After allowing Luxman’s new D-07X universal disc player to break in for a few weeks, I began evaluating it in earnest after returning from one of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s occasional Friday morning concerts in Walt Disney Concert Hall, its home since 2003. This particular Friday featured our erstwhile music director Esa Pekka Salonen conducting suites from Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin ballets. When I got home I reached immediately for an SACD of the latter, recorded by DG in 2006 with the same conductor and orchestra when Disney Hall was just three years new. It’s a happy coincidence the performance was recorded live, as it made for even better comparison, eliminating the full hall/empty hall factor.

Now, I’m not about to tell you that what I heard at home came close to what I heard at Disney. Optimistic designers, enthusiastic marketers, and ga-ga audiophiles (not to mention some reviewers) to the contrary, no audio system I’ve ever heard, regardless of size, type, or expense, has ever achieved facsimile reproduction of a symphony orchestra in the home. A guitarist, a violinist, a string quartet (as Edgar Villchur demonstrated in his famous live-versus-recorded demonstrations with the Fine Arts Quartet in the early sixties), once in a blue moon maybe a piano, but an orchestra? No.

However, I did hear a recognizable simulacrum of what I heard just a few hours earlier ten miles east at Disney. The hall, designed by Frank Gehry, typifies the modern concert hall with acoustics that are bright, clean, and clear. Unlike the great halls of the nineteenth century, it does not have a long reverberation time in the bass, which means that it’s a top-down rather than a bottom-up sound. The bass goes deep but it is not warm as such, and it is not the kind that seems to envelop the orchestra or fill the hall. Moving up from the bass, the sound leans toward the neutral and bright. That particular day I was seated in my favorite spot (when it’s available and I feel like spending the money): dead center, first row, second section (called AA but equivalent to row F), where the sound is glorious, the entire orchestra spread out before me, all the several sections individually audible yet not in such a way that they fail to cohere. In the densely scored passages you hear everything with exemplary clarity of line and texture. While not everyone likes the sound of Disney (I know a discerning music lover who just hates it), I do with this orchestra: one, because they play magnificently (which means they don’t need a lot of covering ambience since they make very few mistakes); two, because it allows me really to hear into the music.

DG’s engineers nailed the sound the day they recorded the Bartók, Salonen was on fire, and the orchestra was ablaze, playing as if possessed. Above all, what the recording captures is the sound in the tonal sense: I recognized the character of the orchestra and the character of the hall. Also, the dynamic window is rather awesome, an adjective I rarely reach for. The Miraculous Mandarin, about three thugs using a young prostitute to lure men from the street so they can rob them, is a riot of color and instrumental combinations. Just listen to the opening where Bartók paints a portrait in sound of the turbulence and chaos of a modern city: rushing strings, piercing woodwinds, and stabbing muted trumpets. In the First Decoy Game, the clarinet, who is the woman, is all teasing, cynical seductiveness, the trombone glissandi, representing the first victim, marvelously sleazy. In The Third Decoy Game, the mandarin appears, with muted trombones against shrieking winds and strings, one of the most bracingly dissonant sounds in music of the last century. This is a truly vicious, even violent score, rivaling The Rite of Spring in sheer abrasive power, and should sound it. The recording is close; like the hall itself, it allows you to hear everything in distinct and vivid colors, yet also as an integrated pattern, with the whole orchestra deployed across a wide and reasonably deep soundstage. Owing to the proximity of the miking, the appearance of depth is less than what I heard in situ, but this is typically the case with most closely miked orchestral recordings.

I have several recordings of this piece. For comparison, I chose Susanna Mälkki’s 2017 recording on BIS, like the Salonen also SACD. BIS’ sonics, no less dynamic, bring a less proximate setup, with more hall sound and greater blend and naturalness of timbre. This suits Mälkki’s interpretation, which tilts in the direction of Debussy as Salonen’s does toward early Stravinsky. I like them both equally, both benefit from state-of-the-art engineering albeit with technologically different approaches, and both were handled by the 07X with consummate ease, control, and evident fidelity.

