Neil McCauley
29-05-2008, 21:47
Earlier today, catalysed by an unexpectedly powerful outcome yesterday comparing the LFD MCT phono stage to a phono stage from a state-of-the-art USA valve maker (through the mighty yet subtle QUAD 2905 speakers, which are superior to any of the speakers I currently stock!) I emailed Dr. Richard Bews, the driving force behind LFD, with a few questions.
To my pleasure and amazement, given that he has a runaway success on his hands due to the incredible review of his Mk3 Integrated amplifier in the Feb. 2008 issue of Stereophile magazine, I received a comprehensive and typically courteous – very quickly.
Being a bit of a technical dummy on these sort of things I needed to phone him to gain his authoritative but patiently gently explanations of all the bits I didn’t understand. I came away, after that call, understanding only about 15% more than I did previously! Hmm!
Thus the Q&As you are about to read is to some extent a compound of Dr Bews’ emailed responses and my own notes from the subsequent conversation earlier today.
As it turns out, this is very much far from being the entire story. Some of the techniques he uses to get the incredible performance from the MCT are beyond my comprehension. Some are currently beyond belief. The point being that while the MCT is without doubt the most musically credible phono stage I have ever owned, let alone heard, and a full interview (complete with my write up of some of the demonstrations he’ll conduct for me in private) will follow in due course.
He’ll demonstrate (and I hope I’ll be able to hear, and he assures me I will – if I don’t go to any more Who gigs for a while) the sonic differences between very high purity silver single strand internal interconnect cables (which he doesn’t believe is good enough) versus his own multi-strand high purity silver interconnect using 5 different and precisely calibrated diameter strands, which he does use in the MCT.
I should explain that the LFD MCT is an anonymous heavy black box with a pair of input RCA sockets and a pair of RCA output sockets and an IEC mains input – and that’s it. No controls, no adjustments and not even an on/off button.
Anyway, here’s what I learned today .........
http://www.stereonow.co.uk/lfd.html#QA
To my pleasure and amazement, given that he has a runaway success on his hands due to the incredible review of his Mk3 Integrated amplifier in the Feb. 2008 issue of Stereophile magazine, I received a comprehensive and typically courteous – very quickly.
Being a bit of a technical dummy on these sort of things I needed to phone him to gain his authoritative but patiently gently explanations of all the bits I didn’t understand. I came away, after that call, understanding only about 15% more than I did previously! Hmm!
Thus the Q&As you are about to read is to some extent a compound of Dr Bews’ emailed responses and my own notes from the subsequent conversation earlier today.
As it turns out, this is very much far from being the entire story. Some of the techniques he uses to get the incredible performance from the MCT are beyond my comprehension. Some are currently beyond belief. The point being that while the MCT is without doubt the most musically credible phono stage I have ever owned, let alone heard, and a full interview (complete with my write up of some of the demonstrations he’ll conduct for me in private) will follow in due course.
He’ll demonstrate (and I hope I’ll be able to hear, and he assures me I will – if I don’t go to any more Who gigs for a while) the sonic differences between very high purity silver single strand internal interconnect cables (which he doesn’t believe is good enough) versus his own multi-strand high purity silver interconnect using 5 different and precisely calibrated diameter strands, which he does use in the MCT.
I should explain that the LFD MCT is an anonymous heavy black box with a pair of input RCA sockets and a pair of RCA output sockets and an IEC mains input – and that’s it. No controls, no adjustments and not even an on/off button.
Anyway, here’s what I learned today .........
http://www.stereonow.co.uk/lfd.html#QA