I can attest to the reference level caliber of the Luxman C-900u preamp having owned it for a couple of years. Both in build quality and sonic performance it is in the upper echelons, and there have been at least a few reports of it outperforming the top Accuphase preamp which is significantly more expensive in the US.
To be fair regarding their new pricing, you should realize that with Luxman now handling their own US operations they've eliminated an additional layer in distribution and the associated margins previously required to support an independent distributor. So even though I purchased it at the much higher original price I don't think it's justified to blame their previous distributor, but it's very nice for new potential customers to now have the lower pricing.
