Art Dudley Listening

I came to the early conclusion that, with line-level inputs, there were more similarities than differences between the Lux's tonal character and that of my reference Shindo Monbrison preamp, but that their phono sections sounded very different. In a nutshell, and speaking off the cuff—these are pseudo-technical impressions made without technical evidence—the Shindo's phono equalization sounded less accurate than the Lux's, with a low-frequency boost in particular: It sounded more exciting on double bass, orchestral drums, and the lowest notes on the piano.

The Lux, for its part, appeared to have flatter frequency response and sounded altogether more serene, if you will—but along with that was also a sense that the Luxman's audible range was a bit more spread out, from bass to treble, in contrast with the Shindo, where my attention was more drawn to those bassier sounds. The Shindo sounded more exciting and engrossing on most LPs, but a bit over-rich on a few; the Luxman, for its part, approached but didn't quite match the Shindo's level of excitement on the best LPs, but neither was it ever less than listenable—in addition to which, the Lux was more explicit, in a very pleasant and nonfatiguing way.

As for that last quality in particular: I can't imagine how long it took Sir John Barbirolli to work with the musicians of the Philharmonia to achieve the nuances of tempo and dynamics evident in his 1963 recording of Elgar's Enigma Variations (LP, EMI ASD 548). However they were accomplished, the Luxman laid them bare, to an extent that escapes even the Monbrison. Listening to this record through the CL-1000 was a spellbinding, wholly engrossing experience: The house could have come down around me and I might not have noticed. Indeed, while listening to that LP—as with Barbirolli's famous recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto, with Jacqueline DuPré (LP, EMI ASD 655), there is no reason to own another version—I found myself inhabiting the recording to such an extent that it seemed almost possible to imagine the players' individual performing styles. That was especially true in Variation 7 ("Troyte"), the very brief Variation 8 ("W.N."), and the famous Variation 9 ("Nimrod"), in which the majesty of the music—not to mention Sir John's uncanny ability to coax from his colleagues/players just the right shapes—was almost overwhelmingly beautiful. And I would be remiss not to mention the Lux's spatial prowess in that last passage, as the sizes and sheer physicalities of the various string sections successively grew and receded in response to the crescendi/diminuendi.

In a very different vein, The Move's brilliant Message from the Country (LP, EMI/Harvest SHSP 4013) is one of those wonderful, God-blessed releases where a recording company appears to have allowed a few very young, technically green performers to come into their studios and essentially muck about—and the results, although technically/sonically uneven, are brilliant. But key to those results is a production in which some sounds—the vocal in "Ben Crawley Steel Company," the electric bass in "The Minister," and so forth—sound almost unadulterated and there. Those sounds emerged from the Luxman with colors, flying and otherwise.

After all that I went in yet another completely different direction and spent an evening listening to some of my favorite bluegrass records. Doc and Merle Watson's 1978 album Look Away! (LP, United Artists UA-LA887-H), which is not terribly well-produced—the metronomically unnuanced electric bass playing of the otherwise estimable T. Michael Coleman is way too high in the mix—was more listenable through the Lux than my Shindo. On Tut Taylor's Dobro Country (LP, World-Pacific 1829), the brilliantly quirky timing of flatpicking guitarist Clarence White came across with exceptional clarity, physicality, and drive.

Perhaps best of all was the album Skaggs & Rice, by Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice (LP, Sugar Hill SH-3711), which sounded amazing through the Luxman (footnote 3). This is a blessedly simple recording of two artists, singing and playing—acoustic guitar for Rice, mandolin and acoustic guitar for Skaggs—made without overdubs. And here, those sounds were just about perfect, in their lifelike tone as well as their uncanny spatial presence. The music had flow and, where appropriate, drive, and the rapport between the two musicians, as well as their enthusiasm for the program of old country and bluegrass standards, was unmistakable.

