MANLEY LABORATORIES, INC. OWNER'S MANUAL THE "STINGRAY" INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER MANLEY LABORATORIES, INC. 13880 MAGNOLIA AVE. CHINO, CA. 91710 TEL: (909) 627-4256 FAX: (909) 628-2482 email: emanley@manleylabs.com Web site: http://www.manleylabs.com REV.
CONTENTS SECTION PAGE INTRODUCTION 3 MAINS CONNECTIONS 4 OPERATIONAL NOTES 5 CONNECTING YOUR STINGRAY 6&7 SIMPLE TROUBLESHOOTING 8 FRONT PANEL, LAMP, BACK PANEL 9 TUBE LOCATIONS 10 SIDE PANELS 11 OPTIMIZING YOUR SOUND SYSTEM 12&13 REPLACING TUBES & SETTING BIAS 14&15 CREDITS 16 SPECIFICATIONS 17 WARRANTY 18 WARRANTY REGISTRATION 19 2
INTRODUCTION THANK YOU!... for choosing the Manley Laboratories the "STINGRAY" INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER, You have possibly chosen this product because you auditioned it in a store or heard it at a hi-fi show and were impressed with the sound. It may have been the right combination of price, power, features and styling for you. It may have been because you know the Manley Labs reputation for quality, reliability and integrity. If any or all of these were the reasons, you made the right choice.
MAINS CONNECTIONS Your STINGRAY has been factory set to the correct mains voltage for your country. The voltage setting is marked on the serial badge, located on the rear panel. Check that this complies with your local supply. Export units for certain markets have a moulded mains plug fitted to comply with local requirements. If your unit does not have a plug fitted the coloured wires should be connected to the appropriate plug terminals in accordance with the following code.
OPERATIONAL NOTES SWITCHING ON The power switch is located on the back panel. You shouldn't need to turn the Stingray around or get yourself behind it. You should be able to "feel" the rocker switch located next to the AC power cord. Flip the switch away from the power cord to turn on the Stingray or towards the power cord to turn off the unit. RUNNING It is not recommended that you leave your Stingray stay permanently switched on. This only wastes electricity and tube life.
CONNECTING YOUR STINGRAY Setting up this integrated amplifier is rather easy. Please refer to page 8 for a diagram of the back of the Stingray. 1. You will be connecting power last and turning the system on after all other connections are made to prevent ugly noises as wires are connected and to prevent possible damage to the amps and speakers. In general, it is best to make any connections with the power off or the volume control turned all the way down.
5. Connect the speaker leads to the terminals on the top far left and far right of the Stingray. Be sure that the RED (+) terminal is connected to the RED(+) wire and BLACK is to BLACK. Connect the opposite ends to the speakers also RED to RED and BLACK to BLACK. This insures that your speakers will be "in-phase". All too often people accidently connect their speakers out-of-phase and lose most of the lows. We have even seen this happen in hi-fi trade shows and record company executive offices.
Troubleshooting: It is rare that any of these problems occur but if they do here is some things to try. HUM - Try a mains ground adapter if they are legal in your country. They are also called 3 pin to 2 pin adapters or "cheaters" and are available in hardware stores. There should be one ground in your system and only one. If two or more pieces of gear have 3 pin AC cables a ground loop can occur which will usually cause hum.
FRONT PANEL A C B A - BALANCE - This is a special Nobles balance control. Unlike most balance controls, this one has no loss at center (detented) and can be considered to be a straight wire if it is in the 12:00 position. It only reduces the volume of one channel at a time . B - VOLUME - This is also a high quality Nobles conductive plastic precision attenuator. C - BACKLIT PANEL - This is the power indicator.
B+ FUSE MDL 1/4 (underneath) TOP VIEW TUBE LOCATIONS - See the diagram above for the proper tube locations. Power should be unplugged and the tubes cool before handling them. We label the tube sockets, test points and trimmers to help. It is possible to put tubes in wrong if you bend the pins - not good. On this diagram we added dashed lines to further clarify which test points are associated with which tube and which trimmer but they are numbered right on the chassis.
