Terry Talks: Manley Labs' Stingray II review

Terry Ellis from ‪@PursuitPerfectSystem‬ has a swim around with Manley Laboratories awesome Stingray II stereo integrated amplifier.

Chapters
0:00 intro
1:30 First Impressions
2:50 The Mark 2
4:31 Connections
5:18 Bias Tubes
6:03 Ultra Linear or Triode
6:29 Price
6:40 Sound Quality
9:44 Final Thoughts
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The STINGRAY II is the famous Manley Stingray stereo integrated tube amplifier (legendary in the hifi world since it first surfaced in 1997) having been renewed and refreshed—with full featured RF and IR remote control.

Originally conceived with particular attention paid to optimal component placement for the purity and symmetry of the signal path layout, the Stingray quickly became a best-selling product. The Stingray II retains the same basic tube circuitry and marvelous output transformers as the original with some important improvements:

• The high voltage tube energy storage has been increased vastly resulting in even more solid and coherent bass control and impact.

• A headphone jack has been added to the right side facia. This jack re-routes the output from the speaker binding posts and mutes the Subwoofer output feed. This makes the Stingray II a fabulous headphone amplifier!

• The 4th input source is an 1/8" (3.5mm) TRS mini jack for convenient hookup with portable devices and computers on the left front facia.

• The Remote Control works with both Radio Frequency and InfraRed technologies. Using the remote in RF mode gives freedom from having to "point and shoot." The RF remote is omnidirectional and works through walls and cabinets. IR capability is included for those with Universal Learning Remote Controls for consolidated integration into existing systems. The volume control, balance adjust, input switching, and display options are all on the RF/IR Remote Control. Additionally user can perform the MUTE, DIM, INSERT and STANDBY commands with the Remote Control.

• Each INPUT can be individually level trimmed to match and to optimize system gain staging of various input devices.

• The fancy blue LED displays surrounding the INPUT and VOLUME encoder knobs can be dimmed down or turned off entirely, after a user-settable time period, or a "screen-saver" random light sequence can be selected. Speed and intensity of the "Starlight" mode can be tweaked to taste.

• All custom user settings are hard written into memory when the unit is put into STANDBY mode and thus retained if power is later interrupted.

• There is even a SLEEP timer which is programmable from the remote control to allow you to drift off carefree dreaming of your musical Stingray for 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes while it gracefully lowers the volume and puts itself into STANDBY mode.

Find much more technical detail here: www.eliteaudiouk.com/product-page/manley-stingray-…


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