@donavabdear , you know you should not make me say this, but I will. You need to set the Lyngdorf to perfectly flat, volume match it to the BHK pre, and then compare them with someone else's help so you can't tell which is which ... but you can't do that cause the BHK is noisy so you will always know which is which. I only have the Stereophile test report to go on here. You can tell from the frequency response graphs that there are some frequency based compression artifacts. The frequency response changes when the volume is max. Distortion is a bit high. Stereophiles tests are pretty basic so I can only guess on much. Enough distortion is most evident caused by bass, but revealed in upper bass and lower mid-range. That could be warmth, or it could just sounds louder, even volume matched in the mid range. Still not going to rule out that it is because you know it is there.
Don't use the saying better sound. You mean the sound you liked, at least at the moment you were doing the test, and with the music you were listening too.
Maybe it is just the noise :-)