January 11th 09, 06:21 AM
((This from The Obsolete Sound. Now I have no beef with Manley, in
particular, but I auditioned one of these recently. It was sonically
no better than several common phono pre's I have heard and which are
available quite cheaply, although I was not able to listen to every
possible combination of cartridge and tone arm imaginable, indeed,
only three cartridges, to wit, a moderately expensive Grado, a Denon
DL-103 and a Ortofon low output MC cart.
But I thought this was really quite worshipful, like a review of a
Liza Minnelli concert by someone who thinks that Liza Minnelli must be
really, really great, because, well, she's really great, you know . ))
Web Exclusive -
Manley Labs Steelhead Phono Section
Scot Markwell
Once in a long while, as HP has said of things such as the original
Koetsu MC
phono cartridge, a truly great product comes along that, in a flash,
redefines an entire
genre of devices, and, like a star going supernova, eclipses all
others that have the
misfortune to be milling around in the same vicinity. Such a wondrous
and captivating
new piece of work is the Manley Labs Steelhead hybrid (tubes/FET/
autoformers) phono
section.
This product was conceived, as I understand it from EveAnna Manley,
as
something she had wanted for a long time so that she could listen to
all of the LPs
gathering dust on her shelves! So, she says, she figured “if we are
going to make
something, let’s do it right.”
So what do you get from such a vision? A two-piece (power supply and
head
unit), vacuum-tubed phono section that amplifies any known phono
cartridge, be it
moving magnet or moving coil, with whatever output (from the highest
to the lowest),
that is fitted with two MC and one MM cartridge inputs, and that
features both a fixed
output for use with preamps, and a variable output for those who want
to use it
directly into a power amplifier. This thing is designed to take no
prisoners and to make
no excuses.
- Web Exclusive -
Let me get right to the point: This is, and by a good margin, the
finest phono
amplifier I have ever heard, in my system or anyone else’s. Now,
please take into
account that there are other, more expensive (and yes, more esoteric)
phono sections
on the market, and some will listen and feel that another is better
(the big new Zanden
from Japan, courtesy of Bertrand Audio Imports, comes to mind as a
possibility, as well
as the famed FM Acoustics phono stage), but to my ear, and in the ways
I believe are
musically important, the Steelhead comes closer to doing it all than
any other.
Where to start? I suppose with areas nearest and dearest to my heart:
quality
and quantity of bass and overall visceral dynamic impact. The first
thing that grabs
your attention when you listen to this thing (and do not make the
mistake, as I did, to
dare to listen to it until it has been turned on for at least 4-5
hours the first time; after
initial warm-up and burn-in, it sounds quite decent 15-30 minutes
after coming out of
stand-by, which is where you should always leave it. Never turn it off
completely or
you have to start all over, in the manner of the Plinius M-14, my
reference phono
section.).
The first time I heard the Steelhead was in the Coincident Speaker
Technology
room at the 2001 CES in Las Vegas; there was a sound emanating from
that room that
shook me to the bones and sucked me in to see what all of the
commotion was about.
Israel Blume, Coincident’s front-man and designer, was playing some of
Chad
Kassem’s recent direct-to-disc blues recordings, and the realistic
bass, in amplitude,
tonal correctness, and tight, dynamic punch, was a revelation. Almost
a year later, in
my listening room with the same and other records, the impression
remains the same:
No other phono section can slam and wail in such a realistic manner in
the bass
frequencies as the Steelhead. Whether on blues, rock, jazz, or
classical recordings, the
lower registers are exceedingly well-served, and makes you realize why
this area of
frequencies is referred to as the foundation of all music. If the bass
is incorrect or not
as good as it can be, the entire spectrum suffers, all the way to the
highest highs.
(When you listen to a system that can convincingly reproduce truly low
bass [below 30
Hz], you realize that the highs sound better, as well, and that the
ambient cues of a
recording are more convincingly lifelike). Recordings with excellent
low bass, combined
with a sense of recorded ambience, such as Elgar’s Coronation Ode [EMI
ASD 3345],
are reproduced with a bigness and sense of spaciousness that is not
only appropriate,
but realistic in the sense of human scale. Then throw something
rowdier on the
turntable – Joe Harley’s AudioQuest direct-to-two-track all-analog
recording, Mighty
Sam McLain’s Give It Up to Love [AudioQuest AQ-LP 1015], for example,
and feel what
R&B is suppose to do to your booty, as well as your soul.
