MFA Luminescence Preamplifier Review – A Rare Tube Classic With Stunning, Upgraded Performance

One of the cool things about being in a position to evaluate and listen to a wide range of hi-fi equipment from across audio’s past is coming across unique and exquisite-sounding products from small companies.

Often, this is where some of the great fun of being an audiophile lives. You see creative, even ground-breaking design choices, and in many cases, the entire company is a small handful of people — or sometimes just one brilliant guy.

If you’ve got a question about a product, these small companies can be easy to reach and exceedingly helpful and knowledgeable. If you want to upgrade, chances are they’ve got ideas about where to start.

At The Music Room, we strive to provide accurate information about every product we sell, and when it was my turn to test and evaluate this vintage MFA Luminescence tube preamplifier seen above, I quickly realized I was looking at a modified unit compared to examples I found in my online research.

The indicators were right in my face: Expensive V-Caps all over the place, Rike Audio and Mundorf capacitors as well, and small-value REL (Reliable Capacitor) caps to boot. If you’ve ever slid down the slippery upgrade & tweak slide, as I have in my own DIY creations, you know these are some of the absolute cream of the crop when it comes to signal capacitors.

A tube preamplifier with a full tubed power supply and strange tube types like 6DN7, 6EN7 and 6EJ7 quickly made me realize I’d have to get serious about finding the right information about this product, no matter the time expense. What’s in this thing IS what’s going to make it sell — at least that was my thinking before I heard the piece of gear.

Because MFA (Moore, Frankland & Associates) is no longer in existence as an audio company, I was initially worried that I would not be able to identify all of the modifications fully.

Enter one of the original designers, Scott Frankland. Scott was kind enough to respond to my email questions so thoroughly and offer so much extra information about this unit that, after a single exchange with him, I was 100% certain I had all of the requisite info needed to give this thing the best listing it could have.

While accurate information is essential to selling a modified product, once I had a chance to fire this preamplifier up and hear it, I instantly understood what truly makes it a memorable product.

The sound. My goodness, the sound of this preamplifier is so beautiful that the audio sticks in my mind like a tattoo, and I still talk about it from time to time with hifi friends. I even mentioned this preamplifier’s sound on a podcast or two with my podcasting partner, hifi engineer Darren Myers.

Dynamic, effortless, detailed, and involving music floating in space is what we’re all after in this hobby. If I’ve ever heard one component contribute all of that to an otherwise mid-fi setup and elevate the entire experience, it was with this Luminescence. Placed in a proper high-performance system, I can only imagine the results.