Mark levinson 30.5 and 31.5 vs todays cd playerrs

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.

Wow, Levinson defense force mobilize! Levinson makes some good and some great products (for example, I feel that their 326S pre is something special which is why I own it) but that doesn't change the fact that many of their recent line of products simply can't compete in terms of performance with more contemporary products. If that wasn't the case, they wouldn't be updating almost they're entire line this year. afaik, the only products that will remain in the lineup are the 326S, No51 and an updated No40 (True HD and DTS HD MA decoding, etc.); everything else is either EOL (No32, 320S, 390S, 33H, 432) or will be this year (pretty much their entire line of amps).

Frankly, given the performance of the 326S, I can't wait for Levinson's new products, particularly their No33 preamp which will be going up against the Ayre KX-R to find a place in my system later this year (assuming the No33 makes it out in H2 08 as expected). If I didn't have the Ayre MX-Rs I'd also be exited about the No53 and the higher end reference monoblocks. It's time to let the old Levinson out to pasture and embrace the new and improved Levinson which looks like it's going to be a huge step up performance-wise.