Manley Force is a four channel all-valve microphone preamplifier derived from the Manley CORE channel strip. Each channel carries its own 12AX7WA dual triode and a hand-wound Manley IRON input transformer.
Four valve channels for one drum session
A drum kit or a horn section needs several channels that sound identical, and assembling them from single preamps ends in tonal differences between microphones. The Force gives you four channels of the same design and the same transformer type, so overheads and close mics sit in one space. Gain is chosen on a switch: 40 dB in the low position or 50 dB in the high one, with 60 dB available by moving an internal jumper.
High voltage instead of a frugal supply
A high voltage Class-A topology translates directly into headroom: maximum output reaches +35 dBu into a 100 kOhm load, which is 31 dB above nominal. That keeps the preamp from becoming the bottleneck when a snare or a trumpet throws an unexpected peak. Four instrument inputs at 10 megohms take the signal straight into the valve circuit with no transformer, so guitar and bass get the tone of the path without any intermediate stages.
KEY FEATURES
- Four channels of all-valve preamplification
- A 12AX7WA dual triode on every channel
- Hand-wound Manley IRON input transformers
- Microphone gain of 40 dB or 50 dB, 60 dB via internal jumper
- Line gain of 20 dB or 30 dB
- Four instrument inputs at 10 megohms
- Transformerless instrument inputs straight into the valve
- Phase reverse on every channel
- High pass filter at 120 Hz
- Continuous input attenuator on the front panel
- Thirty second warm-up delay
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
- Channels: 4
- Valves: 4 x 12AX7WA
- Microphone input impedance: 1250 Ohm
- Instrument input impedance: 10 megohms
- Maximum output: +35 dBu into 100 kOhm
- Output impedance: 50 Ohm
- Headroom: 31 dB referenced to +4 dBu
- THD and noise: 0.004% at low gain, 0.04% at high gain
- EIN: -129 dB, A-weighted
- Frequency response: 20 Hz to 20 kHz (-0.1 dB, +0.3 dB)
- Dimensions: 19 x 3.5 x 7 inches, 2U; power consumption 36 W
