MFA Luminescence MC Reference preamp

Great technical informations from everyone, thanks to all.

I'm considering purchasing a new preamp that I'm familier with, and the ones that I've heard and liked are: Hovland HP-100 and MFA MC Reference.

Since I'm a big analog guy(4,000 lps and counting...)MC Reference is my first choice due to the great phone/line stage it has(as you all mentioned) and can be modified/repaired easily locally.
But on the other hand Hovland has more of the modern appeal with pretty good phone stage of its own and is quite affortable on this site(around $4K).

Decisions, decisions........

Hi Mike.I would have to concurr with Kana as well.No miniature triode based preamp I have ever heard seems to capture the "soul" of the music quite like a well designed octal tube preamp.I have owned the CAT sig mk2,various versions of Audio Research preamps... from the sp-3a,on up through to the sp-10 mk2,[still in use] the Klimo Merlin as well as the new supratek syrah.ALL of them very highly regarded and while they all make beautiful music.....the Lumi is still "THE reference" in my rig[phono only].Of all the above mentioned preamps-the Klimo Merlin was the closest overall to the Lumi through the phono stage and I want to point out that my observations are based on the phono stage ONLY.Cheers

Hello fellow audio-nuts. While you have most of the facts right, you've got some of them wrong. There was a preamp from MFA called "Luminescence" (I have two. One early pre-production A and a heavily moded B1), with various versions (A, B, C etc). There was a "Venusian", and an "MC Reference", both of which were NOT Luminescences. Lumi was the only one to my knowledge to use octal base tubes, and was dropped only for the reason of unavailability of inexpensive low-noise octal bases for the phono. MC Reference was actually a hybrid (technically speaking) design with heavy solid state regulation. Very rare and expensive in $5k range for a used one. Venusian I've never heard nor seen but I don't believe it used octal bases, I may be wrong here, but it was definitely not called a "Luminescence Venusian". Thanks for the forum, Mark

A question for kana813: do you have any pictures/schematics for Venusian? How was it broken down into three chassis? And BTW, I agree that you have to search hard to find a better phono (or line for that matter) than a Lumi. Recapping with modern colder and more open caps (MIT, InfiniCaps etc.) make a lot of difference too. I tried most everything including Loesch and still stuck with a Lumi. Phono section is a little noisy for MC cartridges but... Thanks, Mark

The "Venusian' is, as far as I know, the origins of the Lumi. I apparently bought a earlier near proto unit that was hand wired (as if any of them wern't!)

It uses a 40-45kb dual mono solid state PS box, which is fully stuffed. Four transformers, about 5 chokes.

A separate box for the phono section. It is fully stuffed. With boards and binding posts, with "Randall Research" wire. The same wire that was in the original Mod Squad line Drive. It uses 4 5691's, and two 6em7's. It has a second set of RCA jacks to load the given cartridge separately from the stock 47k ohms.

The upper, line stage box uses 2 6SN7's and 2 6DN7's. And a pair of 12AU7's for tape line out buffers. Everything but the volume control is activated as single channels. Two overall 'gain steppers (5 steps) and an overall ladder discrete type 23 step volume control.

Three Chassis total.

It rocks! As you might imagine.

Here comes the painful part: I got mine off Ebay for $106.05. Fuuken A! It was so badly represented, that no-one recognized it. But I'd recognize a Bruce Moore circuit and wiring..anywhere. I knew what it was. Seven sweaty days of waiting later..it was mine. I went looking for 'broken tube amps'..and stumbled across it.

one last point: Scott Frankland (the F in MFA) still works on these, for those who want them modded out properly.