6moons audio reviews: Manley Labs Steelhead


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	Listening impressions During the course of this review, my vinyl front end was my usual underground fave Garrard 301 housed in a Cain & Cain plinth, with either SME 3012 (thanks Jonathan!) or Origin Live Silver Mk 1 & 2 tonearms (in for review) paired variously with the Denon 103, Miyabi Standard or Miyabi 47 phono cartridges (also in for review through Miyabi importer Yoshi Segoshi of Sakura Systems). I used the Tom Evans Audio Design aka TEAD Groove+ (say Groove-Plus) phonostage (in for review as well) for a comparator to get a handle on the nature of the Steelhead's sonic and musical prowess. I suspect that many HiFi buffs who will purchase a Steelhead will already have a preamplifier. I'll first fill you in on what it's like living with the Steelhead as a dedicated phonostage in combination with my personal TEAD Vibe/Pulse preamplifier/power supply combo. Then I'll investigate using the Steelhead as EveAnna prefers it used - as a full-function preamplifier whose variable outputs drive the amplifier directly (in my case the recently acquired TEAD Linear A). The Steelhead as a dedicated phonostage I started my listening session with the Acoustic Sounds Fantasy 45 Series version of the Bill Evans Trio *Moon Beams* album that had just arrived in the mail. Moon Beams was recorded in May and June of 1962 and features Chuck Israels on bass and Paul Motian on drums. I dropped the Miyabi into the groove and then cranked up the volume a bit for a listen. No doubt about it, Chad Kassem's Fantasy 45s are incredible: Natural, musical, relaxed yet still detailed. The best of the best. Breathtaking! To get a feel for how the differing cartridge load impedances available from the Steelhead would affect the sonic and musical abilities of the Miyabi Standard cartridge, I switched it through the 25-50-100-200-400 ohms settings and gave each a quick listen. It was apparent that at the Steelhead's lower settings, the Miyabi was louder and brighter and conversely, quieter and darker run at higher impedances. To get equivalent volumes for differing loads, I either had to adjust the volume at the TEAD preamplifier or change the gain with the Steelhead's front panel gain knob. I found that the middle of the cartridge loading range sounded best to me. First I settled on 200 ohms but after listening for a while, I decided that 100 ohms rendered Israels' bass in a more realistic manner as well as giving Motian's cymbals the more life-like shimmer. I also noticed that the 200-ohm setting darkened the piano notes just a wee bit too much with the Miyabi Standard, causing the notes to lose some of the sparkle and tone color that suggests realistic sound. I really got a sense of how big of a difference cartridge loading makes using the Steelhead and quickly realized how it could either make or break the sound of my system if it wasn't dialed right for the cartridge on the arm.

	When characterizing a HiFi component, I try to consider how well it performs in the classic sonic HiFi sense. Is its overall character light/dark or cool/warm? Does it have a front, mid or rear-hall perspective? How well does it soundstage? To what extent is it able to portray the soundspace of the recording venue? What is its level of immediacy? Are its transparency, dynamics, imaging, ability to recover detail, frequency extension and the texture of the sound (level of grain) up to snuff? The Steelhead's highly adjustable nature makes it a bit of a chameleon when trying to describe its overall character. When I adjusted cartridges for their most true-to-life timbre and tone in the portrayal of instruments, I found the Steelhead to be just a touch to the dark and warm side of neutral, giving it a pleasingly natural and organic-sounding overall character. The Steelhead has a front hall style perspective, putting the listener up close to the musicians - but with a bit of a twist. While I was visiting Stephæn with the Steelhead in place of his usual Herron phonostage, it became obvious that the Herron has more of a rear hall perspective (i.e. it's somewhat distant sounding). The Herron is also leaner and brighter though not in the pejorative sense. So what's the twist? The Herron is more detailed than you would expect to hear in the rear of a music hall, lending a slight HiFi-ish sense to its perspective. It's an error from the truth which quite a lot of people like about it I suspect. Conversely, the aforementioned twist is that the Steelhead is less detailed than you would expect to hear from its more forward perspective. This makes the Steelhead less immediate than the Herron, the TEAD Groove+ or live music. While this lends an intimate, mellower, rounder and softer portrayal of the recorded music, it is an easy presentation to like and can be forgiving of less than perfect recordings - an admirable quality. Both Stephæn and I preferred the Steelhead's presentation to that of the Herron's in his system and I nearly had to wrestle it away from him to bring it back home.

