i'm not a business major either, but my concern is that Mark Levinson survives and grows. a friend of mine tells me that the cost of repairing a ML component (one that you would really like to continue using in your system) is expensive- unfairly so. i have to agree they seem to be charging customers a lot of money. plus they never developed SACD or a universal player. OTOH, the absolute sound thought the new 326S preamp was outstanding. i wish they had listened to the optional phono modules as well- so far as i know no one has reviewed those.
i presently own 33H monoblocks, and in spite of their "aged" design, and the fact that one of them has stopped working and is going to cost me dearly to repair, they sound markedly better than several very good amps i have had IN MY SYSTEM before. my speakers are very revealing, and in all honesty, there's never been a time that i have wished for better amplifiers to drive them. which would seem to indicate that, at least for me, they would be difficult to beat without spending a great deal of money, AND probably having to go with high-powered (high-maintainance?) tube amps. maybe Dartzeel will make monoblocks someday- but they also might cost close to $40k...
but again, my point is, that without that Mark Levinson logo in the mix of high-end audio, (at least for me) it would be a huge loss- this is a company that has predominantly chosen INTERNAL design changes over cosmetic changes over the course of their history. they have also taken many of the ideas and technological improvements from their more expensive models and later encorporated them into their more affordable ones. other than audio research, mcintosh, and _____, there's a relatively short list of companies that have maintained excellence and avoided flashy marketing decisions. so it is my hope they will thrive and continue to develop new components, with an inner circle of trained ears to decide what to encorporate into those components, as they supposedly did in the past.
i recall a review that stereophile did awhile back comparing DAC's from several companies, including a Burmeister model costing over $30,000, and several less expensive models, including a ML-360 (without the arlon circuit boards in the 360S). they concluded after listening to the levinson that it was way too close to the burmeister's sound quality for comfort, even though it lacked some features and a beautiful mirror-finished siver cabinet. the reviewer frankly could not justify spending the extra money, unless you just "had to have" the more exotic component for reasons more personal than objective.
maybe the reviewer was a bit off in his conclusions. but i rejoiced the strong probability that Levinson did a great job in designing the 360, and that, even if IT was too expensive for some folks, it might be something to save up for when your present CDP wears out.
as for me, many years ago i worked (literally) my way up from a denon amp to a hafler, and finally to a traded-in Levinson 23.5. i thought it was the most beautiful amplifier i'd ever seen, and it really smooshed the hafler pretty badly (an XL-600- 300W/CH). instrumental textures were so much better, the overall realism of the music was so superior that it wasn't even funny. and the hafler had plenty of power, so i didn't even care about that at the time. one of my friends told me the hafler had perfect square waves, and (therefore) the levinson was simply a huge waste of money, that i got "sucked in" to the big lie that the expensive equipment manufacturers conjure up to make alot of money off of people who don't know much about the actual costs of designing and building circuits and putting them in a "pretty box". he had the money if he'd wanted a krell or a rowland, etc., but he didn't even want to hear the amp- i mean, what if it turned out he was wrong? so he simply considered me to be a fool. maybe so, but not without a huge grin on my face as i took out my favorite music.
