Mark Levinson 23.5: camac or RCA?

Microchip,

thank you for your answer. I would not think of using Cardas RCA's. In my experience, they are far from "neutral". I'd prefer WBT's. But this is another subject.

As far as changing the camac for RCA's, it seems the engineer at Mark Levinson agrees with you. He told me that I MIGHT gain a LITTLE with RCA's, but that the modification process is long and complex to do a good job.

So for now, I will follow yours and ML's suggestion and use the LEMO's. I will think about changing to RCA's if I realy like the sound of the 23.5.

Best regards,

Pierre

Camac / Lemo connectors are used in nuclear and laboratory instrumentation mainly because they are small and reliable and can be inserted and picked easily many thousands times.
The same hardware that costed a few bucks for laboratories was sold for audiophiles at much higher price. Although there is no firm evidence that they sound better than other audio plugs, they do not break the earth path before the signal one and are self-locking.

To clarify matters, Levinson used single pin Lemos for unbalanced signals, Cello used Camac three pin ones for balanced signals and Krell uses four pin Camacs for cast (current mode) signals.

If you do not mind the extra work and mutilating the original back plate, fitting a RCA connector to the amp is the best solution. But if you accept that a Cardas RCA plug sounds different from a Neutrik the choice is not easy ...

Thank all of you for all past answers and in advance for the next ones. All this info is of great help in my search.

Tab110s,

so you listened to the 23.5 with RCAs and camac and you are saying the RCA were sounding better?

So, Moemoney,

in this case I think my best bet would be to replace the camac with RCA'S ON THE AMP, if I want to keep my Colorado's - since Microchip says they are not suitable for conversion (and I agree).

Is the replacement of the camac with RCA's the solution whuch will give me the bst sound possible? - I'm not ready to make a compromise let say to keep the amp. as is, or because it is "too much trouble" to make a change that will have "just" a minimal negative effect (there is no such thing as a "minimal negative")

If you check the Manual for the 23.5 you will see that they state you should do it the way I stated above, also from what I remember regarding the 23.5 that amp did not come with Camac connectors, but I could be wrong. its been a long time since I had that amp but I do know Krell (which is my present amp)does it the same way. and I think Ayre amps as well.

The original Lemo adapter sold by Mark Levinson is very well built and will not degrade the signal more than the thousand tweaks you are not using in your system :-) . IMHO using the adapter is better than re-terminating the cable with Lemo connectors that usually are not suitable for thick audio interconnects.
Anything you change can degrade performance, but the real question is how much?

The 23.5 was all RCA IIRC. I've had Camac's adapter's($60 ea)when I had cables that were half-n-half. Adapter's are like second-class citizen's.

As I remember my 23.5 didn't come with CAMAC, as I remember only the "27" and "23" came that way. the ".5" were Balance and RCA only.

Just put the shorting pins in the Balance input of the amp pins 1 and 3 then go with RCAs the straight to the output of the Pre. you don't need any adaptors, they only degrade the sound.

Never mind my last question, I found one. It is a LEMO adaptor. I'll try it hoping it won't degrade my sound.

Regards

Thx,

do you know where I could buy such a piece?

Much easier to buy a RCA female - CAMAC single piece gold adapter and keep your RCA cables untouched!