Took my Levinson amp in for repair

While all of the above posts are interesting, it seems the best course of action is to immediately take the amplifier to a Mark Levinson authorized repair shop. If it were me, I would rush my amplifier to the closest Levinson authorized repair shop for an opinion and an estimated written cost to repair. One question to ask is what damage, if any, did the leaking caps do to the wiring, other parts, etc. Unfortunately, you might have to ship it to another location (I do not know).

After reading everyone comments above, my sense is you cannot sue the dealer that you first took the amplifier to.

I do not know the age of your amplifier but I would be careful about spending big dollars for its repair. The problem is if something 'major" goes wrong today, other things might break tomorrow. Depending on the repair cost, and the opinion of the repair technician, I would ask about replacing your current broken Levinson amp with another amplifier assuming the retailer can give you a reasonable trade in on your old one. If your amplifier is very old, I question making expensive repairs. Please let us know what happens.

The caps were already blown (the noise coming out of your left channel). The smoke may be caused by the leak that spilled over some parts during transport (or when it got flipped over) and caused a short somewhere. It is a well documented issue with the 300 series amps.

I had firsthand experience with the amp and Levinson "service" and reported my experience a few years back. The Levinson tech told me it was a design issue (capacitor driven too hard). They had switched capacitor supplier a few times to try to get better caps that could handle the load without blowing up. My amp got serviced 3 times through an 8-year period.

A few years back, after all these complaints started surfacing, Mark Levinson extended the warranty on the 300 series amps for another 5 years. You may want to contact them to see if your amp is still under warranty. If not, the cost will be $2k or more. Check first as shipping may be separate and will surely add another $500 (both ways).

FrankC

I copied this info from the Mark Levinson web site for a list of their service partners:

Service Centers

We take great pride in our Service Partners. Their experience and dedication make these professionals ideally suited to assist with our customers’ service needs.
If your component must be serviced, please contact one of our service centers by choosing from the list below.

*INTL and USA service forms are available for download - listed below after Service Centers list*

George Meyer A/V
12418 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 820-1113
georgemeyer00@aol.com
http://www.georgemeyer-av.com

Pyramid Audio
305 East Braker Lane
Austin, TX 78753
(512) 458-8292
tech@pyramid-audio.com
http://www.pyramid-audio.com

Technetron
36 East 29th Street
New York, NY 10016
(212) 725-8778
technetron@mail.com

The Service Bench
194 Vanderbilt Ave
Norwood, MA 02062
(781) 769-4337
hsgservice@hometheaterconcepts.com
http://www.hometheaterconcepts.com

United Radio
5717 Enterprise Parkway
East Syracuse, NY 13057
Toll-free: 800-634-8606
(315) 446-8700
customerservice@unitedradio.com
http://www.unitedradio.com

I've had very good service from The Service Bench. I'm not affiliated with them and don't even live in Mass.

What agreement did you have with this repair shop?

What was documented when dropping it off?

Any witnesses that saw the unit working while in their possesion?

You can do something about this IF you have some good documentation. They have in their possesion an amp that they may have never been able to fix in the first place.

Negligence could be that they can't work on this type of amp but took a chance anyways.