Hand-in-hand with the stunning bass quality of the Steelhead is its
ability to
capture the full dynamic impact of any recorded performance and bring
it back alive. I
have been playing disc after disc in an effort to see just how far I
could go, and if there
were a limit to the Steelhead’s ability to give back all that was
pumped through it. I
gave up before the Steelhead did. The Plinius M-14 is my reference and
an excellent
phono stage, but in this area, the Steelhead edges it out just a bit.
- Web Exclusive -
That last 1-2 dB of punch is revelatory on many recordings. Take my
old favorite,
Elgar’s Caractacus [EMI SLS 998]. There are sections where orchestra,
organ, and
large chorus are all in full cry, making a wondrous and spectacular
noise; when I
listened to this through the Steelhead, it was as if the room had come
alive, with a
great writhing musical beast storming out of the loudspeakers into the
room.
Spontaneous shouts of joy and even tears, as when I played the last
movement of
Mahler’s Eighth Symphony [London OSA 1295, with Solti and the Chicago
Symphony
and Chorus], were all but involuntary. This is, to me, one of the
truly great marks of
music reproduction in the home – when emotional impact is squeezed
from the listener
without conscious effort or thought.
Next up with this remarkable phono stage is its purity and lack of
distortion
artifacts. I have played a number of records I was convinced were
either over-
modulated or just plain hard to track and guess what I found out?
While the occasional
record is poorly cut or too hot or impossible to track, many have just
been overloading
the phono section! For instance, some of the passages on Joni
Mitchell’s Blue [Reprise
MS-2038, early pressing] are notoriously difficult for a cartridge to
navigate, let alone
for a phono section to decode. But with the Steelhead and a great
cartridge, like either
of the two moving-coil models I have been listening to of late, the
Sakura Systems/47
Labs Miyabi or the Dynavector DV XV1, Mitchell’s style, with all her
inflections and
timbre/pitch swings and modulations, comes through intact and with a
soaring
intensity and vibrancy that I had not heard before. Likewise with Chad
Kassem’s state-
of-the-art 45-RPM double album of Nancy Bryant songs [Neon Angel,
Acoustic Sounds
APO 2013]. Bryant’s voice is three parts Heaven and one part Devil. It
is beautiful and,
at times, stupifyingly difficult to reproduce cleanly, without
invoking the cringe factor,
either in the equipment or the listener. But through the Steelhead, in
the system that I
have been listening to for the past couple of months, she rings true
as a bell and with a
beautiful purity and dynamic nuance that sends shivers up my spine.
The bottom line: The Steelhead makes music; records and artists come
to life in
my room and bring me unsurpassed joy and a deliverance from the daily
pressures and
disappointments of life. I reveled in the depth and complexity of my
record collection,
as if I were in the grip of a time machine. Would that I could afford
it. When I take it to
HP’s for the big system, it shall be greatly missed.
What the Steelhead does not do, however, is romanticize or warm up
recordings.
There is a large-geometry JFET in front of the first tubed gain stage,
so the thing is not
fully a vacuum tube design. But this device’s solid-state signature is
quite benign (in
other words, warm and soft recordings sound warm and soft). The sonic
characteristics
of any given record are rendered with an even hand. I find the thing
refreshingly
neutral and, to a fault, truthful to the recording. Some may feel that
its stark portrayal
of the signal is a negative, wishing for a bit more additive warmth;
I, however, want to
know what is in the grooves, and the Steelhead tells me the truth.
- Web Exclusive -
In comparison to the Plinius M-14, the Groove, and the Aesthetix Io,
phono
sections I know well, the Steelhead is, in its character, most like
the Plinius; both have
a remarkably extended and stompingly powerful bass capability, as well
as exceptional
high-frequency air, and both are unfazed by any incoming signal, no
matter the level
or complexity. Both also do not add or subtract from the signal. This
is not to say that
either sounds transistorized; they are merely truthful. The Steelhead
has a tad more
body and weight to its images; things are a bit more fully fleshed.
