Mark levinson 30.5 and 31.5 vs todays cd playerrs

Noticed how Levinson dacs still sell rather quickly? I had a #36 a few years ago and still wish I had it.

THE levinson reference components you have are NOT dry sounding. some of the very best and most expensive of today's players will resolve more information, but having owned a 360s/37 combo, i feel levinson led the way in redbook-cd realism for quite a while. alot of people have never even sat down and listened to the ML gear at length (of course $26K or even $11K retail is not within alot of people's reach), which i feel leads to alot of the negative comments on audiogon about how crummy cd's sound. but now you can get a used ML-390S cdp for under $4k, and it's still an awfully good player. of course if SACD's are at issue, then you have to look around for something else.

Sorry, French fries lets agree to disagree, besides this is all subjective and personnal taste anyways, the ML digital pieces do sound "dry" and lack the liquidity of the best of the reference digital gear today. Even when I had the reference ML front end I added a DCS Parcell umsampler to get alot more of what I call liquidity and a sense of easyness without losing resolution in the total combination. A friend just replaced his ML-390Scdp with the Accustic Arts reference Tube Hybrid and found it hard to believe how much of a qualitative difference/improvement he got in his system.

Having just sampled the last 390S to come off the production line at Madrigal before EOL, it was obvious to me that the 390S is dated in terms of music reproduction. While it may be a decent deal at its used price, in terms of performance it was bettered in every way by an Esoteric UX-1 CDP during a recent audition of speakers (particularly glaring were the non-existent bottom end and complete lack of musicality). Frankly, given how dated most of the Levinson line is, it's not surprising that Madrigal is promising 14 new Levinson product introductions this year.

It never ceases to amaze me how many Levinson haters there are. If someone does not like their products or should I say they already have a preconceived notion they won't, then the negative reviews unjustly fly. I have owned several ML pieces and liked everyone of them. I don't own one at the moment but know several people who favorably do. They all say the same thing about the naysayers. Either they can't afford it or just hate the line. Typical Krell owners.

To tell you the truth a very good friend of mine who has owned more equipment than most of us will in our lifetime says he loves Levinson. He does not understand why people hate them so much. He borrowed my #36 dac a few years ago and did not want to give it back. At the time he had a 331 amp and 38 preamp.