Luxman M-02 C-02

The Status Series M-02 and C-02 didn't begin their lives as such : they were planned as C-400 and M-400, taking over the C-300 / M-300combo, with the styling of the L-550 for the C-400.

Both prototypes were presented at the march 1983 french Hi-Fi Fair but were revised quickly thereafter to become the M-02 and C-02, smaller siblings of the already available C-05and M-05.

Unlike the C-400 which changed a lot when becoming a C-02, the M-400 didn't change much to become the M-02 - see the Invisibilia section of TVK for the one (and only ?) image of it.

The M-02 however saw an intermediary version which landed in the catalogs as late as 1987 (!) but which wasn't produced : same design but large finish differences, better specifications and a tad more power in BTL mode, too - see Knobber images #5 and #6.


The M-02 was export-only but technically directly reminiscent of the ealier M-120A : onlynot bigger and with good old needle meters instead of flashy red LEDs.

The circuit is basically the same : Duo-ßeta,Duo-Alpha, plus-X power-supply and two Heat-Pipes.
One crucial ingredient however changed : the450VA transformer is of the round core type :R-Core - quite uncommon in 1983.

Caps were upped to 2x 15,000µF and the structure was reorganized to visibly be dual-mono, the transformer and heat-pipes in symmetry near the front plate, drivers and output stages near the back plate.

Output can rise up to 300W in mono mode (Duo-Alpha) but with only one speaker terminal for both modes instead of the two of the M-120A - still plenty enough to go deaf rapidly.
But beautifully.

The planned high-end status of the original "400" combo was well kept in the M-02 : it sold very well and owners keep them.

http://www.thevintageknob.org/luxman-M-02.html