currently trying out a Luxman L505V as a pre amp in my system which I got from PDVD vintage guru Sandawa. its probably a 37 year old component made by Luxman Corporation when they were in business of creating the best high end audio components from Japan. This was prior to them being associated with Alpine which turned out as a disaster because they concentrated on the mass market segment thus relegating their products to appliance like status instead of statements of craftsmanship and engineering.
compared to my Bryston pre which has a very neutral character, the Lux has a tendency to sound very tubelike. mids are lush and the highs are very non fatiguing. for a 37 year old component, the knobs and switches are designed and constructed to last for a lifetime. every knob is still silky smooth and the switches click with authority. The sound......well to put it in a nutshell...superb. whats surprising is that the soundstage depth was vastly improved thus increasing the 3 dimensionality of the front soundstage tremendously. Im gonna enjoy this gem for a long time in my main system before I get a period correct tuner for this and transfer it to my bedroom.
my Bryston will be in a my cabinet for a good number of months
Its great that we have this PDVD community..we can upgrade the sound of our gears for so little money.
the L505V that I got looks like this:
fast forward 2012 and the grandson of the 505 is the 505U...which I cant afford as of now hehehe