No one in my family can remember when exactly tragedy struck. But the weight of that day never left us. Somewhere between 25 and 30 years ago, our prized Luxman R-117 went on the fritz, somehow losing a channel and leaving us with only memories of its lush, musical output. Would have looked into getting it fixed a lot sooner, but circumstances conspired to keep us Luxman-less, I think, mostly because of the turn to surround-sound systems as home theaters began taking hold of the AV market. I missed the power, the fullness and frequency response of what I believe remains the Ultimate Power Receiver. I bought ours in 1987, the outerfringe of the classic receiver era. So this time, now that I’m retired, almost 40 years later, I’m was committed to bringing our Luxman back to its glory. But where to start and who to trust?
After a brief Internet search, I found the man who actually sold me our Luxman was still in the AV business. None other than Bill Behren of Behren’s Audio/Video. I believe his place was called Behren’s Audio Lab back in the day. Bill had just the guy in mind, Dennis Sardilli who owns Audio 3000 on Jacksonville’s Southside. In fact, Dennis used to work for Bill in the 80’s repairing equipment. Dennis returned my phone message 2 minutes after I left it. At the get-go I could tell he had a soft spot for the Luxman line, walking me through the R-117’s functionality, and where he knew to look for issues. A day later, Dennis called to say she was ready for pickup. When I got there, he went step-by-step through each feature, dial and push button…showing me each one, once again, working as I remembered them. His invoice was very detailed with what all he did and what he replaced — AND the machine was as clean as a whistle. Dennis knows his stuff. No question about it. I highly recommend.