I was not in the least surprised by this. The D-07X derives from Luxman’s flagship D-10X, which I reviewed in 2021 (Google “Seydor Luxman D-10X”). The X series replaces the U series, with the 07X bridging the gap between the D-03X at $4195 and the D-10X at $16,995. Priced closer to the 03X at $9995 but in features, performance, and overall design and engineering much closer to the 10X, think of 07X as a scaled-down 10X instead of a hot-rodded 03X. As with the 10X and many other Luxman products, the 07X uses mass to achieve the greatest possible stability, rigidity, damping, and resonance reduction, only less of it (e.g., 10X’s top plate is 5mm thick aluminum, side plates 8mm iron; 07X’s 1.6mm iron and 1.2mm iron), and the chassis is a little smaller (in depth and height, otherwise the appearance and styling are identical). Not to worry, by any standards other than those of the pricier model, the new player is no lightweight, tipping the scales at 37.5 pounds and boasting the same outstanding fit, finish, and engineering. (I’ve never seen a Luxman product at any price that makes you feel you’re sacrificing quality just because you spend less.) The power supply is smaller but, again, far from welterweight and 50 percent larger than the one in the U model it replaces.

According to Luxman of America’s CEO Jeffrey Sigmund, the change with the most sonic consequence is the output stage. Although both players are fully balanced, the 10X uses discrete circuits, the 07X op-amps with buffering. But three key areas of the circuit are shared. First, the onboard DAC is the BD34301EKV from ROHM Semiconductor, premiered in the 10X and retained here, still in dual-mono configuration with full soup-to-nuts MQA rendering and decoding. Second, the 07X’s transport is the same proprietary Lx DTM-I, with its superior disc-reading mechanism. And third, connectivity and useable formats remain unchanged. Excepting Blu-ray audio, the 07X will play virtually any audio-only two-channel or hybrid disc on the planet, including MQA CDs. Through the USB inputs it will handle PCM from 44.1kHz to 786kHz and DSD from 2.8MHz to 22.4MHz (i.e., 512). The coaxial and optical inputs are limited to PCM 44.1–192kHz, with one fewer optical port on the 07X.

Like the flagship model, the 07X has the same pair of filters for SACD playback.. According to Luxman, D-1 is the normal filter, with slow decay and slow roll-off of energy pulses, resulting in a sound that is smoother; D-2 is high attenuation, with steep decay and sharp roll-off of energy pulses, resulting in a “clear, precise” sound. The company recommends D-1 for most playback. While the differences twixt the two are not gross, rapid A/B comparisons confirmed the thumbnails: D1 warmer, D2 more neutral. But clearly, personal taste will figure into your choice: listeners drawn to acoustical music are likelier to prefer D1; enthusiasts of heavy metal, hard-driving rock, or some of the spikier, more aggressive forms of jazz will likelier go for D2. Associated equipment will affect choice, as well. Most modern loudspeakers with rising top ends (which, alas, means most modern loudspeakers) would suggest D1, but if you prefer a more Yang-like presentation, I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

Like every Luxman product I’ve ever reviewed, the 07X, performed flawlessly in use, but there are two functional oddities retained from the earlier model. First, while Luxman allows you to access the D1/D2 filtering from the remote handset, absolute-polarity selection is available only on the front panel, despite the fact that ideally you should be able to switch settings from the listening position. Second, and even more frustrating, the player does not allow fast forward and fast reverse across track breaks. This proved particularly annoying when trying to compare how different formats handle the acoustic fade-aways of music into ambience, which typically occur at the end of a selection. If I didn’t hit fast reverse quickly enough and the next track was engaged, I had to go back to the beginning of the previous track, fast forward to near the end, and hope I was quick enough on the trigger before the laser hit the track end. Rapid-fire comparisons were thus impossible. Offhand, I can’t think of another CD player that behaves this way. What is most puzzling is that this behavior isn’t the result of faulty operation or defect; rather, someone at Luxman actually seems to think this a desirable characteristic and designed it in. Whatever on earth for?

