What is the Luxman CL-1000?

The Luxman CL-1000 is a vacuum tube stereo control amplifier, which is the classic term for a reference preamplifier. It is Luxman’s flagship preamp, launched in 2019 as the spiritual successor to the legendary C-1000 of 1975, some 45 years later. The circuit is fully balanced and dual mono, with six JJ Electronic E88CC twin triode tubes handling the line stages, and it was designed as the natural partner to Luxman’s MQ-300 300B tube power amplifier. Owners on the forums put it plainly: the CL-1000 was made for the MQ-300.

On the front panel you get the classic Luxman look: a walnut wrap cabinet in a rosewood gloss finish, substantial machined aluminum knobs, and a fascia loaded with real controls. Balance, mono, phase inversion, bass and treble, and a demagnetizer, all as physical switches. This is a preamplifier for the listener who wants to touch the machine.

One honest note before the praise. The CL-1000 is a niche flagship, so the owner footprint is narrow. We found no CL-1000 owner threads on Reddit and no dedicated YouTube review of this model after repeated searching. The richest material comes from a long Audiogon owner thread, Stereophile’s Listening #209 review by Art Dudley, and a Hi-Fi News review with full lab measurements. What follows is what those sources actually say, quoted briefly and paraphrased, not padded.

Luxman CL-1000 specifications

A note on price. Every price in this post is our own price at All Elite Audio, taken from our product page. Our price for the Luxman CL-1000 is $27,995.

What does the CL-1000 sound like?

Ask the people who have spent real time with the CL-1000 and you hear one description with unusual consistency. Hi-Fi News opened its review by calling the sound’s most notable quality its utter gracefulness, and settled on a single word for it.

“It sounded, and there is only one word for it, silky.”

Hi-Fi News, Luxman CL-1000 review, 2020

The same review found a forensic quality that drew attention to disparate musical events, but said the magic was in doing so without sounding hygienic, aggressive or disciplinarian. The verdict was reference grade detail, neutrality and coherence, with the music remaining a seamless, mellifluous whole.

Stereophile’s Art Dudley, who lived with the CL-1000 for his Listening #209 column, reached the same place from the vinyl side. His audition notes called listening through the CL-1000 a spellbinding, wholly engrossing experience, with flow and, where appropriate, drive. He found it more explicit than his reference tube preamp, but in a very pleasant and nonfatiguing way, and closed with the line that has been quoted ever since.

“The Luxman is simply a hell of a good product, at a high but not unreasonable price. I loved every minute with it.”

Art Dudley, Stereophile, Listening #209

The soundstage is the second thing listeners describe. Hi-Fi News called one recording a holographic spatial event and said the sound kept reminding him of full range electrostatic speakers. An Audiogon owner running the CL-1000 in his own system wrote that he was amazed at the depth of the soundstage, with the music sounding like it was coming from ten feet behind the speakers.

Owners who came from lesser Luxman preamps describe the step up in plain terms. One who moved from the CL-38uSE to the CL-1000, driving the MQ-300, expected a subtle difference and found it very noticeable: richer, more controlled and more detailed. Another, moving from the solid state C-900U, called it a serious upgrade in musicality, like moving from digital to analog, with something more real about the sound.

Put together, the CL-1000 sound is this: silky and graceful rather than forceful, forensic in detail but never clinical, with a deep and stable stage and a midrange that keeps listeners in their chairs. It is the tube virtues of flow and ease, delivered with the quiet and control of a modern reference design.

Five things owners and reviewers praise about the CL-1000

The features people name by name

LECUTA, the transformer volume control

The signature feature. Thirty four steps, thirty four relays outside the signal path, thirty four taps on left and right transformers with nanocrystal cores. It is the reason volume stays clean and channel balanced even at whisper levels.

Line Straight

A single switch that takes the tone controls and extra functions completely out of the circuit. Dudley’s comparison is the most quoted line in any CL-1000 review: with the functions engaged the sound was like a sugar substitute, with Line Straight engaged it was like real sugar in his coffee. Engaging the extra functions leaches out sonic color, blunts the physicality of images, and makes the sound grainier, quieter and more distant.

