Depends why you are buying. If all you care about is how much you can get for resale then buy the brands that spend the most on advertising. While your friends will recognize it and you can brag about it ,. truth is for real audiophiles the most marketed brands never hit the mark, no pun Intended. Your Mark Levinson of today is a Harman Kardan. Mark or Tom Colangelo or Dick Burwen had nothing to do with its design, yet without those 3 you would never have heard the name. If we took a Cello from 30 years ago which was marks Pinnacle, it would embarass a ML of today. So its hard to say unless even you yourself know why you are actually buying the brand. For many its simply association with a famous brand of yesteryear one that still has a huge ad budget so it is reassuring to see current advertisemnents of what you just bought. Only thing is that the Audio Quality is disconnected. You have been trained that is good hifi through terrific advertising. Jeff Rowland gear is different. Its understated and overperforming. Jeff still runs his company each day and has not sold out to this day. So theres more integrity and better performance from Rowland, and theres better recognition from the Harman Kardan Mark Levinson. .
