Manley 300B preamp

I have the 300b preamp and really like it, mostly use it for headphones these days. My main preamp is the Allnic L5000 DHT preamp, which is almost too wonderfully special to describe, but the Manley isn't chopped liver and is fantastic with headphones.

I use Svetlana 300b, entirely too sensuous sounding and not bad on price.

JJ 300b's are models of clarity and space with the Manley.

I have been using the Manley 300b with Stax Lambda headphone. I took a Stax transformer intended for speakers, the srd 5, and soldered the wires to a banana jack to plug into the Manley 300b headphone socket. The Manley has more than enough juice to give a magnificent headphone experience with the Stax.

I am using some lowly shiney metal plate NOS RCA's. They have a lot of clarity to counter the 300b tendency toward lushness.

I also have no complaint about the original Russian 6sl7, Manley chooses tubes that are pretty well adapted to their products most of the time.

I use 5Z3 rectifiers ST type with tube adapters.

I had some brown base tung sols 6sl7s, which are pretty expensive nowadays, but wound up using them in another item, didn't sound better than the more ordinary types.

The Svetlanas sound like they were made for the Manley 300b, though, really nice.