Luxman 3045 mb

It is an excellent design. Upgrading the coupling capacitors, feedback loop capacitors and the resistors (plate, cathode, grid stopper and feedback) brings them up to the level of anything you can buy today in that poower range.

I had two pairs of them around 1981. The only thing I hated about them was the old fashioned screw strip for speaker wires. I even bought some new ones but the guy I took it to insisted there wasn't room to install them. I am not sure in retrospect that he knew what he was doing. The old Lux units like the CL 35 and CL 32 were good and can be made better with new parts, but you knew that.

The Luxman 3045B is outstanding. Aside from the usual periodic maintenance (re-caps, resistors, etc.) the circuit is sound. I used these for a couple of decades with a stash of the original high power triode tube.

With this amp, you're pretty much at the limit of push-pull sound. The transformers are beyond reproach. Instead of trying to make the Luxmans something they aren't (you're already a half-step back by the conversion to KT88s), accept your amps are sensational and consider your next step moving to an 845 SET or P-SET 300B amplification.

Phil

I had eight of these in the late 70s. Aside from the output tube becoming unavailable, by biggest problem was setting the bias. Each night all eight had to be biased and this needed to be repeated during an evening of listening. I did not have them or the Fulton Premieres for very long, largely because of this, but I did like the sound of these amps.