The 10X was barely released before rumors began to fly that Luxman would soon be bringing out a lower-priced model that comes very close in performance. How does the 07X compare to its older, bigger sibling? Here I’m afraid I’m going to be less helpful than I would like. Well over two years have passed since return of the 10X. As we all know, audio memory is notoriously unreliable. In the case of these two players, things are further complicated by the fact that they have been voiced to sound as much alike as possible. All Luxman products go through a final design stage during which they are voiced by a single individual: Masakazu Nagatsuma, head of the company’s Research and Development, who puts each model through a series of intensive listening sessions that involves such processes as substituting crucial parts of the circuitry, such as capacitors selected from a tray of same, or tweaking the screws and bolts that secure transformers and circuit boards. Luxman’s design goal is for every product to sound—the words originate with Luxman’s designers, as conveyed by Sigmund—“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.”

During the review period, I played every source I referenced in my review of the 10X. On the basis of my notes and my memory, nothing I heard during the evaluation of the new model indicates it sounds different from the previous and more expensive one, which suggests that such differences as exist are too small to discern apart from A/B comparisons. Sigmund assures me they are there, notably as regards detail. One online reviewer suggested the larger model images better—bigger, wider, deeper—and that instruments sound more solid and real, easier to listen to, etc. This particular reviewer, like Sigmund, had both players side by side, as I did not, so I shall restrict my comments to what I heard from the 07X.

To begin with, while Luxman definitely tailors the sound to be musical, it remains within the bounds of what I call acceptable neutrality. Recently I had occasion to review Craft Recordings’  Super Deluxe edition of the complete remastered soundtrack of The Sound of Music. The new remastering is fresh, clean, super-transparent, and a little brightened up, as most remasterings in my experience tend to be. I auditioned the CDs over three different setups: an Oppo BD105 used as a CD player, a Benchmark DAC3 fed by the Oppo as transport, and the 07X used as a CD player. The setup that sounded most accurate was the Oppo/Benchmark pair, hardly unexpected; absolute neutrality and the highest possible accuracy and precision are at the core of Benchmark’s philosophy, with no tonal flavorings. By contrast, the 07X sounded slightly less bright, a little more natural and musical, a little easier to cozy up to, if you will.

These differences essentially held through all the evaluations. So this is not misunderstood, the 07X is in no way grossly, let alone coarsely, colored. It doesn’t slather butter or chocolate sauce over everything. As I’ve said, its presentation remains within the overall boundaries of neutrality, just that degree more inviting and easeful, a hint of warmth and smoothness, but applied with a commendably light and fastidious hand. As a general rule, it’s strings, violins in particular, where you tend to notice Luxman’s tonal shadings first. This is no surprise, as most of the time orchestras are recorded too close, and strings suffer the most. My latest favorite recording of strings is Vilde Frang’s all-Mozart Hyperion disc of the first and fifth violin concertos and the Sinfonia Concertante, for which she teams with the violist Maxim Rysanov, all accompanied by the splendid HIP ensemble Arcangelo, conducted by Jonathan Cohen. The string sound here is so beautifully captured, as is the ensemble as a whole, it doesn’t need the 07X’s ministrations to make it more musical, though I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the soupçon of sweetness it provided.

Next to strings, voices also seem to acquire subtly more dimensionality. The Sound of Music remastering demonstrates this handily, as does the Norwegian 2L label’s An Old Hall Ladymass, performed by the Trio Mediæval, a group of three singers reminiscent of the Anonymous Four. I played the SACD layer through the Oppo BD105 with excellent results in terms of definition, presence, and transparency, but when I switched over to the Luxman, a difficult-to-define but very subtly etched character disappeared in favor of a pleasing roundedness to the singers and a more relaxed and easeful presentation (I don’t mean “relaxed” in terms of the group’s performance, rather of the presentation in audio-reproductive terms).

