Luxman L-100 Brochure

http://www.thevintageknob.org/LUXMAN/L100/L100.html#

Luxman L -100

Although never a major player, Luxman is the oldest Japanese HiFi manufacturer, with a long history of
innovations in the field, as well as a unique status of a mass-market manufacturer, that never the less has a
line of truly high end components. The L-100 was Luxman's top of the line in 1976 to 1978, at which time it
retailed for a whopping $995. It was the pinnacle of what luxman's engineers could do with solid state at the
time (and pretty much pinnacle, period), equipped with every feature one could imagine.

FEATURES

Very conservatively rated at 110WPC into 8 ohms, it drives low impedances with ease. This is an amplifier
that is all about sound, but also has a ton of features. Two Phono inputs are provided with variable gain,
loading and Luxman's exclusive linear equalizer. A tuner (with variable sensitivity control, located in the
back), two AUX inputs, and two tape inputs (tape 2 with RCA and DIN interconnect) are also provided. The
power and pre sections are separable by removing jumpers on the rear panel. Signal routing alowes for
separate dub and monitor setup for tape decks.

The filter and tone control section is feature rich, but completely defeatable never the less. The bass and
treble controls have three center frequencies each - 150, 300, 600Hz and 1.5k, 3k and 6kHz respectively.
The controls themselves are thick film on ceramic substrate switches rather than pots, with 1dB detents. A
bass boost is provided instead of the more traditional loudness control, defeatable in conjunction with the
tone controls. The filter section has a low/subsonic filter with 10Hz and 70Hz, and a high filter with 7kHz and
12kHz settings. This section is followed by a mono-stereo-reverse switch and a switch to drive only the left or
right channels (this is usable for simulcast FM).

The volume control section is quite unique in having a dual volume and muting control - along with the main
volume control, which is again a thick film on ceramics switched attenuator, rather than the traditional
potentiometer, there is a separate attenuating pot that sets the 'baseline' volume inside a 20dB range. This
has a coaxial balance control. In addition, there is Luxman's unique touch-muting, which is defeatable via a
switch on the rear panel. Touching the central metal part on the volume control activates a 15dB attenuator
and lights the muting LED. Touching the outer metal ring of the volume control deactivates the 15dB
attenuation and switches off the LED. The control is 'touch-speed' sensitive - it only activates when you
quickly touch the metal ("bounce your finger off it"). The power amp section has switches for two speaker
pairs. Build quality is amongst the best offered at the time, and excellent (or better!) for today's standards.
Fair warning: it weighs a TON.

DETAILED INFO

This amp was the top of the line in 1976, and one of the most expensive integrated amplifiers of the day. The
price is no doubt due to the selection of components that could be considered to verge on esoteric for the
times. For instance, the audio signal only passes through foil capacitors, and the number of these has been
limited to as few as possible.

The amplifier features a truly high-end phono section, which, however only accepts MM cartridges (and with
fairly large output voltages at that), although I expect a high output MC will work fine assuming the gain of
the phono stage is set to it's highest. Instead of the variable capacitance control, luxman includes
continiously variable loading (from 10k to 100k), and their exclusive linear equalizer. This is a special type of
low phase shift filter that effectively tilts the whole responce towards the low or high end (depending on
setting). 5 settings are provided, flat plus approx. 2dB and 4dB tilt in either direction. The influence of the
control is quite subtle. The Phono section has no less than 4 power supplies, uses selected low noise
transistors and precision capacitors, and resides in a separate shielded box, as far as possible from the
power transformer.

The power amps are two separate modules, powered by a huge transformer and two positively enormous
filter caps - these computer grade caps from Nippon Chemicon had to be ordered specially, the dimensions
are custom to the L-100. One eBay user described them as being as big as Saturn V booster rockets, and
the description fits! Needless to say, the power reserve of this amp is extraordinary.

The amplifier is a dual differential symetrical amplifier, as advanced as you get for the times - even today
some have not caught on yet. Two pairs of power transistors share the output current with an additional pair
of post-drivers - the output configuration uses a three stages. A comprehensive array of protection features