SIDE PANELS Any of the input jacks can be used with any hi-fi RCA outputs and they are electrically identical and only differ in how we labeled them. CD - Plug in your audio outputs from your CD player or "D to A Converter" here. Kind of obvious. A good spot for the main L & R signals from a DVD deck. Do not patch lines marked "digital output, SPDIF or AC-3 here though. These are un-decoded digital signals and not audio (yet). VIDEO - Audio actually, from a VCR or Laser Disc player's audio outputs.
Optimising Your Sound System This section is full of little hints that may help you get the most out of your stereo - and it may not cost anything or cost very little. Probably, you know most of this, but hopefully some of it may be new or refresh your memory or just be refreshing reading in a manual. A very important factor is your speakers. Hopefully you have good speakers and they are appropriate for this integrated amplifier.
You may have bought a great system but there is a good chance that you are only getting a fraction of it's potential. Very frequently we have experienced top quality electronics sounding unimpressive simply because acoustics were ignored. Even amongst studio engineers, few can really tell the difference between good speakers in a bad room and bad speakers in a good room - but they all know good speakers in a good room and very likely so do you.
Replacing the Tubes & Setting The Bias Setting bias is one of lifes little neccessities when you own tube amps. The other is replacing tubes. Considering how these are related we will treat both as one subject. How long will these tubes last? We can't say for sure. Some die prematurely and some tubes last more than 30 years. The average for the tubes in the Stingray should be 4 to 5 years depending on useage. As with all tubes, their quality degrades with age.
What should I know about BIAS? Bias is a simple DC (negative) voltage that sets, what is called, the "operating point" of the tube. For our purposes it "fine tunes" the current going through the tube. We want each of the 4 tubes per channel to be equally sharing the load. This gives the amplifier's lowest distortion and the tube's optimum life. When we set "bias" we are adjusting that voltage and measuring the current at a pin called the cathode.
CREDITS An EveAnna Manley Production Featuring concept, layout and industrial design by EveAnna Manley, Starring: Paul Fargo for Input Innovations Hutch for Output Outovations Inspired by : David Manley Mastered by: Baltazar Hernandez Titled by: J. Gordon Holt Contributing Players: Michael Hunter Marcelino Tornez Elias Guzman Miguel Tovar transformer specialist assembly supervisor silk screens and PCBs knobs and feet It all began at last year's HI-FI show, at the bar of course -J.
SPECIFICATIONS Vacuum Tubes: Lamp type Fuse type 8 x EL84, 2 x 6414 2 x 12AT7WA 1/4 X 1 1/4, 12 volt, .15 amp 120VAC operation: MDL 3 AMP / 250 Volt SLO-BLO 240VAC operation: MDL 2 AMP/ 250 Volt SLO-BLO B+ FUSES (2): MDL 1/4 AMP/250 Volt SLO-BLO Gain 37 dB max 185mv input=50w output Signal to noise Typically 87 dB A WGT 20-20K (69 dB unweighted) Frequency Response 15 Hz to 40 kHz @ - 1 dB Distortion @ 5 watts .25 % @ 5W, 1 kHz (-55 dB) Volume control "Left / right tracking" .
WARRANTY All Manley Laboratories equipment is covered by a limited warranty against defects in materials and workmanship for a period of 90 days from date of purchase to the original purchaser only. A further optional limited 5 year warranty is available to the original purchaser upon proper registration of ownership within 30 days of date of first purchase.
WARRANTY REGISTRATION We ask that you please fill out this registration form and send the bottom half to: MANLEY LABORATORIES REGISTRATION DEPARTMENT 13880 MAGNOLIA AVE. CHINO CA, 91710 Or you may FAX this form in to: 909-628-2482 Registration entitles you to product support, full warranty benefits, and notice of product enhancements and upgrades. You MUST complete and return the following to validate your warranty and registration. Thank you again for choosing Manley Laboratories.
