Luxman D-500X's

Beautifully designed CD player based on the rare Philips CDM-3 CD drive and multi-bit digital-to-analogue converters from... Philips.

The original D-500X's sold extremely well, was equipped with 16-bit TDA-1541A converters and 4fs over-sampling ; it had two pairs of single-ended RCA outputs (fixed / variable), plus a (cheapish) optical TOS digital terminal.

The revised D-500X'sII mainly upgraded its TDA-1541 with the double crown S2 version (yes !) while a complete redesign of the boards' arrangements provided a better signal path and componentry changes.

Besides the CDM-3 which Luxman surprisingly didn't use in the monster DP-07, construction on all three versions is truly impressive :

100VA transformer with five separate windings, fully non-resonant chassis through the use of sub-chassis & plates and the non-symmetrical disc compartment, massive aluminium top, 70µ PCB tracks, copper heatsinks, copper-plated chassis, PC-OFC wiring, expensive caps and resistors etc - a real high-end treasure.

Later replaced by the very rare D-500.

If you've ever used one of these, you'll probably feel like I do : I really want one !


However : beware !
The CDM3 is not available anywhere and nobody can repair or even re-adjust it. This includes Studer/Revox who used the CDM3 in the A-730 series.
Unlike the CDM1 CDM, if your CDM3 is dead, it is now forever dead.