).
Peranders:
The E-03 was mainly designed for cost-performance (it retailed for 120,000 yen), and was most certainly not about the ultimate performance. Interestingly, Luxman chose to build this as two completely separate equalizer circuits, one for MM, and the other for MC.
As Peter Daniels suggested, the circuit itself was an ordinary dual differential, with two dual 2SK389 JFETs for the front end of the MM equalizer, and 4 2SK389s for the MC equalizer. The second-stage differential used low-noise dual PNP BJTs (feeding a Widlar current mirror), and in general, low noise operation appears to have been a major goal. The passive EQ parts were custom-made for the product, being copper-foil polysterene caps that were inserted into copper tubing, potted and dampened. All in all, it appears that given the budget, Luxman tried to do a good job. And for the price and the vintage (1994), it was a credible performer.
The obvious problem of the E03 would be the redundant measures that Luxman implemented to get rid of DC offset - AC-coupled NFB loops in addition to AC-coupled outputs.
FWIW, Luxman had another phono stage with push-pull folded cascode circuitry that sounded considerably better, as far as I recall. The model name eludes me right now, but I do believe that it retailed for about twice the price of the E-03.
regards, jonathan carr
The E-03 was mainly designed for cost-performance (it retailed for 120,000 yen), and was most certainly not about the ultimate performance. Interestingly, Luxman chose to build this as two completely separate equalizer circuits, one for MM, and the other for MC.
As Peter Daniels suggested, the circuit itself was an ordinary dual differential, with two dual 2SK389 JFETs for the front end of the MM equalizer, and 4 2SK389s for the MC equalizer. The second-stage differential used low-noise dual PNP BJTs (feeding a Widlar current mirror), and in general, low noise operation appears to have been a major goal. The passive EQ parts were custom-made for the product, being copper-foil polysterene caps that were inserted into copper tubing, potted and dampened. All in all, it appears that given the budget, Luxman tried to do a good job. And for the price and the vintage (1994), it was a credible performer.
The obvious problem of the E03 would be the redundant measures that Luxman implemented to get rid of DC offset - AC-coupled NFB loops in addition to AC-coupled outputs.
FWIW, Luxman had another phono stage with push-pull folded cascode circuitry that sounded considerably better, as far as I recall. The model name eludes me right now, but I do believe that it retailed for about twice the price of the E-03.
regards, jonathan carr
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