Graham Slee Reflex M

Minimalist feature count, functional design, but exceptional sonic talent

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Graham Slee has taken a focused approach with the Reflex M phono stage. It is designed to work with moving magnet (and high-output moving coils) only. Beyond doing that exact job, there is little extra here; all you get is a single stereo RCA phono input, a ground connection, a conventional stereo RCA output and a rather dim front-panel power indicator.

The Reflex M's casework is a compact aluminium affair, barely as big as a small paperback. Easy to tuck out of the way it may be, but if you have heavy or inflexible interconnects, the unit can be dragged around, such is its lack of weight.

There is no shortage of cheaper alternatives to the Reflex M, such as Rega's Fono MM Mk5 (tested at £220) moving magnet-only phono stage. Yet, feed the Graham Slee with a suitably high-quality signal and its advantage over such talented, cheaper opposition is obvious. It really sits closer to the likes of Vertere's excellent Phono-1 MkII L (£1495) in terms of outright ability, though that is also superb at handling moving-coil cartridges.

We use our reference Technics SL-1000R record player as our main source, swapping between moving-magnet cartridges such as the Sumiko Rainier (£159), the Nagaoka MP-200 (£449) and Vertere's Dark Sabre (£1450).