need to service Luxman LV-103 integrated hybrid amp

[John Parkey]

Greetings to all of you. I am in the Seattle, WA, area and just picked up a Luxman LV-103 integrated amp. It works just fine, but I think it needs to be serviced. Some caps and transistors may need to be replaced because of age or just better transistors are available now.

Can any of you recommend someone on the west coast who may be able to help me? I am looking for someone who has serviced several of these LV-103 (or LV-105) amps before and are familiar with them and their characteristics.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Binkman]

Greetings; I think you're ahead of yourself without your own further testing and some play time on and off, if not already done so. Luxman is a good brand and you don't see too many requiring major service. Just saying if you have good input in separates and good speakers out? Some playing time... let the caps refurb and system balance out. No scratches and quiet idle etc... enjoy.

 

[blhagstrom]

I have a LV-105, very cool unit. Bit of a trick to work on.
The specs show this.
Semiconductors: 7 x IC, 43 x transistors, 10 x FET, 14 x zener diodes, 33 x diodes, 2 x vacuum tubes

Other than the tubes perhaps getting weak, if the rest is working, what part do you believe need to be replaced?

Re-capping is not a bad idea, changing transistors to newer ones is a good move IF the old ones are known trouble makers.

 

[peterh]

Greetings to all of you. I am in the Seattle, WA, area and just picked up a Luxman LV-103 integrated amp. It works just fine, but I think it needs to be serviced. Some caps and transistors may need to be replaced because of age or just better transistors are available now.

Can any of you recommend someone on the west coast who may be able to help me? I am looking for someone who has serviced several of these LV-103 (or LV-105) amps before and are familiar with them and their characteristics.

Thank you for your help.

Changing transistors will change the performace, and if you thing that randomly changing transistors will make your amp
sound more accurate - good luck!
On the other hand, (bipolar)transistors won't degrade. Either they work or are shorted.

The best investment is to burn some dollar bills and let the amp remain as it is, enjoy the music instead.

 

[John Parkey]

Thank you all for your comments. I will enjoy the amp for a while and see how it goes.

 

[blhagstrom]

Turns out John is my neighbor and we spoke on the phone.

He saw some threads were others have done work on these.

With a tube front end and all the ICs and FETs, its fairly exotic for its time.

There may be "internet" knowledge about changing things, but I see things on my bench that have been hacked on and there are times when that internet knowledge is just wrong.

I am working on an amp now, about half of what was done was ok, the other half just plain wrong.
I've corrected the mistakes I've found but things are still not right.

 

[kiwi_johno]

I've recently acquired an LV-103, sounds great.

Only problem is that when I cranked it up to around half volume, after a few minutes it cut out.
It was pumping out a fair bit of heat, so I tried running a fan on it and that keeps it going.

So i'm wondering if anyone knows anything about the cooling system on these things, before I go and open it up?

 

[simplynuts]

Turns out John is my neighbor and we spoke on the phone.

He saw some threads were others have done work on these.

With a tube front end and all the ICs and FETs, its fairly exotic for its time.

There may be "internet" knowledge about changing things, but I see things on my bench that have been hacked on and there are times when that internet knowledge is just wrong.

I am working on an amp now, about half of what was done was ok, the other half just plain wrong.
I've corrected the mistakes I've found but things are still not right.

I have an lv103 with the right channel out. no sound from headphone or speaker. Schematic shows a fuse f1301 and 1302, but can't find the on the board. Speaker was accidentally sorted so it should be a fuase. ez model has not fuse board or protection board underneath. Any ideas? Thank you.