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Luxman PD-191A Turntable

Luxman PD-191A Turntable

Luxman’s new PD-191A integrated turntable and tonearm is a substantial upgrade and redesign of the PD-171A, the previous flagship. This is the second time in as many years the company has overhauled its record-playing products, only here the usual order of things was reversed. Most manufacturers bring out the premier model first then scale down to spinoffs more accessible to a wider market. But when Luxman introduced the PD-151A table/arm combination in 2021, it was priced under the 171A, which remained in the line unchanged. Yet reviewing the 151A, I found it in some respects the more advanced design, setting new standards for performance, engineering, fit, finish, and style that, at least in my experience, made life very difficult for competing products priced around or south of its under-five-grand retail, while challenging many priced north of it. Inasmuch as Luxman also appeared more or less to be allowing the 171A to slip quietly out of the catalog, I wondered if the 151A mightn’t become the de facto flagship. Not a chance. Good as the PD-151A is, and it is very good indeed, Luxman’s designers and engineers evidently felt the older flagship could be advanced to significantly higher levels of performance.

Design and Features

Owing to the high-gloss rosewood fascia on the PD-191A’s base, the publicity photographs make it look like a somewhat sexier 151A, but that in no way prepared me for what I beheld upon opening the shipping carton. Wow. Substantially larger than it looks in pictures and heavier (55 pounds), its brushed hairline aluminum top plate presented one of the most strikingly beautiful plinths I’ve ever seen on a turntable. The aesthetics are redolent of mid-century modern brought subtly up to date, but after it was set up and in use, I found it difficult the first few weeks to keep from appreciating anew its sleek, understated elegance every time I raised the dust cover and cued an LP.

The features are pretty much identical to the 151A: three speeds (33, 45, 78), a nice brake button that obviates the need to turn off the motor when changing sides, records, or speeds (speeds can also be changed on the fly). New is a handy illuminated strobe for checking speed, adjustable by three knobs on the top plate (once set, it never wavered through the entire review period). According to John Pravel, Luxman of America’s VP of Sales, “the newly designed and substantially upgraded motor derives from medical instrumentation and medical imaging, where precision motor movement, control, and reliability are absolute requirements. We routinely show dealers, staff, and end-users an example of this motor at public events. It’s way beyond the typical belt-drive turntable motor usually encountered and way beyond the kind of accuracy achievable with Quartz Lock since the early 1970s. The PD-191A motor drive system yields direct-drive-like measured/tested low-rate speed stability.” High-torque and brushless, the DC motor is supported by a float-mounted, fully regulated, large-capacity power transformer for greater stability, speed accuracy, and speed constancy. The platter weight has been increased to 5.2kg from 4kg in the PD-151.

A specially engineered synthetic thrust bearing is matched to a brass radial bearing in an oil bath. I am reliably informed that the thick rubber platter-mat, one of the best I’ve used, has acquired something of a cult following as a replacement mat for other turntables (Luxman market it as a $345 accessory). As with the 151A, I felt no need to swap mats. Assuming purchasers will have their own preferences for weights, clamps, or nothing at all, Luxman supply nothing but say the bearing is more than rugged enough to handle the heaviest ones on the market. Depending on the recording, I alternated among the Basis Audio clamp, the heavier HRS weight (no longer available—sigh), or nothing.

Luxman PD-191A Turntable tonearm

The motor drive-system and power supply are isolated within micro-compartments mounted to an extra-thick bottom plate insulated with thick rubber/polymer to absorb vibrations before they reach the stylus/record/platter interface. The four round, damped chassis isolator-feet are likewise an upgrade, offering additional feedback protection plus leveling—relative to which, these feet should never be screwed tight against the underside of the chassis. Leave a small gap (the manual suggests a millimeter—clearance for a few slips of ordinary paper does the trick). However Luxman have managed the combination of damping and isolation throughout the design, the reproduction is exceptionally clean, unperturbed, and quiet, with deep black backgrounds. Cue the stylus down to a stationary LP, turn the volume all the way up, and you’re met with no howl, only silence.

