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Which Is Better: Esoteric DV50s or Levinson 390s?

In terms of CD Playback ONLY, which would be the better CD player: Esoteric DV50s or Mark Levinson 390s? Of course, please factor in the universal play capability of the DV50s with your comments. Thank you.
3zub
islandear
208 posts
 
I've listened to both at length and when it comes to redbook playback the 390 is much better.
3zub OP
26 posts
 
Thank you for your responses gentlemen.
I couldn't find any threads for a direct comparison, but only on the individual machines. I now own a Levinson No.39 player. Very nice, detailed and smooth. I am pleased with the player, but was hoping to kill 2 birds with one stone, i.e. the DV50s allegedly has incredible CD playback plus the DVD video feature. Not sure where the DVD-A and SACD formats are going, and don't really care. I stopped buying multi-channel audio disks last year.
redwoodgarden
150 posts
 
Condider the $8,200 Esoteric UX-3 Universal player if you want to kill two birds with one stone. It's like getting the sound quality of the $6,700 Levinson 390S CD player AND the video quality of one of the best DVD players for $1,500 more. The disc drive mechanism in the UX-3 is built like a tank compared to the DV-50S and 390S.
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