I’ve seen many members describing the Luxman 509x and the m duo as warm thus colored. I’ve had these units and have never thought of them as bright or dark(warm). They are superbly neutral to me neither adding or subtracting. I find them to be very musical. A prospective buyer might pass on Luxman thinking that they won’t match up with many speakers. Of course they will. Neutral is neutral. It’s what we should want.
I have to agree with you, the Luxman’s are not warm, they have a liquid midrange and treble character that evokes the thought of tubes, while at the same time having tremendous extension in both the bass and treble.
Parasound’s A line for instance sounds truly warm to my ears.
Also, the Luxman tone controls are eminently transparent and useful. The Luxman integrateds are wonderful tools for those who want to enjoy their entire music collection instead of judging their entire music collection.
The vast majority of audiophiles, near as I can tell, what they call neutral is sterile. What they call detailed is etched. What they call top end extension is hyped tilted up and more often than not ringing. On and on, the whole vocabulary is corrupted.
Wasn't always this way. Time was, records and tubes, before solid state and especially before digital, everyone knew and agreed what was what. Minor disagreements at the edges. Always are. But compared to today? There is no comparison.
What happened was we stopped listening and started measuring. Real hard to explain why something sounds better. Real hard to develop the listening skills to even be aware of a lot of what you are capable of hearing, if only you try. Like that with a lot of things. Golf, tennis, racquetball, rock climbing on and on. Skilled activities. You want to learn a skilled activity, you don't just go and do it. You get a coach. You practice, practice, practice.
Anyway, people come along and oh look, the sine wave this ss amp puts out is way more sine-wavy than the one from the tubes. Uh, the tube sounds better. Shut up! This one measures better! You love distortion! You're one a them stinking IM/THD lovers!
But, it sounds better! Okay yeah but not really, its, uh, euphonic! What's euphonic? A word that means sounds better. What I said! Yeah but euphonic sounds dirty. We turn your love into filth with this one twist of a word.
On and on it goes, CD digital measures ruler flat, dynamic range off the charts, S/N lower than low, hey it must be perfect sound forever.
Any of this sounding familiar? Fed us the same damn crap with MP3, now with streaming, on and on, a whole new generation of unskilled listeners falling for it time and time again.
I never heard a Luxman. But I will bet you dollars to donuts you are right, and this is exactly the reason why.
In my experience, Luxman (integrated) amplifiers just somehow disappear. "Warm", or "cold" does not seem right while "sterile" is also not the word for it. I guess "neutral" really is the most accurate listeningwise. I have no idea how they measure.
Disclaimer: I have heard Luxman (more recent models) many times and millercarbon now owes me donuts. I am donating them to the millercarbon's homeless shelter or soup kitchen of choice. He will deliver it there.
Funny you mentioned euphonic sound. I had an argument about that. The expert told me that euphonic sound is nothing but adding audio crud to your system. With tubes you're basically dumbing down your system. I guess my Luxman tubed preamp is a big pile of crud. I was told to get a AVR for true sound and look up Peter Azcel of the Audio Critic.
Funny you listened to the expert, when you could have simply looked it up. Go ahead. Don’t take my word for it. I just did a search and came up with this. But seriously, do not take my word for it. Look and see for yourself:
Euphonic: adj. Pertaining to, or exhibiting, euphony; agreeable in sound; pleasing to the ear; euphonious
Agreeable, pleasing. Euphonic simply means what we like. Your "expert" did exactly what I said, took something good and twisted it around into something bad. Your "expert" is full of it. As they usually are.
He’s rather odd. He really doesn’t listen to music. Mostly test tones. Plus he has a group of friends that back him up. I spend most of my money on music. I don’t know about you but personally I think AVR’s and AVR processors suck on music. That’s why I keep them separate.
Completely agree with OP. When I first went to audition the Luxman 590AXII, I was expecting this warm, lush, rolled off sound. Why? Because that's what I had read about them. I was completely wrong!
