Mark Levinson No.512 CD Player---Opinions

Has anyone compared this player to the top offerings from Meridian, Ayre, ARC, DCS ?? It seems to me that at this price range, the players from those companies are the ones to beat, especially the one from Meridian since ST declared the SOTA for digital playback.

I have this player running through a pair of Mark LEvinson No.53's. A lot of the reviews listed above are spot on and I am absolutely in love with this CDP. Conversely, and for a bit more money ($8k) I do prefer the other setup I have which is the Burmester 001 in its latest form running through the Burmester 911's. I have not been able to find anything to de-throne the Burmester setup but I keep trying. I believe the No.512 to be the best out there at the $15k price point. I have also recently A/B'ed this with the Meridian 808.2 and can see why there is so much credit being given to that player but it is simply not quite for me.

Does anybody know if Stereophile magazine reviewed Mark Levinsons Super Audio CD/cd player No512?

Pkancel, what music do you listen to? Could you give me some specifics? What speakers do you use primarly?

First Stereophile has not reviewed the 512.

Bad news about the 512.

The last week in February, I went to play a cd on my 512 and the left channel had failed. Very soon, the left channel for the SACD playback would fail too.

My dealer did everything right and everything a dealer should do! And more! He kept pestering ML and they did not respond with an answer nor with a “RA” for over a month, but krept promising they’d get right back to him

Finally, I also called ML. Three weeks after I called I got a RA but learned that virtually all of the 512s had failed! The failure was so complete that all the units were being replaced, not repaired. I was told that something was failing on the grounding, the electronics that made it so silent on playback was shorting out.

I got back a new unit on Thursday. It is interesting that the items on the 512's display have changed. When you turn it on it says "Esoteric" not "Mark Levenson 512". It also says SACD 2 Ch instead of just SACD when an SACD was being played. ML assured me that that was just due to a software update, they use Esoteric transport, and will not affect their sound.

It’s just not what a company wants, advertising the competitor, I bet.

It sounds fine, but now I will have to wait some time to make sure.