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Hi, Just a few words on the Manley Skipjack. About 10 months ago I purchase a Manley Steelhead and have been running it straight into my amp eliminating the need for a preamp. You can find my comments on the Steelhead by searching on this forum. In short I love the Steelhead. It was a big move forward in sound quality over my previous preamp, an Audio Research SP9 mkII. Since getting the Steelhead I have been using the Sp9 as kind of a junction box to run my digital and video equipment through the one extra input on the Steelhead. This extra input on the Steelhead does not supply any gain at all. The signal just goes through the volume control, mute, and mono switches. In any case I recently purchased the SkipJack so I could have a high quality passive unit for my digital and video equipment to go through on it's way to the Steelhead. In short this thing is great. It's small, built very well and with high quality parts (list is $900). I think the thing is totally transparent and am now getting the best CD/SACD sound I have ever heard from my system. Not better than vinyl in my opinion but pretty close and I am only using a cheap Phillips 963a player. I am now convinced that the way to get the most out of your system is to go passive. Eliminate the preamp all together. I only have a little time this morning so I will try to post more on this subject in the near future. Of course I have no connection to Manley other than being a happy customer. Oh and BTW their customer service seems to be very good too. Mr Vinyl
That's good information, thanks. I've been meaning to try some of their equipment and see how it sounds, but never seem to get around to it. Maybe that will be one of my New Year's resolutions.
Listened to the Stingray for a while. Sounds good. The passive pre always sounded flat to me. I like a little gain ahead of the amp. Don't know why; it just seems to have more body.