	While listening to Classic's remake of Graham Nash's Songs for Beginners in my own rig again, I was very impressed with the Steelhead's imaging and soundstaging abilities. It layers impressively and seemingly infinitely back into the soundstage and produces a very noticeable living and breathing space between the images that gives a nice natural feel to the way it portrays music. The images also have a good life-sizing about them and a pleasing flesh and blood solidity, though perhaps lacking that last little bit of chiseled edge definition. Macro dynamics are impressive, with solid drum whacks nearly lifting me from my listening seat. Micro dynamics and nuance are not so polished, however, which I'll address more completely in a moment. Listening to the Classic Records remake of the RCA Living Stereo LSC-2430 with Rubinstein playing Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini under Reiner confirmed my appreciation for the Steelhead's soundstaging abilities. The Steelhead places the listener up close to Rubinstein and I really got a sense for the pace that the piece was moving along with. This is very dynamic and stimulating music and the Steelhead nails those qualities. The Groove+ is just left of neutral to the brighter, leaner and drier side of life when compared to the Steelhead, which itself is just slightly to the right of neutral with a darker, warmer and more liquid character. What you notice first about the Groove+ is its incredible transparency and detail retrieval. There is so much more transparency and detail in comparison to the Steelhead that it's quite shocking, even eliciting a "Whoa!" from my listening panel on one occasion. I consider the Steelhead to be very transparent but the Groove+ opens up a whole new realm of transparency that nothing I'm aware of can match. The Steelhead is fast sounding but the Groove+ is faster sounding yet and more agile dynamically at the micro and medium part of the dynamic spectrum. On the other hand, the Steelhead has a mellower and softer overall sound that is quite seductive while at the same time being more liquid and with a warmer presentation - a combination of traits that made Stephæn prefer the Steelhead over the Groove+. He explained: "The Groove+ keeps me slightly on edge, not allowing me to sink into the music. Some might interpret it as being more exciting but I find it hard to relax into the music with when listening to it." Sonically, the Steelhead holds its own against its competition -- Groove+ excepted -- and it is very much more accommodating to differing cartridges than the Brit which helped get the most out of every cartridge I tried it with in a way that quickly became addicting. Listening to the Classic Records remake of Graham Nash's Songs for Beginners, the greater resolution of the Groove+ allowed subtle backing vocals to be unraveled from the mix that were completely inaudible with the Steelhead. Small vocal modulations that were noticeable through the Groove+ were also absent through the Steelhead. If you listen to the Steelhead without having a Groove+ handy for comparison, you would probably never notice this lower level of resolving power but it's a reality. The price you pay for the Groove+'s sonics is that it is picky about cartridges and only really liked one out of the four cartridges I had on hand (it adored the 47 Labs MC Bee). While the Steelhead may not be able to go toe-to-toe with the Groove+ in absolute sonics, 75% of the time it bested the Groove+ in its ability to play music because of its ability to be dialed in for a musical sound with each cartridge or LP used. Adaptability is the name of the survival game and the Steelhead's got it. Let's take a little time to fill out the bigger performance picture and consider the Steelhead's musical abilities in terms of pace (its success in relating the sense of how fast or slow a piece of music is moving); rhythm (the discernability of the underlying pulse or beat's rise, duration and decay structure in the musical flow); timbre or tone color (the myriad tonal factors that allow you to discern a Martin D-28 from a Gibson Advanced Jumbo or a violin from a viola); emotiveness (does it evoke the emotive qualities of the artist's intent?); its ability to recreate the "sense" of a performance; and its overall musicality. Graham Nash's Songs for Beginners shows that the Steelhead does a superb job on pace and man-o-man does it nail the rhythm! As a result, the Steelhead rocks to beat the band. Rockers are going to love the Steelhead. The Steelhead also does an exemplary job on less beat-oriented music like my Acoustic Sounds test pressing of Doc & Merle Watson's Pickin' the Blues and excels at recreating the sense of the performance. The Steelhead does an excellent portrayal of the intensity of musical tone color but isn't quite as accomplished at portraying instrumental timbres due to its lesser resolution of detail (which can be a blessing on less well recorded material) and diminished micro-dynamic nuance (not that much of a blessing).

