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Lumley Amplifiers


Ooogh

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Hello everyone.

 

My oldest friend in this hifi game has got his hands back on a Lumley ST70 he originally sourced for another mate . 70 Watts from 6550's . Must be pushing thirty years old now. Hooked up to a Counterpoint Preamp and Moratori speakers it sings. No fool , he makes every system he touches work to it's absolute potential.

 

I trust his wisdom from a life time of hifi experience and years moving lots of quality equipment. He always rated Lumley amplifiers amongst the best. They seem to be almost never show up in Australia.  Any Lumley  or Grant Lumley owners out there?

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No, but know of a Grant amp (the Grant of Grant & Lumley) an acquaintance owned.

 

From what I gather after Lumley and Grant parted ways the Lumley amps sold better for some reason. I can say that... that Grant amp had some nice Iron in them and from what I have read on-line Grant put most $$ into the Iron in his amps.

 

Had been modified so can't comment on the sound of the original sound of the amp.

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53 minutes ago, Noum said:

No, but know of a Grant amp (the Grant of Grant & Lumley) an acquaintance owned.

 

From what I gather after Lumley and Grant parted ways the Lumley amps sold better for some reason. I can say that... that Grant amp had some nice Iron in them and from what I have read on-line Grant put most $$ into the Iron in his amps.

 

Had been modified so can't comment on the sound of the original sound of the amp.

Very true Noum, Grant Lumley amps were indeed well known for their substantial transformers.  

 

Lumley built less industrial looking amplifiers after the bust up of the original partnership. Grant did not like charging extra for fancy pants chassis and was a great believer that every penny goes into the circuit. The sad reality is that Lumley had his finger on the pulse of reality and continued on for a good stretch and his amplifiers were held in very high regard and bloody expensive.  Grant seems to have faded into obscurity rather more quickly although he may well have been building a better product. Information is rather scarce on both gentlemen and their wares.

 

I know that Joe (Ridiger?) the Sydney importer must have bought a few Lumleys into the country. This one was picked up in Melbourne, one of Absolute High Ends ex employees running his own little operation if my memory still works.

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1 hour ago, kab said:

Which Moratori speakers does he have?

 

Hi Kab,

 

He has the ones with the twin drivers and single tweeter with the entire rear panel working as a passive radiator. He also has two pairs of the single driver version which were far more common. My fathers system I built him years ago also uses the little single woofer version with the passive radiator. Beautiful, underrated gems. My friend however has them hooked up with a pair of Trevor Lees floor standers which used the same woofers. These have had the tweeter disengaged ,

the crossover caressed and face the outer walls at close to 90degrees working as subwoofers. 

 

Those little speakers have been driven by huge early Amcrons, Audions, Audio Research and others. They do like a few Watts behind them. I keep wanting to call them duets but they were floor standers built by another Australian speaker builder around the same time.

 

Lewis Moratori was an under appreciated speaker designer. Unfortunately replacement drivers are no longer available so picking up old Trevor Lees designs is a good way to stockpile some spares.

 

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On 13/09/2017 at 6:24 PM, Ooogh said:

Very true Noum, Grant Lumley amps were indeed well known for their substantial transformers.  

 

Lumley built less industrial looking amplifiers after the bust up of the original partnership. Grant did not like charging extra for fancy pants chassis and was a great believer that every penny goes into the circuit. The sad reality is that Lumley had his finger on the pulse of reality and continued on for a good stretch and his amplifiers were held in very high regard and bloody expensive.  Grant seems to have faded into obscurity rather more quickly although he may well have been building a better product. Information is rather scarce on both gentlemen and their wares.

 

I know that Joe (Ridiger?) the Sydney importer must have bought a few Lumleys into the country. This one was picked up in Melbourne, one of Absolute High Ends ex employees running his own little operation if my memory still works.

Agree with all this. Roy Grant could have taken more care in presentation by including some chrome, etc.  Not that his amps were not built well and reliable. Grant was the engineer of the 2, while Lumley was a better marketing man. I don't recall why the partnership split up.

 

It is safe to say there are probably more Grant amps in SA than Lumley, or Grant Lumley. A fellow here imported them for a long time in the 80's mainly, along with Sugden.

 

Design of the Lumley and Grant amps is similar by the way. I still have a Grant 100watter floating around (stereo and flipping heavy thanks to the big trannies). They also made 100W and 200W monos. I've heard both Lumley and Grant amps and both sound very good. It's no wonder the Grant Lumley amps in the 70's got decent mention in the early TAS years....tube amps from U.K. that had power to drive speakers and also very musical. IMO, they left for dead many of the low powered tube amps from the UK such as Quads, not just for power but especially for sound quality.

 

All variants are still serviceable.

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Many thanks Skies2clear, excellent to get some more history on these amplifiers. Interesting to hear that the Grants were imported in SA way back in the day, must be a few closeted away in dusty attics. Not something you throw out in the hard rubbish you would hope.

 

Like so many of these partnerships they all seem to go pear shaped in the end.

 

I must get a photo of my mates to post next time, if you can be bothered a photo of your Grant might help illustrate it's function before form appeal!

 

Cheers

 

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Hi Ooogh, I think I may know your friend with the Lumley. It's a small world here in little old Adelaide!

I'd be happy to oblige of course as soon as I get the strength to pull the Grant out of a storage shelf as I recently damaged my shoulder :(

 

The Grant amps did have optional vertical LED level indicators on the front panel...something that flew in the face of basic implementation. The 100W stereo amp could run either KT88 or 6550, but KT88 was a more reliable option since the output stage was partial triode/Ultralinear and this pushes the screens on 6550's a bit too much. I think KT120 would be a good candidate for them as only 2 output tubes per channel and the power transformer is big. Pretty sure the Lumleys also use Ultralinear operation.

 

In SA, Grant amps were sold through Grenfell HiFi.

Edited by skies2clear
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  • 1 year later...

An interesting read, thanks @skies2clear. I'm about to pick up a Grant amp this arvo for a little play so will probably be fishing around for more info and advice as it comes up. Should be an interesting experiment!

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