Does the Mark Levinson 331 suck?

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. 

Great reputation. 
 Never a fan of Levinson. Something with the sound, just don’t catch me audibly. 
 The bass seems sluggish, and midrange is not as crunchy as it should be. 
   If you love the amp, enjoy!

18 year old thread