Compared to 509, the 590AXII tilts towards warm, but only by a smidgen. After living with it for a few months now, I would say the 590AXII is fairly neutral with just a hint of warmth. And as Eric said, the extension on both ends is really amazing.
Previously, I had the Audio Research GSi75 which is renowned for its wide soundstage. Let me tell you that the Luxman has a soundstage that would rival, if not outdo, the soundstage width of ARC. It controls the woofers of my speakers much better. However, the one area where the ARC had a leg up was palpability and the extra air around instruments that only a good tube amp can give you. But in all other areas, the Luxman takes the cake.
For argument and sake of reference point, if you were to put Boulder amplifiers (and we still had the 1100 series here for comparison) as straight-up natural at 12 o’clock – adding nor subtracting nothing, with no sense of added tonal saturation, our reference Pass XS Pre/XA 200.8 is probably at about 10:30. With going to the left a bit on the warm/saturated side. The Luxman 900 series was about 11:30, with our tube references the PrimaLuna EVO 400 and VAC i170 coming in at about 9:00 and 9:30. I’d put the recent Esoteric integrated about 12:30 – slightly to the cold side, and the last few Simaudio amplifiers we’ve reviewed about 1:00 – even more clinical. The L-509x, like it’s larger separates has that same touch of warmth/saturation, without being slow or non-resolving. I wish I would have had the ability to listen to them both side-by-side and suspect that the L-509x comes very, very close to the 900 series in terms of sonic performance.
I heard the 509x and 900 series side-by-side and the 900 series was a lot better to my ears. A lot more expensive too.
Neutral? Maybe. Sterile? Hell, no. The thing that always impresses me is the detail, across the board, along with what I believe is very good bass control. And to be clear, I'm talking about the L-590AX. All of you have had more gear than me, I'm sure, so judge my opinion accordingly.
Gotta disagree on the 'euphonic' thing, miller. "agreeable in sound" is just a throwaway, it couldn't be a more vague or inept description. I think far too many manufacturers of audio gear are tweaking it with this in mind, pushing the mids forward, etc, and well, 'adding audio crud to the system'. Perhaps not truly crud, but they're altering the sound, rather than shooting for an accurate reproduction of it. Perhaps because their gear isn't up to that task.
It is not me you disagree with, it is literally the definition. That's why I say don't take my word for it, look it up. Your disagreement then is with reality. I know nowadays we each are supposed to be able to have our own reality. Good luck with that. Me, I'll stick with the actual, you know, reality.
Isn’t it generally agreed that euphony can be achieved by boosting second order harmonics? Nelson Pass did this with his .8 series of amps. Rolling off the high frequencies a little doesn’t hurt either.
I read an article about one of his recent amp camps where he gave all the attendees second harmonic generators that could be used to increase the amount those harmonics.
@Luxmancl38 Totally agree on the AVR. I had some nice two channel stuff for many years, but switched to an AVR like many people did and I brought a top of the line, highly rated Denon AVR that I never thought sounded good. I changed to McIntosh AVR separates and tried to convince myself they sounded good whether 2 channel or surround (for that much money they should have), but they never really did. I finally went back to two-channel with the Luxman 590AXII and it's been heaven. So how's it sound? I was expecting warm, based on the demo's and other 'expert' opinions, but to me it's simply neutral. I listen for hours to all kinds of music and it never makes itself known, it just disappears. As for all the descriptors, warm, euphonic, detailed, it's similar to describing a wine or a Scotch (wet dog anyone?), you're just trying to give someone else an idea of what it tastes like. You are not trying to be scientific, just hopefully helpful to them in their purchase.
“What happened was we stopped listening and started measuring“
I
have the exact problem dealing with this in the telescope industry.
What happened is they stopped observing and started measuring.
Now we have amateur astronomers who think they know more than they really do.