Speaking of hot guitar playing, my XRCD of the 1973 album Virtuoso, by Joe Pass (CD, Pablo/JVC VICJ-60256)—which as far as I know was the first-ever pop-music album of just solo guitar pieces (footnote 4)—has never sounded better than it did through the Lux.

It was easier than ever to hear and appreciate various elements of Pass's technique, such as his frequent use of alternating up and down strokes in playing arpeggios—that in contrast to the guitarist who most inspired him, Django Reinhardt, who relied mostly on down-strokes, in a quick raking motion across the strings—and his infrequent use of hammer-ons. And the tone of his big, hollow-bodied Gibson electric guitar was perfect, especially the rich but still crystal-clear sound of his lowest bass notes.

The last record I played before putting my Shindo Monbrison back in place of the Lux was the Universal Music reissue of Nick Drake's Pink Moon (LP, UMe/Island 1745697). First through one preamp and then the other, I played the album's last song, "From the Morning," and heard a couple of distinctions between the two. Strangely, through the Shindo, the image of Drake's voice on this stereo record physically overlapped the image of his fingerpicked acoustic guitar, whereas, through the Lux, there was a slight side-by-side separation between them, albeit not one of tremendous apparent width. Yet through the CL-1000, the lower of the two alternating bass notes that predominate during most of each verse wasn't as strong as through the Shindo, and the alternating pattern itself seemed less purposeful.

As for the sonic contributions (or not) of the Lux's various controls: As I noted above, the CL-1000's Line Straight switch is, in a manner of speaking, the doorway through which the listener must pass before availing him- or herself of any of the preamp's other luxury features. So I tried to get a sense of how its use affects the sound and in so doing discovered that the switch works by means of a less-than-lightning-fast relay—thus there's a second or two of silence between having the tone controls/etc. switched in and out of the circuitry. That made instantaneous comparisons a bit clumsy but not impossible. And as I came to realize in the days that followed, there are relays, and thus delays, in the functioning of other toggle-switched features, such as the mono and phase-inversion functions.

Anyway, yes: I soon came to realize that the Line Straight switch is there for a good reason. The sound of the Luxman CL-1000 with its various functions engaged is still good—but not as good. I could describe the distinction in audiophile terms by telling you that to kill the Line Straight function is to leach out some of the sonic color, to blunt the physicality and presence of sound images, and to make the sound as a whole a little grainier, quieter, and more distant than before. Or I could tell you the first thing that entered my mind when I first tried defeating the Line Straight function: that the sound with those extra functions out of the circuit was like having real sugar in my coffee, and the sound with those functions enabled was like a sugar substitute: flavors were a little more distant and chemically, and not as real. Take your pick.

Wrapping up
Regrets? I can think of only two. First, as someone who dearly misses the switchable twin phono inputs of my old Shindo Masseto preamp, I regret that the Luxman CL-1000 has only one stereo phono input; especially for this kind of money, that seems a glaring omission. Second, I wish this beautiful, traditionally styled preamp's wood wrap were available in a traditional walnut finish; to my eye, the red tint is rather too . . . well, red.

One more brief note before I close: During the past year, I heard someone in the industry suggest that Luxman's products are no longer made by Luxman and are in fact produced overseas—so I did what that person should have done and asked. According to Jeff Sigmund, the head of Luxman USA, all of the company's products are at the very least assembled in Japan, and the vast majority of them, including the CL-1000, are manufactured in Japan, at the Luxman factory, in their entirety. Which stands to reason: During the 20th century, Japanese industry distinguished itself for mastering the art of selling to Americans that which we already know and love yet have forgotten, and offering it back to us—only better.

One may regard the Luxman CL-1000 as part of that tradition—or one may sidestep the history and regard the Lux as simply a hell of a good product, at a high but not unreasonable price. Either way, it's a hell of a thing, and I loved every minute with it.

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Footnote 3: While listening to this album, I was reminded that audiophile Tony Rice himself listens through an old-style full-feature preamp—in his case, a Marantz 7T.

Footnote 4: I welcome correction on this point.