Hi guys. Question for a coworker:

Is $2100.00 a reasonable price for a Luxman CL35 Preamp and a pair of Luxman MB3045 Monoblocks in very good condition? The MB3045s have been converted to KT88 output tubes and the KT88s need to be replaced. Other than that, the tube complement is stock, he thinks.

Thanks,
Tommy C.

Originally posted by TommyC
Hi guys. Question for a coworker:

Is $2100.00 a reasonable price for a Luxman CL35 Preamp and a pair of Luxman MB3045 Monoblocks in very good condition? The MB3045s have been converted to KT88 output tubes and the KT88s need to be replaced. Other than that, the tube complement is stock, he thinks.

Thanks,
Tommy C.

I have a Luxman L-580 integrated amplifier (solid state) from 1980 or so, and it is fried. I have had the devil of a time getting it fixed - in fact, I believe it is now unrepairable, which breaks my heart, because I loved the sound it made. But I am told that this is typical of Luxman.

A quirky company that did very high-end stuff, weird strange mid-range stuff, and then some just plain junk.

And they were never very good at a) advertising and b) doing repairs. There was even a time (reported on Google) when Luxman was taking in repairs and just refusing to fix or return them. Black hole. You sent it in, and that was the end of it. This was back in the early '90's.

Apparently, Luxman still exists, but seems to mostly focus on the Japanese market now.

I am not telling you NOT to advise your friend to buy this Luxman, but to be very careful. He may well en d up with a very expensive boat anchor, if it cannot be repaired. That seems like an awful lot of clams to me.

Best,

Wigwam

I have owned a Luxman CL35III Preamp for more than 30 years. And with the original tubes yet!
The cl35III is a hybrid preamp and there is some low staging solid state components. But it includes plug in Moving Coil cartridge preamps.These were an option for those of us who took phono cartridges to the next level.

That is about retail on the units. The CL-35 III is a full-featured tube preamp and the recent post I read on the Luxman yahoo group about which preamps sound the best was that it was the limited functionality models like the CL-32. But you knew that. Bypass tone controls and other stuff and it gets better. But the CL-35 III commands a good price on the bay, say 700 or so. The amps are a collectors item. They bring 1200-2000.

As stated, these are Luxman units that may be harder to fix than the ubiquitous McIntosh MC-30 but they sound good. I will be converting my MB-3045s to use 6550 tubes this winter as my 8045G tubes are no longer available.

If you want to pay the correct price for these units then this is a fair deal. If there are manuals, boxes, new power tubes and such to go with it to sweeten the deal you will do fine. There are other options for that kind of money, but 50wpc of Luxman tube power is really nice and that preamp is no slouch either.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/luxman/