Drawing on no fewer than thirty years of industry experience, Manley Labs' Absolute Headphone Amplifier is a multi-talented headphone and line amplifier offering impeccable performance combined with swathes of sonic flexibility.
ETA 1-2 WEEKS
- Tube HiFi headphone and line amplifier
- Available in BLACK, COPPER, or SILVER finishes with carbon fiber accents
- 6AQ5/EL90 Triode Vacuum Tube Output Stage
- Switchable Topology (Single-Ended or Push-Pull)
- Baxandall high and low frequency tone filters
- MONO and MUTE buttons
- Center detented BALANCE pot
- Precision stepped relay volume attenuator with 0.5dB per step
- Variable Feedback control
- Switchable Output Impedance Ranges Hi-Lo
- Switchable RCA inputs plus BYPASS mode
- 1/4" Jack, Balanced 4-pin XLR, and RCA selectable outputs
- Supplied with Remora RF remote control
"No reason to mince words: this is the best headphone amplifier I have ever used"
"Manley Absolute Headphone Amplifier was an absolute joy to use, listen to, and adjust to my tastes"
"This stands as one of my favourite Headphone Amplifiers of all time and is more than deserving of the Product of the Year Award for Amplifiers"
"Overall, the Manley Absolute Headphone Amplifier doesn’t only have a beautiful look. It has a fun, versatile sound that is aesthetically pleasing"
Powered by components meticulously chosen through three years of development, the Absolute Headphone Amplifier delivers fast, dynamic sound with superior headroom and delightfully punchy bass.
Manley's unique Variable Feedback control also allows users to alter the amount of negative feedback or ’tightness’ applied to the amplifier's output. Fully orchestrated arrangements with numerous instruments and aural elements may thrive in higher feedback settings, while a lone vocal uninhibited by percussive transients can enjoy listening intimacy with feedback rolled off.
The Absolute Headphone Amplifier features custom hand-wound air-gapped dual-mode IRON output transformers developed and manufactured in-house by the Californian manufacturer.
Catering to a wide and varied headphone market, the Absolute Headphone Amplifier’s transformers can also be switched across three output loads to satisfy headphones with impedances from 12 to 600 Ohms and even beyond.
Headphone listening is not new to us; we have been producing personal headphone playback systems aka 'Cue Mixers' for recording studios around the globe for well over twenty years. In the HiFi world, our legendary Manley Neo-Classic 300B Preamplifier has become a total cult classic with headphone listeners since the mid-1990’s. Reaching forward, we wanted to produce an extraordinary sounding headphone amplifier chock-full of features and sonic variety for the audiophile, at a price that wouldn’t break the bank either. I know you’re going to Absolutely LOVE this exciting creation of ours - EveAnna Manley (President, Manley Labs)
The Manley Absolute Headphone Amplifier is available in three colors, silver, copper, or black all with carbon fiber accents. The arched top chassis member is designed for resting ear pads and headband assemblies when headphones are not in use.
The Absolute Headphone Amplifier offers up a total of 15 individual controls for users to customise their listening journey. Among them Manley includes a precision-stepped relay ladder matrix attenuator thumb wheel for volume (also remote controllable), a 72dB +/- swing balance control to compensate for source or hearing imbalances, bypassable Baxandall bass and treble tone controls, and a mono switch to accommodate mono-only LP playback.
Injecting innovation at every stage of the amplifier’s design, Manley have enabled a switchable output tube stage which can be changed on the fly between push-pull mode (all-triode) and a single ended topology configuration. By halving the output power and altering harmonic structure from odd to even-order, this delivers yet another route for users to personalise and flavour their listening experience.
