Does the Mark Levinson 331 suck?

kevin, i use a proceed hpa2, of the same lineage as the levinson 331. stupid question, but are you sure the levison is completely run in? my experience of the proceed is that is has taken many hours (100? 200?) to completely break in and produce a musically satisfying sound. also, i use a tubed preamp. the proceed is amazing in its slam factor; it is not "harmonically rich" (i.e., as stated above, pleasantly distorted). good luck and happy listening ....

I recently compared the Marsh a400 and the Levinson 331 and can not understand where you are coming from when you say the Marsh a400 "smokes" the Levinson 331 in every way. I found just the opposite to true. The 331 was more authoritive and refined and did a better job in resolving detail. The Levinson also provided better extension on both frequency extremes and portrayed a much more real soundstage.

Your Adcom preamp is a poor match with the Levinson amp. The Levinson amp will highlight the noise and grainy sound from the Adcom. Ditch the Adcom.

Walkingman,

I need to jump in here and state that I don't agree that it's his cables(Signal) necessarily. I'm using some of them right now in my system and they work just fine! Remember just because you spend excessive amounts of money on cabling that's basically using the same wire from the same source suppliers and slap a well know name on them doesn't mean they are the greatest.We've all been mislead with the cabling lies that we are told all the time.

I've been using my Audio Research/Levinson 335 combo for a couple of years now and have tried different cables with all different results.I believe it's his pre amp interacting with the amp. I wasn't satisfied until I went with a tube front to give me the sound I craved for my tastes.I agree with you about his room and CD player and preamp being the major problem and probably the major cause of his dislike of the 331, it probably brought out something he wasn't hearing before with the Marsh and since it sounds different than what he's used to hearing it's not to his liking?

A amp sounds what comes before it. Mismatch the front end then your amp passes what it was fed. A preamp gain impacts sou d quality of it is a mismatched for the amp. I owned the 333.5 years ago and enjoyed it. Was used with the matching preamp the NO 380S, and the speakers were the Dynaudio Confidence 5's. NOT Oracle cables. Was a dam fine sounding system.