Mytek Brooklyn vs manhattan


Does anyone have experience w the two current (Brooklyn + or Manhattan 2) with tidal masters mqa? Looking to upgrade dac from bluesound node 2 but can’t assess whether Manhattan is 3 times better than Brooklyn. No dealers close by so I will have to buy direct. Thanks
emster
Too bad you got two stupid answers to a great question.  I’d like to know this also.  

Well, the Brooklyn has a switching power supply.  The Manhattan has two separate fully linear power supplies with a massive amount of power supply capacitance.  Just this fact alone would tell me the Manhattan is a significantly superior DAC.  That being said, I'm not sure that it's worth $6k for this DAC since the DAC still uses op amp modules for its analog stages.  I suppose if you absolutely wanted to get full hi-res audio from Tidal, you will need an MQA DAC.  However, there are many other DACs on the market that I think would be better than the Manhattan and much cheaper that use discrete analog stages (and in some cases Class A analog stages).  Examples:

L.K.S. MH-DA004  ($1600)

Krell Vanguard DAC  (you can pick these up new-in-box for 40% off at $2700 now).

Denafrips various models (somewhere between $2k and $6k).

etc.


You can still play Tidal through a non-MQA DAC, but you're limited to 44.1kz or 48khz sampling.  In my opinion, if it was a decision between 96hz MQA or 48khz through a superior DAC, I would take superior DAC every single time.  MQA is a encoded wrapper that just contains the original 24/96 FLAC file data and enforces a restriction on sampling rate if it's not played through an MQA DAC.  To me, this is a marketing ploy to force you to buy a MQA DAC.  As a result, the MQA DACs can demand more money than they are actually worth.

I suppose MQA also serves as some sort of "copy protection" for Tidal when they stream down hi-res audio, as there are similar restrictions through HDMI/SACD type audio.

I own both including a linear power supply for the Brooklyn DAC+. The Manhattan II is just much smoother while also sounding more full. The Brooklyn has a crispness about it. It’s really great. I’ve compared it to numerous other Dacs and it’s definitely a great DAC. Is the Manhattan 3x better? I don’t think that’s how Audiophile pricing works. On a sufficiently revealing system (especially full range speakers) you’ll hear the difference but it’s not like the difference will reveal some magical new layer to the music. It is, however, worth it to me. Love them both though!