To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
No amount of measurements will ever give you the ability to look at the night sky and visualize your place in the cosmos. The phase of the moon shows you where the sun is, the planets glide along the ecliptic through their seasons, and if it is dark enough and the sky clear enough you can see the Coal Sack Nebula in our own galaxy the Milky Way. Something hardly anyone ever gets to see any more, thanks to air and light pollution, but if you ever do it sure sticks with you.
Trying to live pretending you get this because you looked up some numbers in a book is like pretending you have good sound because your mic and DSP tells you so.
I was pals with Al George back when he was building his observatory in the 1970's. https://www.tas-online.org/about.php All gone now I guess, along with Al, but what a time we had!
They are analytical, not warm and not my cup of tea. They are also way overpriced. So you get some fancy vu meters, big deal, those get old after a while and then you gotta live with that sound. Sugden is way better and cheaper. Yea, no flashy meters, but smooth, warm, and inviting sound. It says, sit down and listen for a long time.
“What happened was we stopped listening and started measuring“
I have never heard of anyone who chose an amp by measuring it rather than listening to it. Have you guys? I think the testing gear would be extremely expensive and require a lot of education to properly operate.
I think amp designers and manufacturers should measure the equipment they build. I would not buy one that had been built without any measurements. How it sounds is what counts in the end, but it helps to get where you want to go if you have some idea of what's causing the sound you hear.
I'm sure that Luxman, Rogue and Sugden products are measured extensively before they are put into production.
millercarbon8,246 posts03-21-2021 10:27pmIt
is not me you disagree with, it is literally the definition. That's why
I say don't take my word for it, look it up. Your disagreement then is
with reality. I know nowadays we each are supposed to be able to have
our own reality. Good luck with that. Me, I'll stick with the actual,
you know, reality.
I don't have a problem with definitions, I'm kind of a stickler there. I think I probably just got turned around one too many times between your post, and the one you were originally replying to. Also I don't really disagree with that whole 'reality' thing, not sure why you'd say such a thing. You have a lot of good stuff that you post, but people don't even bother to read a lot of it because of the condescending demeanor that comes along with it. It doesn't help, there's no positive component to it, at least for anyone here. If there is for you, perhaps some self-contemplation is in order. Lets sum up - I did disagree with you, although I may have misunderstood what you were saying. It's a possibility. I don't disagree with the definition of 'euphonic', nor do I need to look it up. I understand words have meanings. I'm a fan of that. I don't disagree with 'reality', I'm all for it. Nor do I have 'my own reality'. For anyone with an IQ above room temperature, the concept is absurd. You make a lot of assumptions, considering how smart you constantly claim to be.
No. You can have a big head, provided you have a) a smaller mouth, or b) a better filter. Or, I guess c) are okay with fewer friends. Being a jackass isn't all bad, but it will only get you so far. I'm speaking from personal experience. Take care.
"It is not me you disagree with, it is literally the definition. That's why I say don't take my word for it, look it up. Your disagreement then is with reality."
Who wrote the definition?
(just because it is on the Internet does not make it correct of worth quoting)
"I think amp designers and manufacturers should measure the equipment they build."
I would bet in those donuts that I won on millercarbon's bet above that all the serious manufacturers do. Those people are not Audiogon retirerees. They actually make something and need to make it good.
Not sure I would ever classify the Luxman sound as “sterile”. I have never heard anyone ever describe it that way. I currently own a bunch of current Luxman models, and I have always found the tonality to very neutral, accurate and ever so slightly on the warm, but very inviting side. My Luxman gear always has me enjoying the music as opposed to analyzing sound and performance. It’s great gear and is great value. I have recommended the L-590AXII to many people and they have been extremely happy with their purchase.
Compared to 509, the 590AXII tilts towards warm, but only by a smidgen. After living with it for a few months now, I would say the 590AXII is fairly neutral with just a hint of warmth. And as Eric said, the extension on both ends is really amazing.