But it should be so,
given that the Steelhead costs more than twice the Plinius. The Groove
is, despite its
totally modern and compact solid-state origins, a bit warmer and
bouncier in a friendly
sort of way, and has a slightly richer tonal quality. But it is not as
dynamic in the bass
or as wide-open in the treble as the Steelhead. Again, the price
differential dictates
that the Steelhead better be better. As for the Aesthetix Io, well, it
is tubed all the
way. Never overly warm or mushy, but musical and open in a way that
only pure tubes
can be, but with a price in noise and heat and rather short tube life,
never mind the
fact that the two rather large and clumsy black boxes that make up the
Io are not the
last word in style. But if the Steelhead did not exist, I might opt to
give overall top
honors to the Io, at least when it is in its perfect zone of tube
life, if I could live with
the heat and the vast number of tubes that need replacing at re-tubing
time.
But the Steelhead does exist, and anyone who is serious enough to
consider
spending $7,300 on a stand-alone phono section, and who has a large
enough record
collection to make the thought of purchasing one less than insane,
should somehow
find a way to listen to the Manley.
Sidebar
EveAnna Manley on the Steelhead
EveAnna Manley granted me permission to quote from her website her
explanation of
the rather complex features and technical aspects of the Steelhead.
She says it with
more flair and humor than I could; I find her a breath of fresh air in
an industry full of
stiffness and hot wind much of the time. She says:
The Steelhead … is an “upstream” device, and has a clever MC variable
load auto
tranny that Mitch Margolis (on-staff Manley hi-fi designer) designed
and our very own
Manley Magnetics department executed (which makes the MC stage so
clever). It has
two moving-coil inputs with selectable impedance loads of 25, 50, 100,
200 and 400
ohms via Mr. Clever "Steelhead" transformer/autoformer. Iron =
transformer =
"steel"; makes sense to me...
It also has variable and selectable Moving Magnet input impedances
too: 25, 50,
100, 200 ohms and 47Kohms. Very nifty is the selectable-dial-able-in-
able-from-the-
faceplate-able capacitive loading for all three of the MM & MC inputs:
0 to 1100
picofarads in 10 picofarad steps. Very cool! Equalize baby! Ten
picofard steps!
- Web Exclusive -
It's got six tubes. 2 x 6922 plus 4 x 7044. It's got a big honkin'
volume control.
It can drive an amplifier directly if you want, if you don't "do"
digital. Hey, and if you
happen to have three turntables set up, we give you 2 x MC and 1 x MM
selectable
inputs! It's got variable and fixed volume outputs. And all-tube
really low-Z tube
buffered outputs. Like inherently 20 ohms plus the little 47 ohm "OK
drive those high
capacitance audiophile cables why doncha" resistor, so its real output
impedance is
only 67 ohms. No wanky cathode follower (oh bor-ing) output here like
the other guys.
We got your real low impedance all-tube outputs right here!
It's got selectable gain: 50, 55, 60, 65dB on a switch
that even auto-mutes as
you change it so no nasty bangs. Gain switch markings are referred to
from the input
of the 1st active electronics at 1 kHz to the fixed output @ 10k load,
regardless of
whether source is MM or transformer stepped-up MC. It is not really
practical to include
MC step-up gain on the front panel markings due to the variable SOURCE
impedances
of the MC cartridges and the variable loading that the input XFMR will
have on any
given cartridge. All of this total MC gain variability should be
confined to about 3 to 12
dB of range, though. Transformer step-up gain plateaus as the load Z
on a given MC
cartridge is optimized...producing no VOLTAGE gain but in fact a bit
more power gain...
The user should set a load Z which sounds best with his/her particular
MC cartridge
and adjust gain to suit their system's operating level. Bottom line:
there is plenty of
gain... enough to do justice to your fave lo-output MC cartridges).
It's got a mute switch. It's got a "just turn it down
while I cue up so I don't
throw my woofer cones across the room but I still want the same volume
I was
listening at before I turned the side" DIM switch. And what goes with
DIM better than
SUM, which would be the MONO button... It has a killer hyper-
regulated outboard
power supply that plugs in on the huge-est connector you ever saw. And
you can just
hit the "standby" button to keep everybody (in the phono section) off
while you take a
small holiday to Tahiti. A backlit "MANLEY STEELHEAD" badge
illuminated by an old-
fashioned lamp (remember those?) reflects back to vinyl-days-of-yore
while the
millions of BLUE LEDs remind you that this is modern tube engineering
design, baby!
