Manley’s High-End Headphone Amplifier

“Bruno Putzeys designed a switch-mode power supply for our new headphone amplifier,” enthused EveAnna Manley, when I bumped into her in one of the Venetian’s corridors. The tubed amp, which doubles as a line preamplifier, costs $2950 and is drop-dead gorgeous in Champagne & White, Titanium & Bronze, or Copper & Black finishes. Tube complement is two 12AT7A drivers and four triode-strapped 6AQ5 output tubes, with custom, hand-wound, air-gapped output transformers. These transformers are user-configurable to drive three ranges of headphone loads, from 12 to 600 ohms. The output stage can be switched on-the-fly between all-triode push-pull and single-ended modes and XLR and ¼” jacks allow both balanced and unbalanced headphones to be driven.

COMMENTS
dbtom2's picture

sitting next to my espresso machine.

dalethorn's picture

$3000 for tubes - and will the reviews say "It's better if you replace the default tubes with the abc, xyz, or the Russian 678 tubes" ?

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