Luxman C-02 M-02; quality, classes and heat.

[noobist]

G'day all,

First off, I have chosen my name with care, which gives you an idea of my technical knowledge.

I currently have a Luxman C-02 pre-amp (class A) combined with a Rotel RB 971 Mk II (class A/B) poweramp. A while back I was thinking about switching the Rotel for the Luxman M-02 thinking it might (obviously?) be a better match as it was sold as part of the ’02’ set.

I have no idea if a class A pre-amp automatically implies that the M-02 is a class A as well. I have never managed to find any proof of that. The bigger brother M-05 obviously is as it has two huge ass fans at its rear. If in fact the M-02 were to be a class A, it could produce quite some heat which could turn out to be a problem due to my somewhat confined setup. The more I searched, the more confused I got. It led to several questions what actually happens with the set up I currently have and when I hook it up to the M-02.

1 Will there a (significant) audible difference in hooking up an A class opposed to an A/B to a class A pre-amp?
2 Will there be an increase in heat in the pre-amp when hooked up to a class A amp?
3 What happens technically when connecting different classes?
4 Does anyone actually own an M-02 that can tell be about the actual heat it produces.

 

[noobist]

Botrytis, thanks for responding. As stated, my technical knowledge is limited, though I don't believe to have confused topology with stereophile ratings. 'Hell yes' sounds daunting. The current marketprice is kinda steep for my wallet to 'just try it'. That's why I'm trying to gather some more information beforehand. Obviously my preference would be to try it out at a sellers location, however most M-02's offered for sale are outside of my country .

 

[noobist]

Yup, I know this website. Unfortunately it does not answer my questions (as far as I know).

 

[Ds2000]

The M-02 is a class A/B amp with their dual feedback circuit known as duo-beta.
While it will not run anywhere as hot as the M-05, it will still produce some heat at idle. It relies on 2 sets of heatsinks and a heatpipe cooling system, so that needs to still be sealed with its Freon inside.
A lot of better solid state preamps have class A FET stages in them, and are used with A/B amps, so that's not really anything to worry about, nor is it any indicator of the class type of amplifier made by said company.

 

[noobist]

Ds2000, cool, thanks for confirming it as an A/B as well as the clarification on the A FET not being indicator of the class type. Much appreciated!

 

[Ds2000]

Just as a little clarification, the preamp may indeed be Class A, FET output equipped, but that doesn't make it usable only with a class A amp. Said pre will drive any type of amp with closely matched sensitivity. (I.e. Preamp outputs 1v, the amp needs 1v to reach max output.)

 

[highwaychile]

I own an M-02 (along with an M-300 which can be operated in Class A or A/B). The M-02 does generate some heat, but nothing remotely close to what the M-300 generates. I currently have the M-02 in my second listening room (Luxman M-2000 in my main room), so it's not used a lot. But when I had it in my main listening room, I would run one small fan on top of it. The Cool Components CP-DF or even a computer fan did the trick nicely.
Overall I'm quite pleased with the amp. But as you can likely tell, I am a bit of a Luxman devotee.

 

[noobist]

Thanks for the response guys. Although I don't understand it all in detail it gives me stuff to look into and to learn about. Cheers!