Manly Steelhead - any downside??

Greetings everyone, have not seen this thread for awhile. Looks like things have mellowed somewhat...

Sirspeedy, your findings mirror mine exactly with the phono tubes. While I still have not tried the Tele CCa's, the E88CC Teles were very detailed but on the clinical side. The white label Amperex 6922 PQ's are a the best value and would make a good reference set of phono tubes. They work equally well in my Supratek Grange. Whomever is buying Siemens CCa's, be careful. More than one set of faked sets have been sold to unsuspecting audiophiles for big money. When in that price league, talk to Andy or Brendan. Speedy...what 7044 style tube did you wind up with?

Shane, sorry to hear that the Steelhead did not pan out for you in your system. Good luck in your search.

Hi,
any more inputs to Steelhead??
I am using a XV-1s on a Kuzma Stabi Ref. with Mission Mechanic or Stogi Ref. tonearms, and an old but nice Audio Research SP 10, that is bloomy, smooth, liquid, but not with the ultimate resolution, speed and dynamics.
I am very interested in a Steelhead. Alternative way would be just a little DV P75 MkII or Whest PS 20 with a nice line stage, but the steelhead is more my favorite.
Thanks
Balazs

Holy thread revival- Batman!

I just got a new Tron Seven phono stage after talking with at least one other Tron owner who had a Steelhead, but then Auditioned the Tron Seven, and sold the STeelhead. He thought the Tron was far superior.

However it doesn't have any adjustability like the STeelhead (nor can it be used as a linestage or direct to amps. You choose the gain 60, or 70db and loading when ordering.

it's $4000 US.

Just found this thread. Have had my Steelhead since '07. But just hearing how great it really is! Always had to run it through My Spectral preamp to drive Spectral amps. Am now letting go of Spectral. Using Steelhead to drive a pair of Forte' model 7 monos. WOW! Not enough power to drive my Avalons; Hope to try a pair of Pass 160.8s soon. There is a lot of tube info in this thread that I will try to sort through but I would appreciate if someone would spell out the tubes to really get and phone# to source them? Thanks

Thanks to Nkonor for reviving this thread.  I bought a Steelhead just a few months ago, and so far I quite like it. My gripes would be as follows:
(1) Input resistance choices for MM.  The MM input offers 47K ohms and then a series of very much lower resistances that are totally irrelevant for MM cartridges.  I do realize that the optional low (under 1000R) input resistances are actually for using MC cartridges through the MM inputs, if one wants to bypass the built-in autoformers that are in the circuit path if you use the MC inputs, but still...  
(2) I was rather surprised to read that nkonor prefers using the Steelhead as a full preamplifier rather than feeding its output to his Spectral preamplifier, since most others have reported that it sounds best as a phono stage.  I too am using mine as a full function preamplifier, and I agree with others that it is not at all lean in sound quality.  In that regard, the topology of the White Cathode Follower output circuit uses a lot of capacitance (30uF) and a low value shunt resistor (10K).  This is to ameliorate problems related to using high capacitance interconnects.  However, I cannot believe it would not sound better with a lower value capacitance (e.g., 3 or 4uF) and a larger shunt resistor (100K ohms).  The latter combo of C and R would result in the exact same bass cut-off, and I am going to try it.  Lower coupling C should sound better. Maybe this is why others report that the Steelhead sounds best as a phono stage, because if you take the output ahead of the "line stage" section, you avoid this possibly suboptimal output circuit.  (I do understand why Manley may have chosen the values for R and C; you never know what folks might use as cables and what downstream equipment they might expect the Steelhead to drive.)  There's more to this stuff than rolling tubes.