One of the biggest differences between the 191A vis-a-vis the 151A and 171A packages concerns tonearms. Shortly after the 151 was introduced, the integrated Jelco arm became unavailable when Jelco closed its doors (owing to the pandemic and an aging workforce), leaving Luxman searching for a new arm, which they wound up sourcing from SAEC, another Japanese firm famous for its arms (the Mk II suffix on the PD-151 tables indicates the SAEC version). This led to Luxman and SAEC collaborating on a wholly new design for the 191A. Two and a half years in development, the 191A’s arm was given a Luxman name and model number, LTA-710, because it will be marketed as a separate product. Not stock but available as an upgrade is a balanced arm cable terminated in XLR connectors. The LTA-710 has an S shape, knife-edged bearings, an effective length of ten inches, a removable universal headshell, and medium mass, making it suitable for use with a fairly wide variety of phono pickups. As with any serious arm, overhang, offset, tracking force, skating force, and arm height are all easily optimized and remain stable once fixed.

The only thing not available is azimuth adjustment. If this is important to you, your alternatives are three: a universal headshell with azimuth adjustment (LP Gear offer one, as do Ortofon and Audio Technica); phono pickups that allow for this in the design of the body (several Ortofons); or an arm with the adjustment built in. (A fourth is homemade shims.) While I am aware most vinyl enthusiasts cut pickup manufacturers a lot more slack than I when it comes to imprecisions in azimuth, I remain firm in my belief that any cartridge costing more than a few hundred dollars that doesn’t get it right should be returned. I used the 191A as supplied with at least half a dozen pickups over a wide spectrum of pricing and type and encountered no issues.

The other new feature concerning tonearms is provision for an additional armboard, another first, I believe, for a Luxman turntable. I use the word “board” advisedly. When Jeff Sigmund, CEO of Luxman American, supplied one for my 12″ SME M2-12R, it was cut from a slab of solid metal, chrome-plated, and priced at a breathtaking thousand dollars. As of now, the company supplies mounting plates cut for only five arms selected among models from SME, SAEC, Fidelity Research/ IKEDA, and Ortofon. Blank boards are available, but consumers must seek out their own metal workers to cut them. There’s an optional 4mm thick, hinged dust cover for $795—a lot, I know, but Sigmund told me he sought out custom plexiglass companies to see if it could be manufactured for less stateside; they took one look at it and said they wouldn’t even try to match its quality for that price. For what my opinion is worth, in a strictly aesthetic sense, to say nothing of the practical, the dust cover completes the package visually and functionally, nor can I remember a better executed dust cover. (It will stay open to any height and can even be closed while playing an LP.) But if you’re planning on mounting an additional arm, know that the board usurps the space for one of the hinges—in other words, it’s either a second arm or the cover.

Luxman PD-191A Turntable wood

Luxman makes a point of touting how good the stock headshell is (like the mat, it too is available as an accessory, $295). Taking them at their word, I did some swapping with aftermarket headshells, and in several instances I preferred the sound with Luxman’s: smoother, more neutral, easier on the ears. But something like this is so dependent on the arm and the pickup that global pronouncements, not to say expectations, should be studiously avoided.

Generous in size without going gargantuan—it will easily fit on most component racks (though check the specs at the end of this review for dust-cover clearances)—the PD-191A is an almost textbook example of intelligent table/arm ergonomics, the controls logically placed and spaced along the front, with a lot of room around the arm, which makes all the pickup adjustments easily accessible and quick to implement. In less than half an hour I had it unboxed, pickup installed, dialed in, and playing music. And a grateful nod, by the way, to whoever made the decision to outfit the armrest with a clip that locks the arm in place (as opposed to the typical press fit that sometimes allows arms to be dislodged too easily). If you’re at all experienced in turntable setup, you hardly need the manual.

