Luxman CL-38

Whenever there's a change of ownership, Luxman suddenly (re)produces ultra tube components.

In the case of the CL-38 and MA-88, Lux was at the same time celebrating its 70th Anniversary and preparing itself to wave goodbye to ten-year owner Alpine.

Like the ten-year earlier CL-50 which inaugurated the use of Duo-ßeta in a tube preamp, the CL-38 has a Duo-ßeta circuit but ads STAR earthing topology and very modern goodies :
1,6mm FRP non-resonant base, Line-Phase sensor, 70µ glass-epoxy PCBs, voltage-stabilizing large chokes in the power supply's B circuit, relay switching of all terminals, an NF tilt tone compensator, super parts and ever important, the Ultimate Attenuator.

The latter is a big box holding two glass-epoxy PCBs etched with 32 non-magnetic P-shaped gold resistors - in other words, a device like that of the Sony TA-E88B ('76). The best where it really matters.

The line-straight mode bypasses the monitor switch and NF tone compensator, effectively linking the signal from the input relays to the ultimate attenuator ; the line amp is placed after the attenuator.

The circuit is a two-stage amp with a cap coupling cathode and plate and a low 20dB NFb level ; 12BH7A tubes are used throughout and a 6CG7 for the tone compensator.

Dedicated power supplies feed the L and R channels separately for both the line amps and the tone stage, plus another for the power-on LED ; all regulated, of course naturally goes without saying, and everything copper-plated and copper-encased, too.

No phono stage : E-03 necessary for vinyl pleasures ; to make some economies of scale, the CL-38 is housed in the L-500 chassis (or vice-versa).

The CL-38 was made by Azden, like its MA-88 monoblock companions.


A real CL-38 here.