A couple of caveats: Although the Steelhead itself is well shielded
and quite
free of any hum, noise, and RF interference in its own domain, I was
able to induce
rather bad RF into it when using interconnects from my turntable that
were a bit long
(almost 2 meters). I suggest that the Steelhead be situated such that
lengths greater
than one meter are avoided, or you may be listening to your local
radio stations as well
as your records.
Also, despite the fact that the MC input autoformer transformers in
the Steelhead
are remarkably transparent and quiet, transient response and ultimate
high-frequency
air are slightly compromised compared to connecting via the MM inputs.
Also, the
background noise signature of the MM input is just a bit of low-level
hiss, while the
same artifacts through the MC input modulate as an ever-so-slight hum.
Not obtrusive
at all, and I could only really hear it when listening with the 97-dB
sensitive Coincident
Speaker Technology Victories, but it was there.
- Web Exclusive -
Manufacturer Information
Manley Laboratories, Inc.
13880 Magnolia Ave., Chino, California 91710
Phone: (909) 627-4256; fax: (909) 628-2482
www.manleylabs.com
Associated Equipment
VPI HW-19 MK IV turntable w/ JMW Memorial 10.5 arm and SAMA (Stand
Alone Motor
Assembly)
VPI Synchronous Drive Unit motor controller; Sakura Systems/47 Labs
Miyabi and
Dynavector DV XV1 MC cartridges; Marigo Audio Labs MR 20.2 PH/F,
Hovland Groove
2, and EX Cell Power Solutions Groove Tube phono interconnects;
Siltech Gen 3 and
Gen 5 interconnects, Siltech LS 180 Gen 3 speaker cable
Audio Magic silver interconnects; Stealth Audio Silver and gold
interconnects and silver
ribbon speaker cables; Wyetech Labs Jade (tubed) and Plinius CD-LAD
(solid-state)
linestage preamplifiers; Forsell Air Reference CD Drive; EAD
TheatreMaster DAC;
Custom Power Cord Company Green Hornet coaxial digital cable;
Coincident Speaker
Technology SIP 300B SET stereo integrated amplifier; Wyetech Labs
Topaz 572B
stereo SET amplifier; Dehavilland Aries 845 SET mono amplifiers;
Custom Power Cord
Company Top Gun HCFi A/C power cords and super power blocks; Arcici
Suspense
Rack
particular, but I auditioned one of these recently. It was sonically
no better than several common phono pre's I have heard and which are
available quite cheaply, although I was not able to listen to every
possible combination of cartridge and tone arm imaginable, indeed,
only three cartridges, to wit, a moderately expensive Grado, a Denon
DL-103 and a Ortofon low output MC cart.
But I thought this was really quite worshipful, like a review of a
Liza Minnelli concert by someone who thinks that Liza Minnelli must be
really, really great, because, well, she's really great, you know . ))
Web Exclusive -
Manley Labs Steelhead Phono Section
Scot Markwell
Once in a long while, as HP has said of things such as the original
Koetsu MC
phono cartridge, a truly great product comes along that, in a flash,
redefines an entire
genre of devices, and, like a star going supernova, eclipses all
others that have the
misfortune to be milling around in the same vicinity. Such a wondrous
and captivating
new piece of work is the Manley Labs Steelhead hybrid (tubes/FET/
autoformers) phono
section.
This product was conceived, as I understand it from EveAnna Manley,
as
something she had wanted for a long time so that she could listen to
all of the LPs
gathering dust on her shelves! So, she says, she figured “if we are
going to make
something, let’s do it right.”
So what do you get from such a vision? A two-piece (power supply and
head
unit), vacuum-tubed phono section that amplifies any known phono
cartridge, be it
moving magnet or moving coil, with whatever output (from the highest
to the lowest),
that is fitted with two MC and one MM cartridge inputs, and that
features both a fixed
output for use with preamps, and a variable output for those who want
to use it
directly into a power amplifier. This thing is designed to take no
prisoners and to make
no excuses.
- Web Exclusive -
Let me get right to the point: This is, and by a good margin, the
finest phono
amplifier I have ever heard, in my system or anyone else’s. Now,
please take into
account that there are other, more expensive (and yes, more esoteric)
phono sections
on the market, and some will listen and feel that another is better
(the big new Zanden
from Japan, courtesy of Bertrand Audio Imports, comes to mind as a
possibility, as well
as the famed FM Acoustics phono stage), but to my ear, and in the ways
I believe are
musically important, the Steelhead comes closer to doing it all than
any other.