Ever considerate, Luxman provides a pair of handles that screw into the heavy platter to facilitate lowering it into the shaft, while the belt goes around the perimeter of the platter, not under it; once positioned, a provided cover protects the exposed pulley—clearly a company that seems to miss nothing, including a gauge to set stylus overhang (something missing from the original 151A). The arm is static balanced, which means vertical tracking force is set by positioning the marker ring to zero, adjusting the counterweight so the arm floats level, and dialing in the weight by rotating the ring and counterweight together to the desired value. VTF calibration on the PD-151A’s Jelco was off by around half a gram; the SAEC’s is accurate, but I’d still recommend an aftermarket gauge. Antiskating uses the weight-and-thread method, with indented rings on an outrigger calibrated to jibe with selected tracking force (the helpful manual has an illustration identifying the value of each ring). In the absence of any industry-wide agreement as to the optimal way to set antiskating, the best I’ve found, and practically foolproof, is with the WallySkater, which also revealed the SAEC to be free from stiction (static frictional forces), worrisome friction, and unwanted bias owing to torqued arm wiring. Before I acquired the WallySkator, my typical practice was to reduce the skating value recommended by any given arm manufacturer by two-thirds to half, then trim it in by ear, listening for mistracking in the right channel. Lest there be any misunderstanding, the LTA-710 is no more, in fact, rather less vulnerable to these imprecisions than many good arms; it’s just that owing to their precision, I routinely press the Wally tools into service for every table, arm, and pickup I evaluate (see TAS 349 for my review, which also calls attention to a really good electronic stylus-force gauge that’s a super bargain to boot).

Before going on to the sound, I must appreciate again the engineering, the workmanship, the parts, style, fit, finish, attention to detail, and commitment to some of the highest industry standards of precision execution in every aspect of this superb product. Priced at $12,495, the 191A just radiates class and quality throughout, while in day-to-day use it’s one of the most completely pleasurable record-playing components in my five decades as an audiophile. Yes, yes, I know, this is typical of Luxman, but not so typical in high-end audio at large that we should pass over it without commendation.

The Sound

When I reviewed the PD-151A, I evaluated it through the perspective of four different phono pickups because I wanted to hear if it imparted any tonal character of its own to that of the pickups themselves. I used this approach because a cornerstone of Luxman’s philosophy when it comes to their electronics and their SACD/CD players is an explicit interventionist tailoring of the overall tonal balance. As conveyed to me by Jeff Sigmund, Luxman wants them to be “musical and natural, never strident or aggressive. They want you to be able to hear all sorts of detail, even at the micro level, yet without fatigue, for a rich, musical experience.” Every Luxman amplification and digital component I’ve reviewed (one integrated amplifier, three SACD/CD players, not to mention its phono pickup) exhibits these characteristics to some degree or another. However, the PD-151A does not and neither does the PD-191A.

As I had both ensembles in house at the same time for a short while, I was able to compare them directly using most of the same pickups as in the earlier review. They both performed outstandingly, neutral in the tonal sense, allowing each of the pickups to sound as I know them to sound in other setups with which I have long familiarity. That said, the two decks do not sound absolutely identical, but the differences are rather more difficult to pin down. For one thing, consistent in my experience with tables that are heavier—not necessarily larger as regards how much real estate they occupy, rather in how much mass they have, how and where it’s distributed, and how much damping—the 191A exhibited a greater impression of sheer authority. On really big material like orchestras with and without choruses, operas, hard-driving jazz and rock ensembles whether large or small, and so forth, the scale is more expansive, and grip, control, and stability are better, with a corresponding impression of greater ease, relaxation, and effortlessness. Add to this a subtler improvement in noise and the way the inevitable ticks and pops are handled: less obtrusively, less stressfully on the upper model, with correspondingly improved detail retrieval and overall refinement.

There is also a feeling of stronger pulse, momentum, forward motion, and a certain vigor, boldness, and vibrancy (where appropriate to the music), which I attribute to the high-torque motor and heavier platter. Try Ali Akbar Khan: Master Musician of India (vintage Connoisseur Society 45rpm), “Blue Rondo A La Turk” on Brubeck’s Time Out (Acoustic Sounds reissue), or the spectacular soundtrack to the Spielberg West Side Story. If you can sit still with any of these spinning on this rig, well, you’ve got a lot more self-control than I!

Now, I do not wish to suggest the differences between the 191 and the 151 are night and day. Assuming thoughtfulness in design and care in execution, a component that costs twice to three to 10 or more times another component does not necessarily perform those multiples better than a less expensive one when the less expensive one also benefits from similar thoughtfulness and care. Once a certain high level of excellence is realized, and the PD-151A certainly did that, further improvements are usually of a lesser order of magnitude. That turntables with greater mass tend to suggest a bigger, more expansive sound I’ve always attributed to the way they handle disturbances like external vibrations, whether filtering them or more effectively absorbing them into the larger structures where they are dissipated as heat. Greater mass, if implemented correctly, simply isolates or otherwise shields the stylus/LP interface more effectively. The same is true, all other things being equal, for higher torque motors when it comes to those elusive characteristics of pace, grip, and momentum. In all these ways, the 191 is predictably superior to the 151, which nevertheless remains an excellent setup.

