M2TECH MARLEY

Pre owned. In excellent condition. Free from any obvious signs of wear. Supplied with manual and original packaging.

Headphone amplifier designed and manufactured by the Italian company M2Tech, it also represents the brand’s first product completely independent of the digital-to-analogue conversion sector. The project was developed under the guidance of Marco Manunta and occupies a high-end position both in terms of construction and driving capability, with particular attention to the use of headphones equipped with a balanced connection. Unlike many of the company’s more recent products, the Marley does not include digital inputs and focuses its functions on the management and amplification of analogue sources.

The name follows M2Tech’s practice of identifying some of its products with important figures from the world of music, following models such as the Joplin and Vaughan. The Marley adopts a compact chassis consistent with the aesthetics of the manufacturer’s other equipment, featuring a 4 mm-thick tubular aluminium chassis made from a single element with a rectangular cross-section. The top and bottom panels incorporate large ventilation grilles to facilitate the dissipation of heat generated during operation.

The front panel features a central alphanumeric display, a power switch on the left and a multifunction rotary control on the right, used to adjust the volume, select inputs and configure the various parameters of the unit. The connections are instead concentrated on the rear panel. There are two pairs of RCA inputs for connecting two analogue sources, together with a tape-out and a pre-out, allowing the Marley to also be used as a preamplifier.

The headphone outputs comprise two 6.3 mm jack sockets and a 4-pin balanced XLR connection. The balanced connection uses separate circuits for the two channels and keeps the negative conductors of the transducers independent rather than sharing a common ground. This architecture helps reduce interference and crosstalk while providing greater channel separation. To take advantage of it, headphones with a suitable configuration or a dedicated cable with separate connections for the two transducers must be used, provided that the headphone construction does not connect their negative terminals together.

Power is supplied by an external unit. The Marley is supplied with a power supply integrated into the mains plug for direct connection to a wall socket, while an optional high-current, low-noise power supply is also available, designed to further improve its performance. The use of a separate power supply therefore allows the system to be configured according to the user’s requirements.

The circuitry is fully solid-state and combines a FET input stage with an amplification stage based on low-noise bipolar transistors. The dual-drive architecture uses two separate amplification sections and operates in pure Class A. Output power reaches 4 W into 8 Ohms, with a voltage of 8 V in unbalanced configuration and 16 V in balanced configuration. These values allow the Marley to drive a wide range of headphones, including models characterized by high impedance and low sensitivity.

The dual-drive configuration also allows two headphones to be used simultaneously through the two 6.3 mm jack outputs, with independent volume control. When the 4-pin balanced XLR output is used, the two internal amplifiers instead operate in bridged configuration, each dedicated to one stereo channel. This solution is one of the central elements of the Marley’s design and allows the amplifier’s balanced configuration to be fully exploited.

The unit provides numerous user-configurable parameters, allowing its operation to be adapted to different applications. The presence of the large ventilation openings reflects the amount of heat generated by the Class A power stage, meaning that the Marley requires sufficient clearance around the chassis to facilitate heat dissipation. The circuitry also reaches optimum operating conditions after a warm-up period of approximately 30 minutes.

With its driving capability, dual-drive configuration and balanced output, the M2Tech Marley is particularly suited to headphone systems where the transducers require high voltage and current delivery. The combination of Class A operation, high driving capability and balanced architecture defines the design approach of the Marley, which is intended for use with headphones that are particularly demanding to drive.

Technical specifications:

• Inputs: 2 x RCA line
• Outputs: 2 x 6.3 mm stereo jack; 1 x 4-pin female XLR; 1 x RCA pre-out; 1 x RCA tape-out
• Output power: 4 W RMS per channel into 8 Ohms
• Output voltage: 8 V RMS max (unbalanced); 16 V RMS max (balanced)
• Gain: 12 dB (unbalanced); 18 dB (balanced)
• Frequency response: 3 Hz - 80 kHz (+0/-0.5 dB)
• Signal-to-noise ratio: 120 dB (8 V RMS output, 1 kHz, A-weighted)
• Dimensions: 200 x 200 x 50 mm
• Weight: 2 kg