Manley Stingray question

Nobody said you have to go back and forth on this. I'm telling you the going price for an original Stingray in excellent condition was upwards of $1200. That doesn't mean an average Stingray or a Stingray in need of a $300 set of tubes hasn't come up for sale for less money. Now that the price has increased on the Stingray II the original Stingray has gone up in price also. It's ironic the original Stingray is the better sounding amp. It was designed with a superior output tube and a better power transformer than the later model. The original output tube was traded for an inferior tube due to availability and consequently the transformer had to be altered to accommodate the lesser tube. To make up for the differences in quality, features were added (bells and whistles). The power has decreased significantly on the later model.

Rrog.You seemed very knowledgable about Manley line,what do you think about 240 Ref vs Neo250 or Neo500,did they really improved them as they are selling?

The original output tubes used were the Yugoslav Ei 6BQ5. Those have been out of production and unavailable since, when? The 1990's? The Russian NOS 6Pi14Pi EL84Ms are fantastic output tubes. They are rugged and last forever. Of course to some folks, unobtainable tubes always sound better...

B+ was lowered slightly and DC heaters were added to original Stingrays a very long time ago to be kinder to all EL84's and to allow for non-spiral-wound input tube heaters for quieter operation.

An important addition to the Stingray II and iTube models is the increased B+ capacity over the old models. You can really hear the deeper and tighter LF slam with those 8 x 1200uF caps in the HV rails.

The newest Stingray II and Stingray iTube models include all switching and I/O options everyone always wanted and more. Tetrode/Triode switching as standard, and of course RF remote control. There is even a sleep timer. I am totally guilty of feature creep, and I put all those features on there because I could. That's why.

"Of course to some folks, unobtainable tubes always sound better..."

Then maybe you can explain why your engineers selected the EI tubes in the first place. And now another NOS tube is being used even though it is not up to the quality of the original EI tubes. You also forgot to mention the transformer change and lower power rating to accommodate the current output tubes.

The original Stingray is a wonderful purist design and all out effort by Manley Labs. Too bad we cannot say the same thing about the Stingray II.