This player does not, however, fall short when it comes to power, slam, dynamics, and the like. One of the reasons I began with The Miraculous Mandarin was to put paid to any fears the 07X is merely soft, laid-back, or lacking in detail and resolution. Still in doubt? Try the SACD of Saturday Night in San Francisco (Impex) or its streaming equivalent: three virtuoso guitarists, Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucia, at the peak of their artistry in sonics of hair-trigger transients, stunning resolution, and reach-out-and-touch-it transparency. As for detail and resolution in general, well, you will usually give up a little of those things when something sounds smoother and prettier. But since so many recordings, owing to the close miking, have far more detail than one ever hears in most live venues, that’s a sacrifice I make without a second thought. Further, the 07X passes my usual tests for detail and resolution with ease (e.g., Argerich’s fingernails on piano keys, the piano bleeding through Jacintha’s headphones on her Johnny Mercer album, countless instances of pages turning on ensemble recordings, etc.).

Speaking of streaming, I use an Aurender A10 (Google “Seydor Aurender TAS”) and a BluOS Node 2i, both of which have built in DACs with full MQA rendering and decoding. All the while I had the 07X, I used the Node 2i as a music server only, feeding the 07X’s DAC. Now, the Node 2i is an excellent player even without adding “for the money”; but the improvement substituting the DAC section of the Luxman made was impressive on both MQA and hi-res Qobuz, the music emerging with more life, vitality, and visceral immediacy.

Like the 10X, the 07X joins that small number of digital disc players that handle full playback of MQA discs. I continue to find this whole area of audio a study in uncertainty and confusion. For U.S. and European consumers, I’m wondering how much of a draw this is, given the limited number of such discs available, most of them pricey, the imported ones (mostly from Japan) pricier still. Then too, not long ago, MQA went into “administration,” more or less the UK equivalent to our Title 11, and was soon after acquired by Lenbrook, parent company to NAD, PSB, and BluOS, but as of this writing it remains unclear as to how Lenbrook plans to market its new acquisition. (Tidal, the only streaming service that offers MQA, has recently begun streaming hi-res FLAC files, hardly the most reassuring vote of confidence for MQA.) One of my issues with MQA is that when I corresponded with a spokesperson from the company a few years ago and told him I thought MQA at its best could rival SACD, he was thrilled, saying that’s something for which they were aiming. But since we have SACD, why do we need MQA? Well, of course, the answer is that MQA can presumably improve upon older digital recordings, but therein consists the basis of the controversy. Are the improvements really improvements; how much are the originals being altered; etc., etc., etc.?

I’m hardly going to settle those questions here. When Tidal offers the option of streaming in MQA, I use it. When I find it superior to the other formats, I stick with it; when I don’t, I see if there’s a hi-res option on Qobuz. If neither, then I enjoy standard CD perfectly well. Trying to compare SACD, CD, and MQA discs is fraught with technical impediments such as levels, having to stop and start the players again, inasmuch as no transports I’m aware of, including Luxman’s, allow switching on the fly, and so on. I described much of this at length and in detail in the D10X review, to which I refer you. I performed most of the same evaluations with most of the same sources and the sonic conclusions I came to there apply here as well.

For the purposes of this review, I acquired a number of additional releases from the already mentioned 2L label out of Norway, which seems to be the lone label that is most committed to using MQA for new recordings, most of which are issued in 2-disc packages that include SACD, MQA, and Blu-ray discs in both two-channel and multichannel. The repertoire is for the most part esoteric, even obscure, but the recordings are startingly, breathtakingly beautiful, engineered according to a recording technique and philosophy rather different from those of most U.S. and European labels: the miking more distant, the venues various churches with richly reverberant acoustics that really allow you to hear the air and ambient characteristics of the venues, and the overall sound in both the tonal and imaging/soundstaging senses exceptionally natural and truthful. I use the last adjective rhetorically, not literally. Obviously, as I’ve never been to the recording sites, all I can say is that the recordings capture an ambience consistent with that of similarly sized and appointed churches I’ve heard in the U.S. and Europe.

