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June 2014
North American Premiere!
M2Tech Marley Headphone Amplifier
A top-flight, relatively compact, very stylish headphone amp.
Review By Tom Lyle
M2Tech's Marley is a Class A headphone amplifier designed and built in Italy. Its esthetics are
similar to M2Tech's Vaughn digital-to-analog converter and their Joplin analog-to-digital
converter. With their curved black front panels and brushed aluminum cabinets, it is obvious
that M2Tech has made a deliberate attempt to make their products look as good as they sound.
Although the front panel of the Marley headphone amplifier does not have a curved black grille
as the Vaughn and Joplin it still obvious that M2Tech put the same type of emphasis on the
outward appearance of their Marley headphone amp. This time out they opted to use a smooth
black composite with a centrally located rectangular LCD screen on the front panel, and the
black grille-like material of the other component's faceplates has moved to the top of the
Marley's relatively small 8" x 8" x 2" cabinet, allowing heat to escape through grille's openings.
The perforations also allow the user a peek inside to see the innards of the unit.
Not only does the Marley operate in Class A, but it is designed with a dual-stereo layout which
enables it to drive two headphones with independent volume settings simultaneously. When in
balanced mode the Marley bridges its two stereo amps to drive a single set of headphones, when in single-ended mode it is able to drive these two sets of headphones.
So, it is literally two stereo amplifiers built into one cabinet, each with its own volume control with a bridging feature to drive the single set of headphone in balanced mode.
The Marley has two line-level inputs, a preamp output and a tape-out jack, which is a tell-tale sign that M2Tech is serious about the Marley's ability to function as one's
preamplifier. M2Tech claims that the Marley is a "high-performance" headphone amplifier that can drive all types of headphones; even balanced models that have their
cords terminated in an XLR. When one uses headphones in the balanced mode, one can obtain 6 dB more output and improved sound quality.
The digitally controlled analog volume control on the Marley's front panel is set in 1dB steps, and a muting function allows the level to be attenuated by 2dB for those using
super-efficient smaller headphones such as in-ear models. For such a small component, the Marley has lots of power on hand – 4 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms with a
signal to noise ratio of 120 dB, which is quite impressive for a headphone amp. M2Tech's literature boasts that a pair of high efficiency speakers could be driven if one uses
an adaptor on its output jacks! A wall-wart power supply is provided with the Marley, but as an option one can upgrade to a high-current, low noise model to connect to a 4-
pin XLR socket on its rear panel.
Stylish
The clean and stylish looking design of the Marley places all of its connections on the rear
panel. From left to right, sports two pair of RCA inputs, RCA inputs for the tape-out and preamp
outputs, both unbalanced and balanced outputs for two headphones, the input I mentioned for
the high-current power supply, and on the far right the power input for the wall-wart power
supply. The sleek-looking front panel has a silver control dial on its black faceplate that M2Tech
calls an encoder. It lets the user not only navigate the Marley's menu, but also its volume
(32 páginas)
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