Hi Jason,
The sound change with extra Mana is interesting, and very difficult to describe. As you 'ascend', you get progressively more detail, better dynamics, a lower noise floor, and less distortion. More 'naturalness', more 'musicality'??
I can now play 'Benedictus' from the Naxos Mozart Requiem without ANY distortion on the vocals at all. I've never heard it without distortion before. That's just an example.
Listening to other people's Mana'd-up systems is possibly helpful, but possibly not because you cannot separate out what the Mana is doing from the effects of the room acoustics, mains treatments, cables etc, and obviously the equipment itself. OTOH, Paul Ranson has heard different incarnations of my set-up, with Mana added between his visits, and I would be interested to hear what he thinks of it next time.
The problem is that Mana is a difficult a-b dem, because it IS quite an art to set it up well, and it takes a day or two to 'settle', particularly with heavy equipment.
I understand that you think that you don't like the Mana Effect (which is a function of its dual role as isolator and vibration sink), what I don't understand is why.