Where to start? I suppose with areas nearest and dearest to my heart:
quality
and quantity of bass and overall visceral dynamic impact. The first
thing that grabs
your attention when you listen to this thing (and do not make the
mistake, as I did, to
dare to listen to it until it has been turned on for at least 4-5
hours the first time; after
initial warm-up and burn-in, it sounds quite decent 15-30 minutes
after coming out of
stand-by, which is where you should always leave it. Never turn it off
completely or
you have to start all over, in the manner of the Plinius M-14, my
reference phono
section.).
The first time I heard the Steelhead was in the Coincident Speaker
Technology
room at the 2001 CES in Las Vegas; there was a sound emanating from
that room that
shook me to the bones and sucked me in to see what all of the
commotion was about.
Israel Blume, Coincident’s front-man and designer, was playing some of
Chad
Kassem’s recent direct-to-disc blues recordings, and the realistic
bass, in amplitude,
tonal correctness, and tight, dynamic punch, was a revelation. Almost
a year later, in
my listening room with the same and other records, the impression
remains the same:
No other phono section can slam and wail in such a realistic manner in
the bass
frequencies as the Steelhead. Whether on blues, rock, jazz, or
classical recordings, the
lower registers are exceedingly well-served, and makes you realize why
this area of
frequencies is referred to as the foundation of all music. If the bass
is incorrect or not
as good as it can be, the entire spectrum suffers, all the way to the
highest highs.
(When you listen to a system that can convincingly reproduce truly low
bass [below 30
Hz], you realize that the highs sound better, as well, and that the
ambient cues of a
recording are more convincingly lifelike). Recordings with excellent
low bass, combined
with a sense of recorded ambience, such as Elgar’s Coronation Ode [EMI
ASD 3345],
are reproduced with a bigness and sense of spaciousness that is not
only appropriate,
but realistic in the sense of human scale. Then throw something
rowdier on the
turntable – Joe Harley’s AudioQuest direct-to-two-track all-analog
recording, Mighty
Sam McLain’s Give It Up to Love [AudioQuest AQ-LP 1015], for example,
and feel what
R&B is suppose to do to your booty, as well as your soul.
Hand-in-hand with the stunning bass quality of the Steelhead is its
ability to
capture the full dynamic impact of any recorded performance and bring
it back alive. I
have been playing disc after disc in an effort to see just how far I
could go, and if there
were a limit to the Steelhead’s ability to give back all that was
pumped through it. I
gave up before the Steelhead did. The Plinius M-14 is my reference and
an excellent
phono stage, but in this area, the Steelhead edges it out just a bit.
- Web Exclusive -
That last 1-2 dB of punch is revelatory on many recordings. Take my
old favorite,
Elgar’s Caractacus [EMI SLS 998]. There are sections where orchestra,
organ, and
large chorus are all in full cry, making a wondrous and spectacular
noise; when I
listened to this through the Steelhead, it was as if the room had come
alive, with a
great writhing musical beast storming out of the loudspeakers into the
room.
Spontaneous shouts of joy and even tears, as when I played the last
movement of
Mahler’s Eighth Symphony [London OSA 1295, with Solti and the Chicago
Symphony
and Chorus], were all but involuntary. This is, to me, one of the
truly great marks of
music reproduction in the home – when emotional impact is squeezed
from the listener
without conscious effort or thought.
Next up with this remarkable phono stage is its purity and lack of
distortion
artifacts. I have played a number of records I was convinced were
either over-
modulated or just plain hard to track and guess what I found out?
While the occasional
record is poorly cut or too hot or impossible to track, many have just
been overloading
the phono section! For instance, some of the passages on Joni
Mitchell’s Blue [Reprise
MS-2038, early pressing] are notoriously difficult for a cartridge to
navigate, let alone
for a phono section to decode. But with the Steelhead and a great
cartridge, like either
of the two moving-coil models I have been listening to of late, the
Sakura Systems/47
Labs Miyabi or the Dynavector DV XV1, Mitchell’s style, with all her
inflections and
timbre/pitch swings and modulations, comes through intact and with a
soaring
intensity and vibrancy that I had not heard before. Likewise with Chad
Kassem’s state-
of-the-art 45-RPM double album of Nancy Bryant songs [Neon Angel,
Acoustic Sounds
APO 2013]. Bryant’s voice is three parts Heaven and one part Devil. It
is beautiful and,
at times, stupifyingly difficult to reproduce cleanly, without
invoking the cringe factor,
either in the equipment or the listener. But through the Steelhead, in
the system that I
have been listening to for the past couple of months, she rings true
as a bell and with a
beautiful purity and dynamic nuance that sends shivers up my spine.
