Fully restored Luxman SQ-38FD 1973 - Excellent

Not often seen here in the US, this is an ultra-rare offering from the Luxman Corporation in Japan. This fully restored 1973 SQ-38FD vacuum tube integrated amplifier is an incredible machine. Luxman units weren't all that frequent in the US as Luxman did not distribute or market heavily against other manufacturers of the time. They considered themselves a bit above the rest and really had a following in Asia and Europe. Sometimes referred to the "Japanese McIntosh" they were known for incredible tube amplifiers (still are!) and, later, solid-state machines. The SQ-38FD here is directly from Japan and will include a heavy-duty step-down transformer (500 watt capable) so it can run in the US.

Putting out a glorious and full 30-watts at 8ohms, it colors the sound very little, if at all, but it opens up and sounds airy at the same time. The internal build quality is outstanding. All tubes, except the outputs, have been replaced with gain-matched units from NEC. The sound reproduction is so easy to listen to. Effortless. Distortion is rated at 0.7% or less. It has an array of tone controls for nice modification, or simply neutralize them and go rogue. It has 3 presets for bass and 3 for treble along with additional adjustments for each with the adjacent knobs. The pre-amp and amplifier sections are simply incredible-sounding. Phono is awesome. It also is excellent at mono recording listening. Even CDs sounded great via the AUX inputs. Hard to beat such rich tube sound. Note that the tone controls are very subtle.

Tubes in this set:

Original Luxman/NEC output tubes - 50CA10 x 4 (Test strong, %80+)

NOS Matched gain NEC 6AQ8 x 2 (all test above 71)

NOS Matched gain NEC 6267 x 2 (all test above 71)

NOS Matched gain NEC 12AX7 x 4 (all test 71-72)

(50 is considered nominal for these preamp tubes)

The original wood cabinet has very few minor dings and scuffs. It is absolutely excellent for its age. Simply beautiful. There is some oxidation on the metal back panel, but it is very minor. There are no indications of oxidation on the interior. This is a VERY heavy amp at around 42 pounds!

It has the following controls:

-Low cut/High cut filters

-Tone (Bass and Treble)

-Monitor

-Aux 1, 2, and 3

-Phono 1 and 2

Will be packaged for WAR. Double-boxed and insured.

See more restorations here:

timerider.net

Here's what was fixed/replaced:

Fully disassembled and cleaned. Inputs cleaned.

All capacitors on all boards replaced. (I only use Nichicon, Unicon, Panasonic, Kemet and WIMA capacitors)

New heavy-duty diodes in power supply.

All tube sockets cleaned.

All tube pins cleaned.

All tubes tested with Knight 600A, Tokyo Electric and Kyoritsu tube tester sets.

All controls disassembled and cleaned/conditioned.

New power indicator lamp.

4 new 5-way speaker binding posts.

Amplifier balanced with all new .75w trim potentiometers.

Runs on 100 volts AC with the INCLUDED step-down transformer.

Bench tested for 72 hours under a 4 and 8 ohm load. Supports 4,8,16 ohm speakers.