Mark Levinson No.512 CD Player---Opinions

1.i believe that levinson never went away. 2. they have consistantly made great front ends 3. no 'cd' player on God's green earth is worth 15k...not levinson or the usual suspects......its very easy to find dozens of players (new and used) that sound fantastic(for a cd player) in a nice hi fi system....and you could buy at least 3 to 5 of them for 15k......that said, if someone wanted to spend 15k on a CD player more power to them....just as long as they are rational enough to know it is only a CD player (a player of cd's).

Jaybo,

Once again I find myself fully agreeing with you - a Lavry DA10 or Benchmark Dac1 can turn most any transport into a player equalling most 3K good quality designs (so can an excellent DSP for that matter). After this I suspect it is as much about taste and preference as to further subtle differences (tube etc.).

I have no doubt the 512 CD is absolutely awesome (I haven't heard it) - perhaps it may have just just the spot with Pkancel - the "synergy" thing. I'd be interested though to hear if other folks think the Meitner and Esoteric etc. have been dethroned, however, I think it takes a track record to determine this. If it has been around five years and people still love it then it gets added to my hypothetical list (as I very rarely splurge).

Hi Pkancel, what does it look like (the 512)? I have seen some pictures of demo's without a top, and the styling appeared to be not so elegant as in 'the old days' (390s, 380s). I have not seen pictures of the production unit yet, not even on the levinson website.
Furthermore, what were the other components auditioned by you?
Tecnically, I think it's very strong with the Teac transport - but I wonder which DAC concept is used.

Here are the images:

http://www.avcat.jp/avnews/index.html

I was very unimpressed by the 512 in comparison to the Burmester 001 in a demo earlier this week but I'll be back next week to demo them again against a unit I know well, the X-01 Ltd, this time in a proper environment. I really like the styling of the 512, it's just one hunk of machine, clean straight lines. As to past models, I never really thought much of the performance of the 390S.