Galion vs Luxman vs Advance Paris vs (anything else)

 @dayglow 

No problem . There are people that would buy McIntosh for the same reasons and never by a Luxman There are people that would pay $14K for a Hegel H600, and never consider a Luxman. We could go on with many brands. I just got rid of a $8K Hegel H400 and now have a $4.5K AP A12 Classic. It sounds much better to my ears, probably the tubes, plenty of clean power. Time will tell what happens with these newer brands in the US. AP now has a distributor, and has setup service and parts centers. Everything breaks, even my first Made in USA Fisher receiver about a million years ago, transformer blew, I was without it for a month ! The more choices the better. Galion is coming up with some interesting new stuff, time will tell with him.

PS, I may get a Luxman sometime, but maybe also a Sugden, Pathos,  Unico,,etc...

I’d go with Luxman. I use an L509X and it’s spectacular musically, from a build quality standpoint and usability standpoint. I can’t comment on the other brands, but Luxman has provenance. I never heard of the other brands. Doesn’t mean they are bad mind you, but for support and service Luxman would be better.

Now if you want tubes, I’d suggest a tube preamp of a good provenance, mated to a Luxman solid state power amp. 

After finally receiving my Luxman 550AXII unscathed, and spending a few weeks with it, I can report that my fears I’d made an expensive lateral move have disappeared all together. I would now solidly recommend Luxman. I am hearing textures and natural decay in music i never heard before. Wooden percussive and wind instruments sound real and present. (really struggling to find the right words to illustrate... what can I say I only have a BA.) Everything just sounds so much more solid, clear and lifelike. The last Class A amp i owned was a Threshold 400A and that was well over 30 years ago. But I don’t remember it sounding like this! 

Yes I’ve kept the Cary SLI80HS, for several reasons. But this Luxman... jeeze it makes me feel flushed just thinking about it. 

Yes, so as far as Advance Paris Amplifiers go, particularly with the A12 Classic and A12 APEX, I happen to own both, and can comment on the Build Quality of them both.

Most of the Build quality issues that are a bit less than "stellar", are from the Dial Knobs and the Remote Control. They are not the "heavy duty" style Knobs, as such that you would be familiar with say from a Luxman Amp or other units.

The Remote controls in terms of Build quality, Feel and Weight are also not as great as what one would hope, but otherwise they function just fine and have a very good layout on them.

The only last other thing I would say in terms of build quality issues, is that the RCA connections on the back of the A12 Classic, have a little more "give" then one would expect, however I noticed that this has been immensely improved on the APEX 12, as they are much tighter. It’s not the biggest deal or a problem, but just something to be aware of especially if you are known to push your connectors in hard and fast, I recommend going slow and gentle, particularly on the Classic Units.

The A12 series are definitely superior to the A10 models because they have Dual Toroidal Transformers and True Ultimate Mono Amplifier Separation.

The VU Meters have different scaling and have "White" Background LED lighting as on the APEX Model, whereas the VU Scheme for the Classic Model is Blue.

The APEX Model has a much better DAC and also is supposed to have much better capacitors and components overall. It is a very nice unit and I love mine.

I’m very particular when it comes to Amplifiers, and so outside of Advance Paris, I really look more towards brands such as Luxman or Audio Research.

But for the options and vast connections you get in the Advance Paris, including the Sound quality, it’s absolutely amazing for the value.

I use the Advance Parix A12 APEX to power the Revival Audio Atalante 7 Evo Speakers, and they are a very majestic match.

Advance Paris would definitely be a great Amplifier for speakers like anything from Wharfedale, KLH, Spendor or Klipsch, so the Wharfedale Lintons would really go great with them in my view.

The main difference if you go with Luxman, is you get Less Options, but absolute Premium Build Quality, and it would probably even outlive you. Luxman also has much better service for their equipment as well, so it comes with the price tag.