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Mark Levinson Where is the Emotion??

Hello to all,

My system:

ML no. 35 dac
Muse Model Five transport
stock power cords, no line conditioners
Custom built diy speakers
Denon 1803 receiver
Generic 16 ga speaker wire
Acoustic Zen MC2 AES/EBU from transport to dac
Silver interconnects

The problem that I'm experiencing with this setup is when I sit down to listen I find myself more times than often falling asleep rather than being engaged in the performance. While it sounds smooth, airy, open, rich, non fatiguing, etc.. it fails to convey the emotion of the recording. Not to say the no. 35 is a bad dac, it's a great dac but it just doesn't seem to do what I'm wanting.

It may get better with a higher quality transport, but I can't afford a megabuck transport. Eventually I will upgrade the speaker cables and the receiver to a quality integrated, but I don't think this would help much with the problem at hand although I could be wrong. I was thinking of just ditching the dac and transport altogether for a one box solution such as the Electrocompaniet EMC-1UP player since I was reading that it was quite a musical player or possibly try another dac and transport combo (this time one made for each other) such as the Northstar M192 combo. Has anyone else with a Levinson dac experienced the same problem as me and if so, what did you change to? Thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated.
162db
162db OP
5 posts
 
Thanks for all of the responses thus far guys. This community is really great :) I know there are many areas of my system that could be improved upon. Perhaps I should start with upgrading the transport and the receiver. I was thinking of a Theta Jade transport and a Plinius 8200 MKII, YBA YA-201, or Primare 30.1 for the integrated. I would be looking in the used market.

I'd like to go with an integrated amp rather than separates due to budget constraints and simplicity. Any other suggestions? Is my Acoustic Zen MC2 AES/EBU digital interconnect capable of getting the most out of the Levinson dac or would I need to change that as well? One thing I have been thinking about for a while...I'm currently running single ended analog interconnects. Would it be a worthwhile investment if I switch to balanced (after I get an integrated amp with balanced connections)? Also, could you suggest some interconnects that would help me get the most out of my dac?
audphile1's avatar
audphile1
5,393 posts
 
your MC2 cable is fine. Upgrade the receiver to a nice integrated. Forget the transport for now. It's fine. Work on the amplification first. I don't know how efficient the speakers are, but if you can drive them with one of the Cayin integrated amps, this should be a nice improvement over your receiver. If these integrated amps are within your budget of course.
bar81
791 posts
 
While I'm not a huge fan of Levinson's digital work, with that Denon in there, there's no way you can tell anything about what's wrong. Fix your system and then worry about getting it to where you want it to be.
regalma1
72 posts
 
I'll take a wild guess and say that the Levinson is the problem and that it goes for the "refined" sound. Unfortunately, often refined is boring. People listen for different things in audio. Look at Krell some people rave about their gear others, to paraphrase one audiophile, "don't ever expect what comes out of a Krell to sound like music".

I once auditioned a very well set up Rotel and B&W system that had the characteristics you describe. At first it was wow, great detail and sound stage but after awhile I realized that here I was listening to some of my favorite music and my foot was still. That is not natural for me. There was no engagement. That was an eye (ear?) opener. Go with your musical soul, not what people tell you. If you are falling asleep there is something wrong. Try a relatively cheap experiment. Run the transport into the Denon, assuming it has digital inputs. If not pick up a Behringer SRC2496 for about $130. The DAC in that is surprizingly good. I have done A/B tests against my Monarchy Audio and it held its own. The Monarchy is no slouch either, my foot is always tapping.
magnumpi205
504 posts
 
There is none.
Auditioned a Levinson and B&W and had the same response as the last few posters.
The only thing Levinson had that was hot was Kim Catrell and maybe even less expensive.
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