	On Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, I really was impressed by how well the Steelhead handles the decay of notes, so natural and musical sounding. Taken as a whole, I think the Steelhead is a truly great phonostage and one that I can easily recommend and that you'll likely appreciate even more in your system as time goes on due to its outstanding musical prowess. The Steelhead is a true analog music lover's phonostage and always delivers the musical goods in spades. Audio pal Stephæn has been lately emphasizing to our little listening troupe his belief in the importance of evaluating how a component makes you feel when listening to music through it rather than just evaluating its sonic prowess and musical abilities, which is what most of us do. I think he's on to something. At first blush you might group the concept of how a piece of gear makes you feel while playing music in with musicality but it's not. Musicality is how well the system plays music. Feel refers to how it makes you feel internally. I think that adding this third element of feel to the normal audio review duality of sound and music is an important consideration to achieving long-term happiness with your HiFi rig. It's also one that doesn't come naturally to everyone (like me for example), requiring you to pay attention to the level of tension in your body while listening to different gear. Do you notice that while listening, your fists or jaw are clenched even though the system sounds great and/or plays music well? If so, your body is telling you that something is wrong with the presentation for you and that you are being subliminally cued into this off-ness with the tension in your body. If the presentation has you on alert or on edge even if your mind and/or emotions are saying the sound and musical abilities of the gear are great, then you'll likely become dissatisfied with the component sooner than later even if you never consciously recognize why. A sure sign are listening sessions that grow shorter and less frequent followed by that crazy desire to get back on the equipment merry-go-round. If you want to get off the equipment merry-go-round, be sure to pay attention to how gear makes you feel. The Steelhead is a champ in the realm of feeling. When I listen to it, I relax into the music and feel the tension melting away from my body. It is better than both the Herron and Groove+ in this regard and by quite a margin. Given that I have two different arms mounted on my Garrard's plinth, it's really nice to be able to run both of them into the Steelhead at the same time and switch between them with the turn of a knob. While both of the arms on my plinth have stereo cartridges mounted, one could conceivably have one arm and cartridge optimized for stereo and the other for mono playback and easily switch back and forth depending on the album. That's a very cool feature for the vinyl connoisseur. I also really like the adjustable gain function. It allows me to dial the gain such that the output is comparable to my other sources, meaning I don't have to be conscious of two different preamplifier volume settings to arrive at a given sound pressure level. I decided to "turn the knob" and switch over to the classic combination of SME 3012 plus Denon 103 and see how well it would acquit itself through the Steelhead. I was so captivated by the mellifluous presentation of the melody that I almost forgot about twirling the knob to dial in the proper load. The Denon 103 has a recommended load resistance of "100Ω or more" so the 100Ω setting for the Miyabi Standard should have been a pretty good starting point - and it sure sounded like it. It turns out that the Denon 103 is very load tolerant, with the 25-50-100-200-400 ohm settings all providing gloriously good sound after the necessary volume adjustment (upping the load on the cartridge drops the volume down considerably to necessitate an increase of preamp gain). The Moon Beams album is so good that a pine needle as a cartridge would probably sound great so I thought I'd better spin a couple of different albums. I pulled out my copy of Classic Records' remaster of Billie Holiday's Songs for Distingue Lovers on Verve and dropped the Denon 103 into the groove. On Lovers, the sonic and musical presentation benefited from additional loading, with 200 ohms being the magic number. At less than 200 ohms, the album's musical lines didn't sound as coherent as they should, with the musical flow of the individual instruments a little disconnected from each other, almost as though the musicians' timing was a little off compared to what was achieved with higher loading values. Billie's vocals also receded and became more distant sounding, less emotive and satisfying. I then turned the knob and plopped down the Miyabi Standard. Whoopee, what a great sounding cartridge! It's shockingly transparent, detailed and nuanced, images like a genie and plays music superbly. The 100-ohm setting for the Miyabi still turned out to be the best on Billie's Lovers. At 200 ohms, the sense of space dropped off significantly and the instrumental tone colors took on a cataract-like glaze which diminished their intensity and identity. The mute feature on the Steelhead is extremely handy. You can leave the preamp volume alone, mute the Steelhead before you drop the stylus, play an album side, hit mute again - you get the idea.