Inasmuch as the one online review made a point about imaging, I was careful to play my current reference for state-of-the-art recording when it comes to natural tonal balance, truthful sounding imaging and soundstaging, and microphone placement: John Wilson’s magnificent recording on Chandos (SACD and vinyl) of the complete score to Oklahoma! This was recorded in an actual theater with superb acoustics where musicals are regularly performed, the venue personally chosen by Wilson himself because he wanted a recording that would be as faithful as possible to the Robert Russell Bennet’s orchestrations without the usual interventions of spot- and multi-miking. Chandos’ producer and engineer Jonathan Allen has outdone himself here, realizing Wilson’s ideas essentially to perfection.

When I reviewed this release for Tracking Angle, I used the 07X. Here is a summary of my findings. The dynamic range is deceptively wide, so I advise resisting the temptation to ride levels with a remote handset. Start with the thrilling overture and set a maximum loudness you’re happy with, then put the remote aside and surrender yourself to the performance. Never once in this recording did I feel I was hearing levels manipulated after the fact at the mixing board. Meanwhile, the imaging and soundstaging appear thoroughly realistic. When the singers move toward the rear, they actually move in that direction, and you hear it as movement in spatial depth. At the very beginning, when Curly sings “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” he is way off in the distance—literally off-mic, which means that you hear more of the acoustics of the venue and when he moves forward he doesn’t come so close to the mic he’s in your face, and, once again, you register the change in level as movement in space, not an artifact of level manipulation at the mixing board. That is exactly as it should be, because it perfectly establishes from the outset an aural equivalent to the wide-open prairie space that is the first scene. In the “Out of My Dreams” scene between Laurey and her friends that precedes the “Dream Ballet,” the recording is so truthful it resolves depth between the singers to within a foot or two.

By way of summary, I find myself scratching my head about the D-07X for the same reason I did about the D-10X. At a time when CD sales are reportedly dropping while streaming and downloading are proliferating, why has Luxman released this splendid and splendidly versatile disc player? Is it possible that hard digital media might be on the cusp of what happened to vinyl in the CD area: a niche market for those music lovers like myself, and countless others like me, who want to have a non-virtual, as in real or actual or authentic, physical connection to the music they buy, that is, an actual object in their hands, with a nicely designed cover and informative liner notes, and the experience of taking it down off a shelf, opening it, and putting it into a transport?

Whatever the answer, the D-07X, like its more expensive predecessor, occupies a special niche in today’s high-end audio marketplace. It’s got a state-of-the-art transport and about as good a DAC as any I’ve personally had long experience with; it plays all the two-channel digital discs I own (excepting Blu-ray) to extremely high standards, likewise all the streaming and download formats; and of course its engineering and build-quality are second to none. Although it can scarcely be called a bargain, in view of all it has on offer it’s hard to complain about the near-ten-thousand dollar asking price. It’s a really great design and as persuasive an ambassador as could be desired for the continuing viability of the compact disc, the Super Audio Compact Disc, and MQA discs as music reproducing formats.

Specs & Pricing

Supported disc formats: SACD, CD (CD-R, CD-RW, MQA-CD)
Supported sampling frequencies:
USB input (PCM): 44.1 kHz–768kHz (16-, 24-, 32-bit);
USB input (DSD): 2.8MHz–22.4MHz (1-bit); coaxial/optical input: 44.1kHz–192kHz (16-, 20-, 24-bit)
Analog output: Unbalanced on RCA jacks (2.4V, 300 ohms); balanced on XLR jacks (2.4V, 600 ohms)
Signal-to-noise ratio: CD: 125dB; SACD: 121dB; USB: 125dB
DAC: ROHM BD34301EKV 2x (pair operated in mono mode)
Dimensions: 17.3″ x 5.24″ x 16.14″
Weight: 37.5 lbs.
Price: $9995

LUXMAN AMERICA INC.
27 Kent Street, Suite 105A
Ballston Spa NY 12020
luxmanamerica.com