The Articulator

Signal path transformers can hold residual magnetism, so the CL-1000 demagnetizes its transformer cores every time it powers on, and a fascia button triggers manual demagnetization whenever the owner wants an extra degree of sonic purity. Reviewers call it a welcome oddity that makes life easier.

Six JJ Electronic E88CC tubes

The line stages use two stage P-K NF amplification built on six JJ Electronic E88CC twin triodes, chosen after extensive listening for reliability, low noise, dynamics and a densely detailed midrange. Super permalloy core transformers buffer the balanced inputs and lower the output impedance, and Luxman’s own oil impregnated capacitors couple the stages.

The MM/MC phono stage

Six position switches on the rear panel set impedance and capacitance for moving magnet and moving coil cartridges. Owners call it unbelievable and a clear upgrade over the separate EQ-500. Note the honest lab finding below: measured gain runs higher than the printed figures, which actually suits low output cartridges well.

Real tone controls and useful switches

Bass and treble with user selectable turnover points, a mono switch, phase inversion switches and a low cut filter. Hi-Fi News notes the low cut filter is mandatory for vinyl systems because of a subsonic rise in the response. Purists can defeat every one of these functions with Line Straight.

The CL-1000 next to the Luxman C-10X

The most useful comparison we found comes from an Audiogon member who demoed the CL-1000 against Luxman’s flagship solid state preamp, the C-10X. His verdict was that the two should not be considered in the same conversation as like for like products. The CL-1000, in his system, did not match well with a solid state power amp and sounded merely okay there. With a tube power amp, it was a different story: very realistic sounding, with an almost classic tube character at a genuinely high end level.

That matches how we describe the choice on our product page. The C-10X is Luxman’s flagship solid state control amplifier, prized for crystalline transparency and low noise. The CL-1000 pursues the organic warmth, tonal density and dimensional bloom of a reference vacuum tube design. If your system is built around tubes, the CL-1000 is the flagship made for it. If your system is solid state end to end, the C-10X is the coherent choice. One honest dissent from the same thread: the poster felt he had heard better high end tube sound for less money elsewhere, and found the CL-1000 a touch colored next to it. Character, as always, is a matter of taste, and this is exactly what a showroom demo is for.

What do reviewers say on YouTube?

Honestly, very little that we could verify. We searched repeatedly for a dedicated CL-1000 video review and could not find one from any established reviewer covering this specific model. The CL-1000 is a rare flagship, and the video coverage simply is not there the way it is for Luxman’s integrated amplifiers.

What does exist in depth is print. Stereophile’s Listening #209 by Art Dudley is the landmark English language review, the one owners cite when the CL-1000 comes up in discussion, and Hi-Fi News published a full review with lab measurements. Both are linked in our sources below. If a video review you trust covers the CL-1000 and we have missed it, tell us and we will add it here.

What are the criticisms of the CL-1000?

A page that only repeats praise is not worth much to anybody, so here is the other side, exactly as owners and reviewers stated it.

• No remote in early reviews. The 2019 and 2020 reviews both noted the absence of a remote handset, and forum members called it a deal breaker. Two notes: Dudley himself said he detests remotes, and the units we sell include a remote control in the box, so this criticism belongs to the launch era, not to current stock.
• Only one phono input. Dudley’s one real regret. Coming from a preamp with switchable twin phono inputs, he called a single stereo phono input a glaring omission at this level. If you run two turntables, plan accordingly.
• The wood wrap is very red. Dudley wished the cabinet came in a traditional walnut finish and found the glossy red tint a touch too red for his taste. Look at the photos and decide for yourself.
• Lab findings on the phono stage. Hi-Fi News measured phono gain well above the printed figures, and found a 12 dB rise at 3 Hz that makes the low cut filter mandatory for vinyl playback. The extra gain suits low output cartridges, but the subsonic behavior is worth knowing about.
• Transformer volume controls divide opinion. One experienced Audiogon member passed on the CL-1000 because, in his experience, transformer volume controls can hide the last bit of low level information compared with a top resistor based volume control. Most owners love the LECUTA sound, but the dissent is on the record.
• It wants the right power amp. The comparison demo found the CL-1000 merely okay with a solid state power amp and superb with tubes. This is a tube preamplifier with a tube soul. Feed it accordingly.

Frequently asked questions about the Luxman CL-1000