Steelhead

About the Steelhead

The Manley Steelhead is a tube-based phono preamplifier featuring six vacuum tubes: two 6922 tubes for gain and four 7044 (or 5687) tubes for output buffering. It offers exceptional flexibility with two Moving Coil (MC) inputs featuring selectable impedance loads of 25, 50, 100, 200, and 400 Ohms via Manley's proprietary autoformer transformer. The Moving Magnet (MM) inputs have selectable resistive loads of 25, 50, 100, 200, and 47,000 Ohms. Additionally, the Steelhead provides dial-able capacitive loading from 0 to 1100 picofarads in 10 picofarad increments, allowing precise cartridge matching without compromising sound quality. The unit includes a built-in volume control for variable output, fixed and variable outputs, and an outboard regulated power supply. The design incorporates a hybrid cascode gain stage with a large-geometry JFET in front of the first tube stage, delivering wide-band, high-gain, low-noise, and low-distortion performance without heavy negative feedback. The Steelhead weighs 15 lbs for the main unit and 18 lbs for the power supply, with dimensions of 19" W × 3.5" H × 15.5" D for the preamp and 13.5" W × 4.5" H × 11.375" D for the PSU. It is known for its robust build, audiophile-grade components, and is considered a reference standard for tube phono preamps.