The 191A arrived when I was in the process of evaluating several vinyl products, including three pickups new to me. Because it soon proved itself to be so reliably neutral a platform, swapping pickups with the requisite adjustments so fast and reliable, I pressed it into service for both my reviewing work and my listening for pleasure. Let’s start with the Hana SL Mono pickup (review forthcoming), which I installed in three different setups: my reference Garrard 301/SME M2-12R and both Luxman PD models (plus a couple of setups at friends’ houses), but I mostly I left it in the 191A’s SAEC, with which it formed a particularly attractive synergy: solid bottom end, rich midrange, and smooth, sweet highs. Playing the LP included in Sony’s big box Glenn Gould: The Goldberg Variations: The Complete Unreleased Recording Sessions June 1955, finds the piano perfectly focused front and center, the contrapuntal lines clean, articulated, and reproduced with new clarity, brilliance, detail, and resolution (Gould’s humming in greater evidence, his dynamic shadings more exquisitely rendered, his sometimes challenging tempos breathtaking in their combination of complete control and apparent recklessness).

The same holds for Ortofon’s Synergy G. The tonal balance of this pickup favors a full, extended bass, an even richer midrange, a mild lay-back in the presence region (reminiscent of a Gundry Dip), and a bit of lift way up high that adds a soupçon of scintillating bite and tingle. I didn’t have the 191A when I reviewed the Ortofon, which I mostly used in the Thorens TD124 DD, but the same personality emerged when I installed it in the 191A. “Day by Day” on the Sinatra/Billy May Come Dance with Me (Capitol) brings a huge big-band sound that really lifts the lid off May’s antiphonal brass, with Sinatra’s baritone caught tonally to perfection, while the G’s slight presence pullback takes just enough edge off the very bright recording to make the brass sound properly brassy but not edgy as such.

A century and a world away from Sinatra and May at their swingingest to Beethoven at his most sublime: the Budapest’s stereo recording of the op. 131 quartet in a vintage two-eye Columbia pressing. When this was recently reissued by Sony in remastered SACD, some critics remarked upon the very wide spread of the soundstage, as if this were a function of the remastering. In fact, that is how the original recording (a Columbia two-eye) sounds with the first violin far to the left, the cello far to the right, the second violin and the viola a little closer in from each extreme but never quite occupying the center. In the tonal sense the instrumental timbres are faithfully rendered, and the sense of involvement is complete.

Until recently I’ve had no personal experience with DS Audio’s cutting-edge optical technology whereby the grooves on a record modulate a pair of optical shades attached to the cantilever to vary the amount of light created internal LEDs striking a photodetector. (This is a very simplified description; I recommend everyone reading this to peruse any of Jon Valin’s DS Audio reviews in past issues for an exemplary clear description.) Inasmuch as I’ve been reading nothing but choruses of raves for the DS pickups, when Garth Leerer of Musical Surroundings asked me if I’d like to audition DS’s new entry-level model, the ES-3, with its associated phono equalizer, he didn’t have to ask twice. The raves are warranted, notably in the areas of transparency, clarity, resolution, and dynamic range, which are superior to any other pickups in my experience regardless of technology type or price. The 191A handled it with ease and rivaled my reference setup. The Sinatra/May recording it reproduced without any tonal softening, so the brass really leap out with an unvarnished brilliance that is endemic to the recording, the dynamic range really wide, the transparency unveiled.