The VTAF adapter [above] which pal Pete installed on my Cain & Cain plinth makes it easy to dial in VTA and switch tonearms lickety-split. All you have to do to change tonearms is unplug the phono cables from the Steelhead, lift the tonearm out of the VTAF mount, drop in the other arm and plug in its cables. With a quick twirl of the VTAF adjuster to get VTA dialed in, you're ready to go (hint for quick VTA adjustment: sight the stylus so it is approximately vertically aligned with the spindle as you rough in the VTA and then fine-tune by ear). This was very handy for comparisons like replacing the Miyabi Standard on the Origin Live Silver Mk I with the Miyabi 47 on the Silver Mk II combo in less than 5 minutes! I dropped the stylus on the Miyabi 47 into Lovers and turned the cartridge loading knob through its range, listening to each setting for a moment. No question about it, with the Miyabi 47 I preferred the 400-ohm setting as giving the most natural, life-like and musical portrayal of the music. My conclusion: Cartridge loading makes a big difference on getting the sound and musical abilities of your system dialed in when switching between cartridges and albums. With the Steelhead, you are guaranteed to find the optimum setting for each album and cartridge in your collection. What's the right setting on the Steelhead? Whichever one you like the best! The Steelhead as a full-function preamplifier While it might seem weird, I thought I'd first check out the Steelhead's line level chops with digital by way of Audio Logic's 2400 vacuum-tube DAC in which I've just replaced the stock tube set of two 6922s and two CV4003s with cryogenically treated NOS replacements from Watford Valves in the UK. Watford is one of the leading European suppliers of tested, graded and guaranteed valves to the professional music industry. Musicians are just as fussy about the valves in their gear as your average HiFi nut and professional musicians are even more so. Reportedly, Watford runs their valves through more comprehensive testing than any other supplier in the world today. Watford hand picks the best NOS and new production valves and cryogenically treats them with deep -312 degree liquid nitrogen immersion. When I make an Internet order with Watford, I get my valves in about a week - not bad for general delivery from the UK to Washington State. The difference after putting the cryo'd valves in my Audio Logic DAC was profound. My DAC took on a fuller, warmer and more analog-like sound with the added benefit of greatly reduced noise level, much more transparency and detail, better dynamics, much better bass quality, better soundstaging, greater tone color and a much more musical and life-like presentation. The same thing happened when I dropped a set of Watford cryo valves into my TEAD Linear A amplifier and Almarro A205A integrated amp. It made me wonder what effect dropping a set of cryo valves in the Steelhead would have. Oops ... got a little carried away with the cryo'd tube thing. Back to the Steelhead as a full-function preamplifier: The first thing I noticed after firing up my system with the Steelhead driving my amp directly is that even with the volume knob all the way down, it was considerably noisier over my very revealing 103 dB sensitive Avantgarde Duo loudspeakers than my usual TEAD Vibe-Pulse preamp & power supply combination. That is dead quiet. I switched the Steelhead's gain to its lowest setting but it didn't help matters any. I wondered if a cheater plug on the Steelhead's power supply would quiet things down but it did not. Neither did removing the pin connection between two of the three grounds on the Steelhead's back panel. Give that I was not able to eliminate the noise and that the Steelhead was quiet run through the Vibe-Pulse, I assumed that it was inherent to the Steelhead's volume control to drive my amp directly, with the noise exacerbated by the sensitive Duos. After talking with EveAnna about the issue, she told me that she has encountered similar noise issues with the Steelhead as a result of the differing ground planes when a DAC is used in the Steelhead's line inputs. EveAnna suggested a ground wire from the DAC to the Steelhead but that didn't help either. The noise, while not audible through 93dB sensitive speakers I have in for review, was clearly audible and unpleasant through the ultra-sensitive Duos. What finally worked was using a cheater plug on the DAC's power cord to drop its ground, with the noise dropping out with it. The Steelhead was now quiet over the persnickety Duos if not quite as ghostly quiet as my usual TEAD gear. If you run into this grounding issue with your own Steelhead, now you know how to fix it. I highly recommend that before you use the cheater plug approach, consult with your DAC's manufacturer to insure that there is no safety issue associated with defeating the ground. I proceeded to drop Lucinda Williams' World Without Tears into the transport for a listen. WWT is not all that great of a recording sonically - it's a little hot and will take your ears off in places when played over a lean or unforgiving system. But