Leben Hifi Stereo Company is a Japanese manufacturer of tube/valve amplifiers. The designer and owner of Leben is Mr. Taku Hyodo who has been ranked as one of the top eight tube audio design engineers in Japan.

Mr. Hyodo has worked for Luxman in the past, he once was a professional guitarist and plays other instruments. He is also a collector of premium valves such as 3CSS, 12AT7, E288CC, 6L6GC (5881), all of which are or will be used in Leben amplifiers. Mr. Hyodo left Luxman and established his own “Kouri Denki Co.”(production of electric/electronic components, parts & PCBs) in 1979 when he was 30 years old. Besides producing electronic components and parts, he also continued the production of amplifiers under “KFH” brand name.

The first commercial based product “TRIODE 33″(under “KFH” brand) was released in 1991 with  premium tube 3C33, and a first model under “Leben” brand was a power amplifier RS-35a (with 6L6GC) released in 1995, and then a preamplifier RS-28c (with E288CC valves) in 1998. Mr. Hyodo has started to produce lower-cost amplifiers such as CS-200, CS-250, CS-300, CS-300X to allow more music lovers a possibility to enjoy Leben’s tube sound without having to spend so much.

All of the Leben products are hand made with high quality components and point to point wiring. All products are still made in Japan, and based on a “Self-biasing circuit” in order to allow users to replace tubes without bias-adjustment and to continue stable operation.

The Leben CS600X is replacing the current CS600. As it is now difficult to obtain a good quantity of the 6CS7 valve which is used in a current CS600, Leben was compelled to modify this model to use a different valve. Consequently, a new CS600X is equipped with 12AU7A & 12BH7A instead of 6CS7 tube, thus the main difference of CS600X is that two tubes(12AU7A and 12BH7A) are sharing a job of 6CS7 tube and  some modifications have been made to the circuit accordingly. Leben still is holding a limited quantity of 6CS7 valves, so for now they will continued to sell the CS600 and CS600X simultaneously.

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