From the Vault

On The Ground
Meanwhile, a front panel LED shows muted status as red, turning to green as soon as you select an input. The mute setting is ideal for standby and the preamp is best left powered permanently for best sound quality.

Round the back, a row of ultra high-quality gold phono sockets take the input signals and provide tape output and two preamplifier outputs. A nice touch is that the preamp and case ground can be separated if desired, and a separate ground connection for the phono cartridge makes sure that you can isolate hum loops.

In fact the MC input is fully balanced using a discrete front-end amplifier with differential amp driving a passive RIAA equalisation filter. A precision op-amp provides an output to a digitally-controlled volume control which utilises a solid-state stepped attenuator with FET switching for each 0.5dB step.

That’s Life!
The Strat remains much the same as the earlier review, since when both power supply and motor have been upgraded. These added significantly to the transparency of the system, such that the image was brought further forward into more secure focus – a slightly laid-back effect to stereo portrayal being about my only criticism in the original review.

With new power supply and motor in place the precision and accuracy of the Graham tonearm and Transfiguration cartridge were now apparent, yielding one of the most neutral, yet dynamically exciting, results from my record collection that I have ever heard.

Unlikely, then, that the system could wish for a better source, but I was relieved to find that CD sounded almost as good through the Lumley amplifiers as this world reference-class turntable. Plugging in the Meridian 508, Teac T-1/D-T1 and the new AVI Reference players revealed this.

But why not start with the usual hi-fi sound quality description such as ‘warm and alluring’, or ‘bright and lively’ or describe the many colorations that are normally the province of moving-coil loudspeakers and valve amps? Because this system does not appear to have these effects.

The Lumley components keep their character so well hidden that all you have to listen to is the music. If I have to pick a character that is just discernible after listening for months to this system it is just a trace of hardness in the midband – an effect that I ascribe to moving-coil drive units being forced to do what they naturally would not do – sound like panel diaphragms! But this is such a small effect that it is hardly worth commenting on. Otherwise the system sounds incredibly lifelike irrespective of the listening level chosen.