Even better is one of the great opera recordings: Erich Kleiber conducting Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro (vintage Decca/London). Recordings of operas made yesterday, last year, over the last 40 years are scarcely, if at all superior to this 1955 Decca production staged for the then-new medium of stereophonic recording. Go immediately to the Act Two finale (side 3) to experience opera as an aural experience in the home with an immediacy, a vividness, an excitement that really does transport you to a theatre in the mind. This finale, which goes from duet to trio to quartet to quintet finally to septet, is one of the master tours-de-force in all opera. It’s a tribute to the excellence of both this recording and the reproducing chain that they all are rendered with no confusion, the three sopranos, in particular, individually characterized and so startlingly alive in flesh and blood terms. The soundstage is wide and deep, the staging of the action reproduced with rare verisimilitude, the Vienna Philharmonic in top form, with not a weak link in the cast, and Kleiber himself, at one with the idiom, conducting, by turns, a thrillingly dramatic, marvelously comic, sumptuously beautiful performance that comes as close as any of us is liable to get to what Mozart himself might have had in mind but certainly never actually heard to anything approaching the perfection of what is in the grooves of this glorious recording.

As might be expected, Luxman’s LMC-5 pickup is a no-brainer match. It has the typical Luxman sound: rich, a little weighty from the midrange on down, an extended top end, and an ever so slightly laid-back presence region that nevertheless does not preclude palpable involvement. In a sense, it’s a fully contemporary moving coil voiced to suggest a vintage mc (while tracking better than what most of the latter are capable of). Overall, the profile is musically natural, is at home with every kind of acoustic music, and still acquits itself well on rock and the more aggressive forms of jazz. I never tired of listening to it in the 151A, and it’s even better served by the 191A.

One of the reasons I was especially keen to review the 191A is that I am always looking for arms compatible with my Shure V15 V/Jico. Ever since moving-coil pickups claimed the lion’s share of audiophile attention these last few decades, it’s been more and more difficult to find arms for classic moving magnets of high compliance and low mass. (There are a number of excellent contemporary moving magnets, but they are made to be used in the medium-mass arms that suit moving coils.) The 151A’s Jelco proved an excellent match. Luxman don’t provide information as to the SAEC’s mass, but inasmuch as it looks to be medium and has knife-edged bearings, which many arms back in the moving-magnet days had, I mounted the Shure/Jico. The Shure’s much-vaunted tonal balance, essentially neutral from the powerful, well-defined bass all the way up to 10kHz, where it begins its slope, was in plentiful, gratifying evidence. Using the old Shure test record, the most reliable I know when it comes to checking by ear that arm/pickup resonances fall in the desirable 8-12Hz range, this proved a good match, especially when the Shure’s built-in stabilizing brush is used, allowing the Shure once more to assert its status as the champion tracker, sailing over that fiendishly overmodulated police whistle at the end of the Prologue on the original cast West Side Story (Analog Spark remastering).

Conclusion

At $12,495 the PD-191A falls into a very competitive price category that includes two recent integrated turntables which I reviewed with great enthusiasm: SME’s Model 12A and Thorens’ TD-124 DD. Inasmuch as none of them was ever in house at the same time as the others and the SME is now in a Mk II version, I couldn’t do direct comparisons. All the same, my reviews are detailed enough, I think, to assist in a decision to purchase should you be exploring this particular price range. Suffice it to say that since all three ensembles are easily competitive with each other and with the so-called “super” tables and arms, pickup selection will be the most significant determinant of audio performance, especially in the area of tonal balance.

So here are some practical considerations. If you’re eager to join the ranks of audiophiles who like to have two arms available at all times, the Luxman is your only option among the three. If you want a bespoke dust cover, again it’s Luxman (though you give up the extra armboard). The Luxman, as noted, is made for the fastest pickup swapping and has no quirks; the SME is its match in this regard, though the integral 309’s headshell is proprietary, not universal. The built-in arms on both the Thorens and the SME are best suited for moving-coils or other designs that favor medium-to-high mass, while Luxman’s SAEC can handle lower mass/higher compliance types.

The only thing I don’t like about the Thorens TD124 DD is that it’s so compact that arm adjustments require more fiddling owing to the tight space between the arm housing and the platter. That said, the Thorens and the SME are obvious choices if your shelf space is at a premium. If it isn’t, then the Luxman offers the most well-rounded combination of outstanding performance, features, ease of setup, convenience, classic aesthetics of mid-century modern style, and, thanks to the dust cover, a feeling that the product is really complete. I could happily live with the PD-191A the remainder of my days. It truly is that good.   

Tags: LUXMAN VINYL ANALOG TURNTABLE

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