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Any Levinson 390s Level Players, But At Less Cost?

I'm looking to upgrade my CD player. I'm told the Mark Levinson 390s is the one to own. Granted this is a good player, but the price is more than I want to spend. They are available used in the mid-$4K range here on the Gon.

All I need is a good solid upsampling redbook CD player. I believe the Levinson 390s has a built-in preamp (?). My system includes a Classe CA-401 amp, Krell HTS 7.1 Pre-Pro, Piega P10 speakers and Analysis Plus Silver Oval cabling. Any and all recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
george3
danlib1
819 posts
 
As good as the Levinson is, I have another recommendation as long as you don't need the preamp function of the 390s.

There's an Exemplar 2900 player with the full mods including Siltech wiring for sale right now on Audiogon for less than $2,000.

I own one of these, and it's the best player I've had in my system- period. Better than the Sony SCD-1, better than I experienced using a ML 360S Dac. Btter than the Resolution Audio Opus 21 I owned- another damn fine player.

I would suggest looking into the Exemplar.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
3zub
24 posts
 
Ajahu: What are the differences between the ML 39 and 390s?
kw6
692 posts
 
Try a Linn Ikemi!

Good Luck!
ajahu
306 posts
 
Unfortunately, i dont know. Technically yes, but soundwise not. But ML 39 is very good. It has a very natural way of music making. At least in my set-up. I yet to hear better in its price-backet. I doubt you really could buy better cd-player-preamp in one box for less than 3000 usd. Maybe the APL modified denon or philips, but I dont know those models neither.
kchahoc
85 posts
 
The ML 390s was nice w/ the built-in digital preamp, but I agree it was too expensive. Have you looked at the AR CD3?
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