MANLEY LABORATORIES, INC. THE SNAPPER 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 LEARNING ABOUT TUBES 7 BIASING YOUR AMPLIFIERS 8 SIMPLE TROUBLESHOOTING 9 REPLACING A TUBE OR FUSE 10 TUBE FAQ 11 MORE SILLY VACUUM TUBE QUESTIONS 12 OPTIMIZING YOUR SOUND SYSTEM 13 & 14 CREDITS 15 SPECIFICATIONS 16 2
INTRODUCTION THANK YOU!... for choosing the Manley SNAPPER 100 watt monoblock amplifiers for your loudspeaker driving requirements. 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.
MAINS CONNECTIONS Your SNAPPERs have been factory set to the correct mains voltage for your country. (Well, that is what we intended to do when we knew where they would be initially shipped.) The mains voltage that we built these Snappers to operate with is marked on the serial badge, located on the rear of the chassis. 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 amplifiers and associated interconnect and mains power cables. This space should be free of strong external magnetic and RF fields, and reasonably removed from strong loudspeakergenerated 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 amps.
MOVING RIGHT ALONG... NOW THAT YOU HAVE ALL YOUR CABLES PLUGGED IN, you may now connect the IEC power cord to the Snapper and to an energized power outlet. (Unless you live in California and are in the middle of a Rolling Greyout®™.) Fire up all your upstream devices first: sources, preamplifier, and such and allow them all to finish their turn-on cycles so your Snapper will not be amplifying any of their waking-up noises. Once they are stabilized, you may now switch ON your Snappers.
More Tube Tawk (while we’re at it)... How can I tell when I need to replace them? Most problems relating to the output tubes will show up while performing the bias procedure (on the next page). Tubes that cannot be adjusted within the specified range or have a very unstable reading are should be replaced. If the tube s plate (the grey metal rectangular box-like part most visible from the outside) is glowing cherry red or orange, then the tube is severely overheated.
BIASING YOUR AMPLIFIERS DON’T WORRY IT IS SUPER-EASY! Convenient test points for checking the standing current of each EL34 output tube is available on the top of the chassis, near the output tubes. The test points are connected to each tube s 10-ohm cathode resistor. Tube bias is a frequent source of confusion and misinformation, especially as it pertains to output tubes.
TROUBLESHOOTING Here are some suggestions to try out in the event you encounter some of the symptoms below. If you encounter some other symptoms, then maybe you have some other problems that we don’t know about. HUM: Forgot the words. 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.
REPLACING a FUSE or a TUBE: 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 A few general all-too-frequently-asked vacuum tube questions from the manleylabs.com FAQ as found on our website are answered here in case you don't have internet access (which we don't doubt because after all you bought vacuum tube amplifiers, didn't you?): (Don't take that comment personally. EveAnna still drives air-cooled Volkswagons... We're not perfect either.) FAQ #16. Do you sell tubes? I don’t know what you’re talking about. FAQ #16a. I need to retube my Manley amplifier.
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 SNAPPER An EveAnna Manley Production 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 very nifty 100 watt monoblock. From Mitch's creative brain issued forth all the clever circuitry and schematic design.
SPECIFICATIONS Input Impedance RCA: Input Impedance XLR: Dynamic Range: THD+noise @ 1W Frequency Response at 110W full power: Frequency Response at 5W into 5 ohms: 475 Kohm 15 Kohm (serial #MSN524 and below are switchable between 15 Kohm or 600 ohm) 750mV input = 110W output 1.5 V input = 110W output factory set for 31 dB; Range = 29.5 to 34.5dB factory set for 25 dB factory set for 9dB of global NFB 110 Watts (1.5% THD @ 1kHz) 100 Watts (1.
