The new Luxman SQ-38u has the longest, uninterupted pedigree of any high quality integrated amplifier currently available. It’s an amplifier with a glorious past brought right up-to-date and into the twenty first century to exceed the expectations of the most discerning music lovers.

This modern classic can trace its lineage back eleven ‘generations’ to a time of technological and social change. Ironically a time, eighty years’ after Darwin’s death, when it seems audiophiles’ faculties were evolving faster than he might have imagined, when many were beginning to listen with their eyes! Advertisements and equipment reviews told buyers what they wanted to hear so it wasn’t always necessary to make those judgements themselves. Fortunately there were a few who ignored the hype and ‘specs’ and chose products that brought the music alive - it was easy to hear!

Through more than forty years, thanks to a following of enthusiastic music lovers, the Luxman ‘38’ variants have steadily evolved to this utterly contemporary masterpiece, an amplifier that’s demonstrated its longevity and is destined to remain in music lovers’ systems for years, perhaps generations to come.

The SQ-38u is no simple ‘retro’ design although its appearance is everything we’d want in a superior product. For sheer quality of materials and construction, it’s simply incomparable. This amplifier doesn’t look as if its panels have been pressed, formed or moulded, it's clear to see that this model has been engineered, exquisitely, and its beautiful wooden case has been crafted, perfectly.

Of course the SQ-38u’s specification excells where it matters, it provides several features that are difficult to find in modern integrated amplifiers, including a very high quality phonostage switchable for MM as well as low and high output MC cartridges. It provides a balance control, outputs for two pairs of loudspeakers, tape facilities (you never know!) and the most subtle tone controls that can be bypassed completely. There is a mute facility which can also be operated from the remote volume control.

Best of all, the SQ-38u is a valve amplifier. A quartet of EL34 valves delivers 30wpc, enough to compete (demonstrably) with solid state products of 500 watts or more, and it will effortlessly drive most loudspeaker types. Where the Luxman excells, is in providing all the delicacy required for sensitive loudspeakers while, at the same time producing more than enough thrust to energise those speaker designs with restrictively complex crossovers.

Importantly, the Luxman SQ-38u can restore music’s tonal colours through systems which have become monotonously and synthetically ‘hi-fi’. Take a listen to the Luxman SQ-38u, this beautiful amplifier will not only restore your 'connection' with favourite recordings but with its forty years old predecessors still commanding an enthusiastic following, this new model could be the last amplifier you’ll ever want to buy.