LINE PREAMPLIFIER
LUXMAN
C-1000f
WOJCIECH PACUŁA
Translation: Krzysztof Kalinkowski
There was some trouble with the preparation of the Luxman C-1000f preamplifier test. It is not that it is
always easy with other devices, but in this case it was really time consuming. At first it was to arrive in
Poland together with two power amplifiers M-800A
– again nothing. The device prepared for the 80th anniversary of the brand (Lux corporation was founded in
Japan in 1925) together with the partnering monoblocs B-1000f is by definition a limited product. But
because Luxman succeeded in those “jubilee” products to achieve such a high level of manufacturing and
sound quality that they can compete with best products of the world, the pressure from distributors fighting
for subsequent units is incredible from the very beginning. Every piece is hand made and only when ordered
by a distributor. And because Lux started only recently in Poland, our country – fate – is at the end of the
waiting list. But… Either the warm welcome in Poland or quick introduction of the brand made the Luxman
representative, Mr. Dominic Chun help us. And he helped more than we could ever dream of – he “took”
from headquarters the preamplifier that was to remain in the company museum – with the 00001 serial
number. This number is visible on the back plate, on the bottom of it, just next to the anniversary plaque
(“80th anniversary”). We could say that we deal with a device that is already a collector’s item.
. It did not. Then it was to arrive with the next order and
“
And I wanted the Luxman, because very quickly, already during the test of the m entioned power amplifier M-800A I
realized, that we deal here with a new quality. This working in the c lass A, 60-watt power amplifier turned out to be
extremely p recise and at the sa me time incredibly s ensitive to music, a s if it would not be a h i-fi device but “liv ing
device”. So I couldn’t do anything better than buy the tested unit for my reference system . S hort ly afterwards the dev ice
received our Product of the Year award 2007. There was no other way… That is why from the very b eginning my
attention was focused on the preamplifiers made by this company – C-800f and C-100 0f. The dev ice is mounted inside a
very massive, ultra-rigid aluminum enclosure (the front panel is 30mm thick in the thickest place), and the bottom plate
is made from three layers conn ected by a special g luey material – a layer of a luminum, a layer of copper and again
aluminum. T he device is h eavier than mos t integrated am plifiers until 20000zl and for sure with bette r workmanship .
Model C-1000f is fully balanced, and its heart is the volume control circuitry named LECUA1000 (LECUA is an
abbreviation of Luxman Electronic Controlled Ultimate Attenuator), des igned in such a way, that for every one of the 72
steps, only two resistors are in the sound path. When we look inside we will s e e that ther e are four identica l dev ices, one
for each branch (“+” and “-“). It looks incredible. And one sighs at the very beginning, as the front panel with embedded
volume control and input selector knobs and an amber display is SOMETHING.
SOUND
The Luxman preamplifier plays with an incredibly creamy, incredibly well mannered sound. If I would place the
preamplifiers I remember on an axis, where to the right we would have the most precise and at the same time mo st
neutral ones, but also the least “fleshy” and least “saturated” (although supplying enormous amounts of music) then the
situation would look like this:
Luxman C-1000f...Accuphase C-2810...Nagra PL-P... Accuphase C-2410...darTZeel NHB-18NS...Leben RS-28CX...Audio
Research Reference RS3...BAT VK-52SE
This “warm-cold” is of course a simplification, because it is about a certain “package” of characteristics, where warmth or
coldness are elements that are easiest to describe. However reso lution is related to those, and it is split on the axis in
the same way. All mentioned preamplifiers are superb, and each one is different. Did you notice something peculiar? I
mean that it is not imp ortant if a devic e is sol id state o r tube. Looking from left to right we have: transistor-transistortube-transistor-transistor-tube-tube-tube. And this turns the traditional view of the solid state as “cold” and tube as
warm” completely over. I think we finally reached a point, where cheap tricks with speed (trans istor) and saturation
(tube) are no longer enough, and the game is about neutrality, about hi-end. Neutrality is, as one can imagine, a
subjective thing, but it can be excluded in some boundaries, where op inions can be set, where our cho ices are only that
and nothing else – choices.
And I write this on purpose – as we can see, the Luxman C- 1000f, a device so lid stat e to the bone marrow, is on the lef t
end of the scale, where we would like to put the tube preamps . Because this is how th is “Japanese boy ” sounds: with an
incredibly saturated, full midrange, sweet, but without coloring, to which the treble and bass are subordinate. So th e
vocals are uncommon – whether from an aged recording Lullabys of Birdland Chris Connor
Records/Victor Enterteinment, VICJ-61452, K2 HD, CD) or a fresh one, the splendid disc Filia Praeclara Ensamble
Peregrina (Divox Antiqua, CDX-70603, CD) with recordings of XIII and XIV century Polish Poor Clare monastery music.
Every time we had full, big volume, smooth, creamy timbre, splendidly given reverb and w ith this very good positioning
of the instruments. The device has saturated timbre and slightly soft attack. L ooking at tonal balance in th e Luxman it is
set in a more laid back way than in the Leben, that on the oth er hand was darker than the A ccuphase C-2410. Because
like I said, everything is subordinate to the midrange.
Instruments like the piano and saxophone do also sound spectacular. In absolut e terms the resolutio n is lower t han in
(Bethlehem
the BAT or AR, or even Leben, what is additionally deepened by the tame treble, but when I put on the disc The Köln
Concert Keith Jarrett (ECM, UCCE-9011, gold-CD) from the Japanese, gold mini LP version, that is visibly less vivid and
not as transparent as the aluminum version, Luxman showed the audienc e better, placed it better in space than my
Leben, that is more penetrating and resolving. The same happened with the elements from the disc of Art Pepper AP
Meets The Rhythm Section (Contemporary Records/Victor Enterteinment, VICJ-41524, K2, CD). I don’t know how th is
happened. But this is just how it is with top devices, nothing is easy and unambiguous.