I love Lucinda's skill in lyric crafting, the level of musicianship of the backing musicians,and the amazing level of emotive feel Lucinda so easily imbues upon the turn of a phrase with her vocals. I'm not willing to listen to only well- recorded music. There's just too much good music with borderline sonics. As a result of that perspective, I think good HiFi should not only play an excellent recording exceptionally well but also portray a less than perfect recording like WWT as a believable and enjoyable musical experience. WWT through my reference TEAD Vibe-Pulse combo sounds better than it has any right to and its musical jones are left intact in spite of a couple of brief places in "Fruits of My Labor" where it gets a little aggressive. The Vibe-Pulse handles this pseudo sonic torture test extremely well, enough so that I can enjoyably listen to WWT and be focused on the music itself instead of the sound. That means a lot to me. WWT through the Steelhead also meets the music test, allowing me to enjoy the music instead of wincing at edgies and crispies as I do with some gear. After WWT, I dropped in British Blues/Soul songbird Corinne Bailey Rae's new self-titled album. Wow, what a great album! Corrine's got a wonderfully expressive voice and if the present temptation to overproduce her can be overcome to be replaced with simple acoustic accompaniment, she will be the next big thing. I love the fact that the producers mixed in record groove noise though. That indulgence provides a nice touch of ambience that adds intimacy to the recording, making it particularly fun to run through the Steelhead. You get to imagine you're listening to vinyl instead of a stream of digits. The linestage portion of the Steelhead reminds me a lot of the phono section. It too has a big, bold, front hall perspective and an intimate, mellower, rounder and softer portrayal of the music than the Vibe-Pulse combo (and life). As I said before, the Steelhead's is an easy presentation to like. It's relatively friendly and seductive, something a lot of listeners will love and even crave. It's slightly warm and dark yet propulsive and has plenty of deeply saturated tone color to put flesh and blood on the musical bones. Its downside is that there's less clarity, low level details and a diminished sense of space compared to the very best like the Vibe-Pulse. It does an excellent job with the soundstaging, particularly in the depth dimension as mentioned earlier. The Steelhead does great on the 'feel' front too and I found myself relaxing into album after album with the physical stress in my body melting away as I listened. Yeah! My reference is particularly good at clarity and resolving oodles of detail and space while maintaining a natural musical flow. I'm not aware of anything that is its match in this regard, which is exactly the reason I chose it as my reference. As nice as the Steelhead is -- and it is very nice -- it can't compete with the Vibe-Pulse as a linestage, either sonically or musically. It's a no-contest comparison but the linestage is not what you really buy a Steelhead for: it's a highly flexible phonostage designed specifically to delight analog enthusiasts, with the added ability to drive an amp directly; and includes a linestage should you decide to wander over to the dark side at times. In that vein it succeeds brilliantly. To get the full-function top of the line TEAD pre + phono, you're talking almost $16K so considering the disparity in cost, the Steelhead acquits itself quite well. Having enjoyed the Steelhead's musical licks as a line source, I decided to move on and spin some vinyl and check out how well that works driving the Linear A directly. Dropping the stylus of the Miyabi Standard cartridge into the groove of one of my favorite recordings, my Acoustic Sounds test pressing of Chet Baker's Chet, I sat back and enjoyed the music. On less sensitive speakers than the Duos, you probably will not notice this issue but on the Duos, the steps of the Steelhead's volume control are a little too large and you find yourself in the dilemma where one setting is too low in volume and the next one up is too loud. It would be nice to have a little smaller step size in the first quarter to half of the range to better match with highly sensitive speakers. Sonically and musically, Chet was a great listen with the Steelhead, allowing me to really get into the music. Album after album, I enjoyed the tunes. I find the sonic and musical character of the Steelhead to be relatively consistent whether used as a phonostage or linestage driving my amplifier, or through my Vibe-Pulse line preamplifier driving my amplifier - a good thing. So you can refer to my other comments to get an idea of its sonics and musical ability in this mode. The question you probably have is: "Did the Steelhead sound better driving the amplifier directly instead of going through the Vibe-Pulse?" Well, no. In fact, it sounded better through my Vibe-Pulse than it did driving the amp directly, much like a CD player with a variable output often sounds better through an active preamp than a passive switching