General Asylum: REVIEW: Luxman (Lux Corp. of Japan) K-112 Tapedeck by shpickering@yahoo.ca

Model:	K-112
Category:	Tapedeck
Suggested Retail Price:	$700 Canadian
Description:	Top of line Lux deck in 1987.
Manufacturer URL:	Luxman (Lux Corp. of Japan)
Manufacturer URL:	Luxman (Lux Corp. of Japan)

Review by shpickering@yahoo.ca ( A ) on March 14, 2006 at 20:59:48
IP Address: 216.113.204.78

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I bought this deck in 1988 after saving for months with payments on layaway. It was my first REAL tapedeck after many years of Radio Shack portable recorders. I got it home and was dying to try it out. I had a tape collection that was recorded on my brother in laws JVC KD-V6. I was determined to re-record the entire collection on my new Luxman with better fidelity. The Lux offered fine bias control which alleviated the issue of which tapes to use in the deck. It also had HX-Pro which helped the high end. Not to mention the better star circuitry and duo-beta. I almost always used Dolby C. I did a few recordings with it off. What I noticed was how warm sounding this deck was. Granted Dolby C still squashed the soundstaging which didn't help imaging. The deck had logic control which was kind of clunky. The tape head when stopped made a loud clunk. Similar noises when engaged as you could hear the mechanism moving the head into place. Also the rewind and fast forward were a bit noisy. Using fine bias with using your ear was not easy for me. I ended up biasing most chrome tapes around 2 oclock. This deck did not have an expensive transport system. It used a single capstan to push the tape and had hexelam heads which are a harder permaloy head. After some years my heads showed some wear. The deck didnt weight much. I openned it up to find parts from numerous other manufacturers which suprised me. The star circuitry was noticable. I did wonder where all the money went in this deck. I suspose the sound quality was why it was so much. It was a good deck in its day, but Aiwa had better designs for the same money. These decks don't command a lot of money these days. Before I sold my deck for a new Sony unit, I had a transport mechanism problem. When you pushed stop the head would not go down and as such the tape still was moving. This caused some grief trying to remove the tape or keep it from being chewed. I had it repaired and it worked fine after that. I moved on to a Sony ES Dolby S deck which was a big improvement over the Luxman. I'm sure there's others that still like the Lux decks for their sound, but the K-112 is not one of their best.

Product Weakness: Cheaper construction, not best transport, clunky
Product Strengths: Warm sound, nice circuitry

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	Denon PMA 300
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	none
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Thoren TD 147 tt
Speakers:	B&W 201
Cables/Interconnects:	stock
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Rock, classical
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

Product Weakness:	Cheaper construction, not best transport, clunky
Product Strengths:	Warm sound, nice circuitry