It was similar with dynamics. On the mentioned Pepper disc the dynamics of drums and percussion is registered in such
a way, that God should give such abilities to current sound engineers. Roy DuNann that recorded that discs, has
something wonderful in his fingers because the disc Way Out West Sonny’ego Rollinsa (Contemporary Records/Victor
Enterteinment, VICJ-60088, XRCD) is also brilliant, and he was also responsible for that one. But to the point – Luxman
reproduces jumps of dynamics like the best tube amplifiers. Or maybe a solid state one? I don’t know it myself anymore
– maybe it combines the best from both worlds. Because it is gentle and dynamic. Listening to it we enter in a
completely different wo rld, somethin g similar as w ith Accuphas e. Also fascinating is the comparison of both devices, it
turns out that Accu plays a bit more “to the front” with slightly better defined edges, but still the sound of the Luxman is
more saturated, more “physical” in appearance. Both devices are brilliant, but they are not the same, that is why they
must be auditioned in a given system.
I write the whole time about the primacy of the midrange, maybe not as resolving as with the preamplifiers from the
right part of the scale, but incredibly nice. And this is not the classic cut of treble and bass. It is not about th at. I do not
want to mix-up my thinking, but subjectively those sub-ranges are heard quieter. But when in a recording a stronger
impulse appears that is located there, like the strong, motoric bass from Billie Jean, from the disc Thriller Michael
Jackson (Epic/Sony Music Japan, EICP 963-4, CD+DVD), then we have strong entrance and playing with pep, in a matter
of speech. Leben differentiates the single sounds better , shows more about th e way of playing, etc, bu t it is the Lu xman
that seemed more dynamic. It had not such a well articulated bass, but attention was not focused on it. Maybe due to
such a volume of sounds the Luxman is more natural, better than the Leben, which – in d irect comparison – sounds with
smaller virtual sources.
And this is how this preamplifier must be “read” – like an incredibly saturated, focused on the midrange, dynamic device.
The resolution is not super-important here, or quarrelsomeness. Here m y Leben was visibly better and it describes the
edges, shades of the timbre, temperature of the recordings, etc, better. With jazz and classical material we will get a big
sound stage with regular size instruments. Luxman is brilliantly built, m uch better than everything I saw before. Mayb e
only the darTZeel NHB-18NS could compete with that. This is a dev ice for forever, not only because it is heavy as hell
and packing it back is an effort. But we should remember that it has a specified timbre and “personality” and it is
necessary to listen to it personally, in our own system. In contrast to the preamplifier EVO 222 from Krell, t hat was the
ideal partner for the EVO 402 power amplifier (system revie w HERE) and outside the company context it so unded with a
bit too heavy lower midrange, the Luxman will be a good partner for every type of power amplifier – tube or solid state –
as long as it is a good power ampl ifier. It is worth t o remember that th is is a balanced dev ice and sounds bes t in a
balanced system. And then it will be brilliant.
DESCRIPTION
Like I mentioned, the preamplifier C-1000f is packed in a very thick enclosure made f rom cast elements. Interestingly,
similar to the M-800A power amplifier and many tube devices or products of the British Cyrus everything is mounted
upside down. This means that the whole electronics just “hangs” below the massive top cover – this was done to better
control vibration. In the front we have two knobs – one for volume control and one for input selection, power switch,
alphanumeric display and status LEDs. We can choose the balanced or unbalanced output, bi-amping or change the
absolute phase (like Accuphase, Marantz, Denon and other Japanese brands Luxman uses pin ‘3’ of the XLR as the ‘hot’
pin. In European and most American devices the ‘hot’ pin is nr ‘2’). On the back we have three balanced inputs, three
unbalanced ones, two balanced and two unbalanced outputs. All sockets are of very good quality, gold plated. Also the
IEC socket is gold plated. On top of it we’ll find the character istic plate used for phasing control. There are also two
“trigger” sockets (CAT-5 based) that can be used to remotely control the power amplifiers.
Unscrewing the bottom plate we see that it is cast and made from three layers – a luminum-copper-aluminum . Below we
see four identical amplifying modules, each with its own power supply. Thos e are the LECUA1000 attenuators and the
current feedback loop called ODNF. According to the company web page this is a version of the feedback, that takes the
signal from the output, compares it wit the input and only the difference is added to the signa l to compensate. The
people from Luxman say, that their company introduced the usage of feedback for the very first time so they have lots of
experience in that area. The LECUA and ODBF blocks are made from twelve vertical PCBs per branch plugged into two
motherboards. So this is not a very simple circuit. Besides those ther e are also PCBs w ith the input and outp ut selectors
with hermetic relays and PCBs with initial power supplies for LECUA and ODNF. Many wires run between them – power
and signal ones. In general there are many power supply stages and its regulation, with many capacitors and stabilizers.
There are also two transformers – separately for the amplifying circuits and for the display and logic. Already the input
AC current is filtered in four stages wit capacitors and ferrite elements . The amplifying circuit is made with discrete
bipolar transistors. Also the balancing and de-balancing circuits are made like this – the signal is balanced just behing
RCA inputs and de-balanced just before the RCA output. Really beautifully made. The PCBs are made on Teflon base
without a classic ‘mask’ that has a negative influence on the copper on the traces according to the engineers. In Luxman
transparent plastic covers are used, that are removed after etching. And the traces are then covered with gold, just to b e
sure. The device is remote controlled by a metal remote RA-10, not very good looking, but very sturdy and allowing also
to dim or switch off the display or change the absolute phase, besides the usual functions of volume control and input
selection. Nice, very nice…
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