Thursday, October 29, 2026, 6 to 9 pm
In Living Stereo, 2 Great Jones St., New York, NY 10012
RSVP required: inlivingstereo1@gmail.com
Phone: 212-979-1273
On Thursday, October 29, from 6 to 9 pm, Rhythm Audio and In Living Stereo are hosting an evening at the shop, 2 Great Jones St., for the debut of the Luxman B-100 Centennial mono-blocks. We have been waiting a long time to hear this pair in a real New York room, and we would like you to hear it with us. Picture the room on Great Jones Street that night: the conversation drops away as the first track is cued, and the meters on the two B-100Cs start to move.
Here is what we most want you to hear. The B-100C plays in pure Class A up to 25 watts into 8 ohms, which Luxman says it reached with meticulously optimized bias current, before going on to its full rated 125 watts. In Class A design the output devices conduct all the time, so they never switch off and on as the music swings, and those first 25 watts are where most listening happens. Luxman credits this output stage with extraordinary power linearity.
Our co-host, In Living Stereo, is a hi-fi shop and listening room in NoHo, on Great Jones Street between Broadway and Lafayette. The shop opened in 2001, and owner Steve Mishoe has been part of New York's hi-fi community ever since, with Steve Cohen beside him for many years, handling everything from repairs to turntable setup. Records and analog playback have been at the heart of the place for decades. The shop's selection runs from Shindo and Leben to DeVore Fidelity, the Brooklyn loudspeaker maker, and In Living Stereo describes itself as the first DeVore Fidelity dealer in the world.
What we love about the shop is the way it treats listening. Its dedicated listening rooms are there so you can hear components working together as a system, tube and solid-state amplification included, and the team would rather you listen and ask questions than buy on specifications. When Gear Patrol visited in 2011, just after the move from the East Village, it found two listening rooms and a mezzanine in a vaulted space, with sound-dampening panels Mishoe had made by hand. A shop that puts listening first is where we wanted the B-100C to make its debut.
Luxman calls the B-100 Centennial its 100th anniversary commemorative model, a monaural power amplifier built to carry a century of the company's engineering and listening experience. That century began in Osaka in 1925. Luxman is based in Yokohama today, and master craftsmen still build most of its products.
Walk up to a B-100C and your eye goes straight to the meter. A large analog needle fills the front panel, framed in a design that pays homage to Luxman's legendary B-10 power amplifier, and soft white LEDs (light-emitting diodes) wash its face in a warm, incandescent glow. The chassis wears Luxman's Blasted White silver finish, with a thick front panel whose sides slant away sharply beneath a hairline-finished top plate. Each amplifier weighs roughly 135 pounds, and you feel that presence in the room before a note plays.
Feeding that Class A output stage is the most powerful power supply Luxman has ever put in an amplifier. The company describes it as a reserve of energy the B-100C can draw on without hesitation through the most demanding passages in the music, enough for an instantaneous peak of 1,000 watts into a 1-ohm load. Luxman says its goal is music reproduced with remarkable naturalness and effortless dynamics. That is what we will be listening for on the 29th, with the volume up and the needle swinging.
Joining the B-100C is the new D-100 Centennial SACD (Super Audio CD) player, which shares the amplifier's design language and its boldly slanted front panel. The C-10X preamp, Luxman's flagship control amplifier, completes the system, and its large machined aluminum volume knob turns through 192 discrete steps with a weighted feel.
The B-100 Centennial mono-blocks are $60,000 per pair. The D-100 Centennial SACD player is $18,995, and the C-10X preamp is $19,995.
We will be in the room all evening and glad to talk about any of it. If you want some background before you come, our Luxman page has more on the brand. Then come down to Great Jones Street on the 29th, take a seat and let the B-100C play for you. RSVP is required, so email inlivingstereo1@gmail.com to save your place.