The bottom line: The Steelhead makes music; records and artists come
to life in
my room and bring me unsurpassed joy and a deliverance from the daily
pressures and
disappointments of life. I reveled in the depth and complexity of my
record collection,
as if I were in the grip of a time machine. Would that I could afford
it. When I take it to
HP’s for the big system, it shall be greatly missed.
What the Steelhead does not do, however, is romanticize or warm up
recordings.
There is a large-geometry JFET in front of the first tubed gain stage,
so the thing is not
fully a vacuum tube design. But this device’s solid-state signature is
quite benign (in
other words, warm and soft recordings sound warm and soft). The sonic
characteristics
of any given record are rendered with an even hand. I find the thing
refreshingly
neutral and, to a fault, truthful to the recording. Some may feel that
its stark portrayal
of the signal is a negative, wishing for a bit more additive warmth;
I, however, want to
know what is in the grooves, and the Steelhead tells me the truth.
- Web Exclusive -
In comparison to the Plinius M-14, the Groove, and the Aesthetix Io,
phono
sections I know well, the Steelhead is, in its character, most like
the Plinius; both have
a remarkably extended and stompingly powerful bass capability, as well
as exceptional
high-frequency air, and both are unfazed by any incoming signal, no
matter the level
or complexity. Both also do not add or subtract from the signal. This
is not to say that
either sounds transistorized; they are merely truthful. The Steelhead
has a tad more
body and weight to its images; things are a bit more fully fleshed.
But it should be so,
given that the Steelhead costs more than twice the Plinius. The Groove
is, despite its
totally modern and compact solid-state origins, a bit warmer and
bouncier in a friendly
sort of way, and has a slightly richer tonal quality. But it is not as
dynamic in the bass
or as wide-open in the treble as the Steelhead. Again, the price
differential dictates
that the Steelhead better be better. As for the Aesthetix Io, well, it
is tubed all the
way. Never overly warm or mushy, but musical and open in a way that
only pure tubes
can be, but with a price in noise and heat and rather short tube life,
never mind the
fact that the two rather large and clumsy black boxes that make up the
Io are not the
last word in style. But if the Steelhead did not exist, I might opt to
give overall top
honors to the Io, at least when it is in its perfect zone of tube
life, if I could live with
the heat and the vast number of tubes that need replacing at re-tubing
time.
But the Steelhead does exist, and anyone who is serious enough to
consider
spending $7,300 on a stand-alone phono section, and who has a large
enough record
collection to make the thought of purchasing one less than insane,
should somehow
find a way to listen to the Manley.
Sidebar
EveAnna Manley on the Steelhead
EveAnna Manley granted me permission to quote from her website her
explanation of
the rather complex features and technical aspects of the Steelhead.
She says it with
more flair and humor than I could; I find her a breath of fresh air in
an industry full of
stiffness and hot wind much of the time. She says:
The Steelhead … is an “upstream” device, and has a clever MC variable
load auto
tranny that Mitch Margolis (on-staff Manley hi-fi designer) designed
and our very own
Manley Magnetics department executed (which makes the MC stage so
clever). It has
two moving-coil inputs with selectable impedance loads of 25, 50, 100,
200 and 400
ohms via Mr. Clever "Steelhead" transformer/autoformer. Iron =
transformer =
"steel"; makes sense to me...
It also has variable and selectable Moving Magnet input impedances
too: 25, 50,
100, 200 ohms and 47Kohms. Very nifty is the selectable-dial-able-in-
able-from-the-
faceplate-able capacitive loading for all three of the MM & MC inputs:
0 to 1100
picofarads in 10 picofarad steps. Very cool! Equalize baby! Ten
picofard steps!
- Web Exclusive -
It's got six tubes. 2 x 6922 plus 4 x 7044. It's got a big honkin'
volume control.
