Luxman M-800A - 2 Top Off/Stock Photo

The M-800A and it's monster big brother the B-1000F were developed as part of their 80th anniversary celebration and signaled them also attempting to be part of the US high end market again. 

A few years ago when I was in a fairly constant upgrade cycle and, at the time, had a pair of the Thiel CS3.7 that don't allow bi-amping so I was looking for something with a bit more muscle and leaning towards monoblocks. An online seller that deals with mostly used high-end items had two of these listed. One was near perfect and the other had a significant but not unsightly gouge in one side panel so I could have gotten the pair (they bridge into pretty beastly monos) for well under what the MSRP for one had been. My general rule is that I can rationalize throwing down a fair chunk of change on gear so long as I feel confident that I can get most or all of that money back out of it if I sell it on at some point. And that was the problem.

With Luxman really just back in the US market and no real guarantees the new ownership was fully  committed to re-establishing them in the high end market I was afraid they would disappear and kill the value of the limited line they had released at that time. While anguishing in indecision over the 800s a pair of very nice Marantz MA-9S2 showed up at Audioclassics with a great price relative to the original MSRP so picked those up and lived happily with them for a number of years. 

But I had spent enough time obsessing over the Luxman and reading through every bit of information about them I could find online .... the M-800A always stayed in the back of my mind to keep an eye out for but you just never see them for sale any more.