for the nuts, but he always refused to. Similarly, Mana users were instructed to tap on the glass while adjusting the supporting spikes and listen for what was described as "The Tone," a ringing sound that indicated perfect adjustment. Again, since achieving this sound was so important, Watson should have made things easy for his customers by posting a little MP3 of it on Mana's web site but he never did. Despite the set up hassles Mana stands certainly had their enthusiastic admirers. As I recall Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd had custom Mana stands under all the gear in his recording studio, and Brian May of Queen used one under his Vox amp.
