Musical Fidelity LX2-LPS
£175
The LX2-LPS may be our focus for this review, but it splits its own by the way of offering amplification for both moving-magnet and moving-coil cartridges.
It also boasts adjustable impedance, which is again of near chicken-tooth rarity at anything close to this money.
At this price it would be surprising to find many buyers making use of these features – an entry-level phono amplifier is usually fit-and-forget out of necessary convenience as much as budget. Still, it’s of no inconvenience having the options.
Simply put, this is a Musical Fidelity product that sounds precisely like most Musical Fidelity products, and in a tremendously positive way.
Using a moving-magnet cartridge, as we do for most of our testing, we play Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works
85-92 and relish the LX2-LPS’S familiarly spacious and full-bodied presentation. There’s a lot of low end, which warms up the performance noticeably yet steers clear of becoming invasive or corpulent.
There isn’t the punch or rhythmic precision of the Rega Fono MM MK3, but still the music times quite well enough and is far from lacking generally in terms of dynamic reach.
The difference is really that the Rega scores consistently high marks across the board whereas the Musical Fidelity’s talents are more varied – it’s with more reflective pieces that the MF is truly able to shine, and arrangements focused on the middle register are a delight.
Same character with MC
If you are planning to make use of the MC input, the LX2-LPS’S character happily remains the same. We use our reference Clearaudio Innovation Wood/ Stradivari V2 combination – certainly not this amp’s ideal bedmate. But we can’t say the Musical Fidelity is out of its depth, simply continuing to do well what it does and somewhat justifying the inclusion of moving-coil input.
As competition for the Award-winning Rega, the LX2-LPS is perhaps not as sonically versatile, but where it thrives it delivers a more engaging performance, and one that comfortably validates a five-star review.