It can drive an amplifier directly if you want, if you don't "do"
digital. Hey, and if you
happen to have three turntables set up, we give you 2 x MC and 1 x MM
selectable
inputs! It's got variable and fixed volume outputs. And all-tube
really low-Z tube
buffered outputs. Like inherently 20 ohms plus the little 47 ohm "OK
drive those high
capacitance audiophile cables why doncha" resistor, so its real output
impedance is
only 67 ohms. No wanky cathode follower (oh bor-ing) output here like
the other guys.
We got your real low impedance all-tube outputs right here!
It's got selectable gain: 50, 55, 60, 65dB on a switch
that even auto-mutes as
you change it so no nasty bangs. Gain switch markings are referred to
from the input
of the 1st active electronics at 1 kHz to the fixed output @ 10k load,
regardless of
whether source is MM or transformer stepped-up MC. It is not really
practical to include
MC step-up gain on the front panel markings due to the variable SOURCE
impedances
of the MC cartridges and the variable loading that the input XFMR will
have on any
given cartridge. All of this total MC gain variability should be
confined to about 3 to 12
dB of range, though. Transformer step-up gain plateaus as the load Z
on a given MC
cartridge is optimized...producing no VOLTAGE gain but in fact a bit
more power gain...
The user should set a load Z which sounds best with his/her particular
MC cartridge
and adjust gain to suit their system's operating level. Bottom line:
there is plenty of
gain... enough to do justice to your fave lo-output MC cartridges).
It's got a mute switch. It's got a "just turn it down
while I cue up so I don't
throw my woofer cones across the room but I still want the same volume
I was
listening at before I turned the side" DIM switch. And what goes with
DIM better than
SUM, which would be the MONO button... It has a killer hyper-
regulated outboard
power supply that plugs in on the huge-est connector you ever saw. And
you can just
hit the "standby" button to keep everybody (in the phono section) off
while you take a
small holiday to Tahiti. A backlit "MANLEY STEELHEAD" badge
illuminated by an old-
fashioned lamp (remember those?) reflects back to vinyl-days-of-yore
while the
millions of BLUE LEDs remind you that this is modern tube engineering
design, baby!
A couple of caveats: Although the Steelhead itself is well shielded
and quite
free of any hum, noise, and RF interference in its own domain, I was
able to induce
rather bad RF into it when using interconnects from my turntable that
were a bit long
(almost 2 meters). I suggest that the Steelhead be situated such that
lengths greater
than one meter are avoided, or you may be listening to your local
radio stations as well
as your records.
Also, despite the fact that the MC input autoformer transformers in
the Steelhead
are remarkably transparent and quiet, transient response and ultimate
high-frequency
air are slightly compromised compared to connecting via the MM inputs.
Also, the
background noise signature of the MM input is just a bit of low-level
hiss, while the
same artifacts through the MC input modulate as an ever-so-slight hum.
Not obtrusive
at all, and I could only really hear it when listening with the 97-dB
sensitive Coincident
Speaker Technology Victories, but it was there.
- Web Exclusive -
Manufacturer Information
Manley Laboratories, Inc.
13880 Magnolia Ave., Chino, California 91710
Phone: (909) 627-4256; fax: (909) 628-2482
www.manleylabs.com
Associated Equipment
VPI HW-19 MK IV turntable w/ JMW Memorial 10.5 arm and SAMA (Stand
Alone Motor
Assembly)
VPI Synchronous Drive Unit motor controller; Sakura Systems/47 Labs
Miyabi and
Dynavector DV XV1 MC cartridges; Marigo Audio Labs MR 20.2 PH/F,
Hovland Groove
2, and EX Cell Power Solutions Groove Tube phono interconnects;
Siltech Gen 3 and
Gen 5 interconnects, Siltech LS 180 Gen 3 speaker cable
Audio Magic silver interconnects; Stealth Audio Silver and gold
interconnects and silver
ribbon speaker cables; Wyetech Labs Jade (tubed) and Plinius CD-LAD
(solid-state)
linestage preamplifiers; Forsell Air Reference CD Drive; EAD
TheatreMaster DAC;
Custom Power Cord Company Green Hornet coaxial digital cable;
Coincident Speaker
Technology SIP 300B SET stereo integrated amplifier; Wyetech Labs
Topaz 572B
stereo SET amplifier; Dehavilland Aries 845 SET mono amplifiers;
Custom Power Cord
Company Top Gun HCFi A/C power cords and super power blocks; Arcici
Suspense
Rack