In my opinion the best ML for sound quality was the old ML2 Class A monoblocks. They have low wattage but could drive anything to a certain level because they could really double their wattage all the way down to 1ohm. Some guys love these so so much. http://www.wtconcept.com/levinsonml2/ Cheers George |
Yes 390s maybe even better, I belive that it has internal buffer gain adjustment pins, so the output can then be gain matched to any system, so you can get it close to 100% full up on the remote volume for the loudest you will ever want to listen to. A quote from Stereophile on the 390s directly connected to a poweramp. "Overall, particularly when the No.390S was used straight into the power amplifiers with its volume control active, there was an addictive vitality to its sound, a superb retrieval of recorded detail. Even weary old recordings" Cheers George |
Nice purchase Banmac, The No.20's have 50kohm input impedance and 26db of gain which will lend itself very well to a passive pre of 10kohm. Looking at some of your other posts it seems you may have a ML No51 cd player, which has it's own very good built in volume control. If so I would go direct from the No51 straight to the No20's. You may never look at an active preamp the same way again. From ML about the No51's volume control. The Nº51 volume control uses a hybrid analog/digital attenuation scheme to achieve a remarkable 80dB control range at 0.1dB resolution from 20 to 80 dB and 1dB resolution from 0 to 20dB. By applying DSP-based digital attenuation only to fill in the gaps for the very lowest level volume control steps, the Nº51 does not suffer the loss of resolution (EG: Bit Stripping) associated with pure digital volume controls. Cheers George |
