MANLEY LABORATORIES, INC. THE SHRIMP OWNER'S MANUAL TUBES RULE brought to you by the clever folks at: MANLEY LABORATORIES, INC. 13880 MAGNOLIA AVE. CHINO, CA. 91710 USA TEL: (909) 627-4256 FAX: (909) 628-2482 email: emanley@manleylabs.com website: www.manleylabs.
CONTENTS SECTION PAGE INTRODUCTION 3 MAINS CONNECTIONS 4 GETTING STARTED 5 MOVING RIGHT ALONG 6 FEATURES AND APPLICATIONS 7&8 SIMPLE TROUBLESHOOTING 9 REPLACING ATUBE OR LAMP 10 TUBE FAQ 11 MORE SILLY VACUUM TUBE QUESTIONS 12 OPTIMIZING YOUR SOUND SYSTEM 13 & 14 CREDITS 15 SPECIFICATIONS & FEATURES 16 WARRANTY 17 WARRANTY REGISTRATION 18 2
INTRODUCTION THANK YOU!... for choosing the Manley "SHRIMP" PREAMPLIFIER. 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 a good choice and for that, we thank you.
MAINS CONNECTIONS Your SHRIMP has been factory set to the correct mains voltage for your country. (Well, that is what we intended to do when we knew where it would be initially shipped.) The mains voltage that we built this Shrimp to operate with is marked on the serial badge, located on the rear panel. Check that this complies with what comes out of your wall.
GETTING STARTED PREPARATION FOR INSTALLATION Budget a suitable space in which to place the preamplifier and associated interconnect and mains power cables. This space should be free of strong external magnetic and RF fields, and reasonably removed from strong loudspeaker-generated acoustical fields. This space should also be free of excessive heat or dust and large enough to permit easy flow of cool air to the top, bottom and sides of the preamp.
MOVING RIGHT ALONG... Why can't I have balanced ins or outs? Like we said earlier, since the whole guts of the Shrimp is inherently single-ended, adding balanced I/O would require additional circuitry, transformers, or IC's which would inevitably color the sound.
FEATURES AND APPLICATIONS 1. VERY SHORT SIGNAL PATH WITH ABUNDANT POWER GAIN. Each of the SHRIMP’s five sets of input jacks subjects the incoming signal source to loading of no less than 100,000 ohms, while the output can comfortably provide over 3 volts into a test load of 600 ohms. This implies a POWER gain of better than 22 deciBels, even though the VOLTAGE gain is held to no more than 12 dB when the volume attenuator is at maximum.
2. VOLUME AND BALANCE ATTENUATORS The SHRIMP’s volume attenuator features two conventional logarithmic-taper resistance tracks, with the notable exception that the matching of these two tracks is especially good over the rotational range of the control. Invariably a headache with cheap dual potentiometers, this enticing attribute of the NOBLE attenuator set translates into very good level balance between channels as the control is adjusted.
TROUBLESHOOTING It is rare that any of these problems occur but if they do here are 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.
REPLACING a TUBE or the INDICATOR LAMP. Yes there are user-servicable parts inside! (Contrary to what The Safety Regulatory People tell us to declare on the rear of the chassis.) But, as with other vacuum tube based products, there is also high voltage present. Therefore caution must be used when covers are removed; otherwise there could be shock hazard. Probably not enough to kill you, only enough to severely annoy you should you inadvertently grab onto the B+ volts.
TUBE FAQ INPUT TUBES 12AT7WA OUTPUT TUBES 7044 TUBE LOCATOR DRAWING PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD AS VIEWED FROM FRONT A few general vacuum tube all-too-frequently-asked questions answered. Excerpts from the manleylabs.com FAQ: FAQ #16. Do you sell tubes? I don’t know what you’re talking about. FAQ #16a. I need to retube my Manley preamplifier. Do you sell tubes? Sorry. Just kidding. Yes, of course we do. We have about 100,000 tubes in stock of the several major types we use. FAQ #16b.
More silly vacuum tube questions... FAQ #16f. Should I turn off my gear between uses? While power cycling is a factor for ultimate tube life, there also is a fixed number of electrons that can ultimately jump off the cathode. In general we do recommend if you aren’t using the gear for more than a few hours you should power it down. Do you leave the lights on in your house when you are away? FAQ #16g. But it sounds different when you first turn it back on.
Optimising Your Sound System This section is full of Hutch's 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 your power amplifier.
More Helpful Hints from Hutch... You may have bought a great system but there is a good chance that you are only getting a fraction of its 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.
CREDITS MANLEY SHRIMP An EveAnna Manley Production Featuring concept, layout, and industrial design by EveAnna Manley Starring: Mitch Margolis as the circuit designer Mastered by: Baltazar Hernandez In keeping with our new tradition of naming fresh new Manley HIFI products after aquatic creatures, we set out to design a new entry level preamplifier. The initial working title of this production was the small fish "Anchovy" which EveAnna does enjoy on pizzas and Caesar's salads, but many do not.
SPECIFICATIONS Vacuum Tubes: input tubes: 2 x 12AT7WA , output tubes 2 x 7044 Lamp type 1/4" X 1 1/4", 12 volt, 0.15 amp "fuse-lamp" (no, it is not a fuse) Fuse type 120VAC operation: MDL 1/2 AMP / 250 Volt SLO-BLO 240VAC operation: MDL 1/4 AMP/ 250 Volt SLO-BLO Gain 11.8 dB max Noise Floor (shorted input) Typically -95 dB A WGT 20-20K with volume control fully open Typically -106 dB A WGT 20-20K with volume control fully closed Frequency Response 10 Hz - 80 KHz (-0.
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 transferrable warranty is available upon proper registration of ownership within 30 days of date of first purchase.
WARRANTY REGISTRATION We ask, grovel and beg that you please fill out this registration form and send the bottom half to: MANLEY LABORATORIES REGISTRATION DEPARTMENT 13880 MAGNOLIA AVE. CHINO CA, 91710 USA Or you may FAX this form in to: +1 (909) 628-2482 or you may fill in the online warranty registration form found in the Tech Support section of our website www.manleylabs.