device. For whatever reason -- and I'm not sure I understand why -- going through the Vibe-Pulse makes the Steelhead phono section sound better in the same sorts of way as the Vibe-Pulse betters the Steelhead's linestage. Intuitively it seems like it shouldn't work that way but there's no doubt about it in my mind: using the Steelhead with the Vibe-Pulse provides a faster and more articulate sound and a noticeably better modulation of dynamics over the entire range than the Steelhead does by itself. The Steelhead has great macrodynamics but they come across as being a touch too much either on or off, with rather large swings while not doing as well on the more subtle and moderate dynamic gradations. The Vibe-Pulse restores a more natural musical balance, I think. If you have a really great preamp I'd say use it but if not, the Steelhead directly driving your amplifier is probably better than most preamps so it's a win-win situation. Summing up The Manley Steelhead phono preamplifier is nicely made and has high quality external metalwork with an interior fit and finish level that borders on artwork, befitting its $7300 price tag. With its ability to either be a full-function preamplifier or a standalone phonostage, its eminently useful flexibility that includes adjustable preamplification gain, adjustable loading for moving magnet and moving coil cartridges and adjustable loading for phono interconnects' self capacitance makes it the most user-friendly phonostage I have ever encountered. With inputs for two moving coil cartridges and one moving magnet cartridge (not to mention a line source), this is the perfect do-it-all phono stage for the analog aficionado who has multiple tonearms and/or turntables; or for the inveterate vinyl explorer who just likes to swap in and out different cartridges during the quest. Oh and lest I forget: I love the mute switch! I'd never realized how handy a mute switch on the phonostage would be until the Steelhead. I ended up using it constantly when changing sides or switching out records. For reviewers, the Steelhead is a dream come true for comparing multiple vinyl front ends at once and for knowing that you'll be able to dial in every cartridge perfectly that comes your way. The overall character of the Steelhead is to the slightly warm side - a plus in my book. It also slightly softens the rough edges on highly transparent cartridges to bring out their maximum musicality, which can easily make the difference in being happy with a cartridge or hating it. Compared to the almost identically priced Tom Evans Audio Design Groove+ phonostage that I have in for review, the Steelhead can't come close to the Groove+ in transparency, speed, detail retrieval, dynamics or rhythmic prowess - but then what can? However, compared to any other similarly priced and excellent phonostage, you'd consider the Steelhead to be the model of performance in all those same categories. The Steelhead bests the Groove+ in overall musicality with its ability to work well with every cartridge I tried, which is something the more finicky Groove+ couldn't manage. I preferred the Steelhead as a dedicated phonostage rather than as a full-function preamplifier, but I could see equally reasonable people disagreeing on this point depending on their associated equipment. Could I see myself owning a Steelhead? You bet! Like I said, the Steelhead is a reviewer's dream come true, allowing ultimate flexibility to accommodate the widest rage range of analog gear possible. Plus it's a joy to use and sounds great. What more is there? Well how about this: the Steelhead plays all kinds of music well whether it is rock, classical, jazz or bluegrass. The Steelhead also makes me feel good and I can watch the physical tension in my body melt away as I listen to music through it. I find the Steelhead to be a wonderful product and due to its massive adjustability, it allows you to get the most music from your cartridges and record collection of any phono preamplifier I have used. Over the long haul, I predict the Steelhead will become more and more cherished by those lucky enough to be able to afford one, as I certainly grew increasingly fond of it over time during the review period. Yes, yes, yes - highly recommended! Postscript: Eagle-eyed readers may note that the last few paragraphs now include a description of the Steelhead's performance as a full function preamplifier with the aforementioned grounding issue solved. Thanks to EveAnna for recognizing that the source of the noise issue was the DAC interface with the Steelhead's linestage when used to directly drive an amplifier. There are all kinds of equipment interactions that can and do occur even with well designed high-performance equipment such as the Steelhead. The trick is to resolve them so a given component works synergistically as part of the whole system. With the Steelhead, it fortunately turned out to be a relatively easy fix. Hopefully 6moons readers will find this information useful should they encounter any initial grounding issues with their own Steelhead.



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