I would agree with this post by Arafiq. Similarly I find the L-590AXII to sound very close to neutral, leaning slightly toward warmth. I have owned many amps in the past which include some costlier pre/power combinations and the Luxman L-590AXII is the first high quality integrated which I can live with for life. It may not be a Vitus, Gryphon or other uber-amps costing up to $30,000 but the quality really shows.
The Luxman L-590AXII sounds smooth, warm and natural whilst displaying good detail and a refined and nuanced delivery. The treble is smooth, detailed and illuminating without sounding bright or etched while the bass is very satisfying, showing good definition and detail. Basically a balanced reproduction across the frequency spectrum. I don't have experience with the L-509X but looking at your response I feel the L-590AXII Class A will better fit my Marten Duke 2 and listening preferences.
I’m not so sure that the top luxman integrated amps aren’t in the league of the more expensive brands mentioned. a blind listening test would prove very interesting IMO. Forget the prices and just listen.
I’ve had a chance to listen to Luxman side by side with D’Agostino separates. These two are so much in the same sound family of sound quality.
However, no matter how much I like them there will be those who are going to be happier with something else. I think surveying Ayre and Pass along with Luxman will help clarify your tastes and needs.
For me personally, I really like Ayre, but it is not at all the same sound. If I had a chance of buying Ayre or Luxman’s best I’d be really torn. There are also a sizeable number of people who once they hear Pass cannot be separated from it.
The good news is this: No matter what I personally like I am 100% sure if you listen to these three you'll come up with your own winner.
well i lied. i think that the agostino progression integrated has the best mids that i’ve heard in an amp to include an ARC tube amp. however i need luxman’s treble control due to some high frequency hearing loss. yes i’d rather have the dag with a treble control but it’s not in the cards. i’m happy with my 509 and it’s about 1/2 the price.
I’ve got a 505uXII and just acquired a SQ-N150 that I’m using with Klipsch heresyIV’s and just enjoying the sh*t out of the system. In fact the more I play the better they sound. Amp or speakers break in or both? Neutral, IMO. For what it’s worth. Enjoy the music 🎶
From my experience the 509X is as neutral as it gets. Very smooth and crisp, never fatiguing. Only thing I thought it somewhat lacked in my setup was the mid-bass and bass. I demoed a Vitus RI-101 side by side and with the Vitus it felt like I added a sub in the room (nothing else was changed other than swapping amps). This was with the Martin Logan speakers I had at the time. Same thing with the Gryphon Diablo. Both are double the price, so the Luxman is a great value for the money.
From my experience the 509X is as neutral as it gets. Very smooth and crisp, never fatiguing. Only thing I thought it somewhat lacked in my setup was the mid-bass and bass. I demoed a Vitus RI-101 side by side and with the Vitus it felt like I added a sub in the room (nothing else was changed other than swapping amps). This was with the Martin Logan speakers I had at the time. Same thing with the Gryphon Diablo. Both are double the price, so the Luxman is a great value for the money.
Eziggy, good comparison between the Luxman L-509X and Vitus RI-101 and Gryphon, presumably the Diablo 300. Although I do not have experience with these units, a friend who is in the hifi industry had listened to the L-509X and Diablo 300 and related the same experience. The Gryphon is said to possess the raw, powerful and dynamic sound whilst the Luxman is more neutral and delicate in its presentation with more focus in the midrange.
Perhaps your Martin Logan speakers require more from the amp to open up, or the Vitus and Gryphon are better matches to the ML. With less demanding speakers particularly delicate and detailed sounding designs, the Luxman work very well. Yes, the Luxman is value for money, that I would agree.
Have to agree on the Luxman, after several years running McIntosh gear and suffering with listening fatigue and Firmware issues I took the plunge after much research and bought the last L590axII at my local dealer here in Canada.
I’m so impressed with this integrated, matched with my Harbeth 30.1’s there is nothing negative I can say. I’ve been into audio for several decades now and this puppy is never leaving my rack. I look forward to every listening session. 😎
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