Mark Levinson & Others

Integrateds...  I really like my Esoteric preamp and amp.  Here is the top flying integrated, which was recently phased out, but it is still outstanding.

The current holder and lead model is Esoteric's F-03A; read about here:

A few years ago, when I was looking to put together a simple system, I wanted to get a Pass Labs Int 250.  A solid preamp and great amp all in one.  I let a used one get away for something like $6,500.00 dollars.  Not a small sum of money, but for that model, that was a good price. 

@jl1ny

Sorry, my bad, I should have been more specific. An Audio Research tube amp. It is easy to forget they made some solid state amps. They are so known for their tube amps (and tube preamps, and tube phono stages).

aged thread here

but fwiw, i would agree that among purported high end brand name amplification i always felt levinson and jeff rowland were meh... luxury housings producing mediocre sound

I just went through this myself. I wanted an integrated and was dead set on the Gryphon Diablo 300. Lucky for me, I had a dealer down the street that happened to have two of them for sale. He suggested that I compare it to others prior to buying it. I demo’d that night an Esoteric F1, Krell 300i, and a Luxman 509x. All of these I used the same source (Aurender A30) and speakers (Magico S3).

The prior day, in a different shop I tested the Boulder 866, Accuphase 380 and McIntosh MA12000.

It is hard to compare different things that are not in the same store, so I will just say that the McIntosh and the Accuphase were very close to each other. WIth the speakers and room I had in shop #2 I like the Accupahse the best, but not by much of a margin over the MA-12000. The dealer told me that The Accuphase lacked a bypass mode for HT which I later found out was wrong. The Boulder was painfully bright, I didn’t like it at all.

Shop one all three were really great. The Gryphon which I was dead set on buying I found to be a bit too rolled off. The Esoteric was great but I wasn’t a fan of the sound stage. I found little to no definition or separation in the instruments. The Krell and Luxman were quite similar in sound quality as well as sound stage definition. In the end I bought the Luxman. For me it edged out all the others for over all sound quality, build quality and over all esthetics. For me it hit high marks in every category not just a few.

So if you are able to, find a Luxman dealer and demo the 509x. I compared it to integrateds costing 2x as much and the Luxman was the better unit. Now that is for my ears and my musical tastes, but if you dig into some reviews on it, many others will say the same thing.

Good luck in your search.

@jjss49

I have to agree with your assessment of Mark Levinson. I spent a lot of time on the 90’s auditioning Levinson… and have actually had a Levinson system in my car for the last 15 years. It is very sterile… well accurate… polite, but to me extremely un-musical. I remember a major dealer told me that people that bought ML just called up and ordered it after a favorable audio review… they never came in and bought it as a result of auditioning. I was certainly never tempted. Did everything right… but no emotional connection.

It is interesting you put Rowland into the same class. A couple of the best systems I have ever hear (Wilson + Rowland)… but, yeah, while amazing there was a certain similarity. While I have to say as far as holographic the Wilson + Roland was the best system I ever heard…however,  I did not want to own one. My current system is much more musical and satisfying, although it cannot do the acrobatics of the Wilson / Rowland).

Anyway. Interesting comment. I need to go find another Rowland system to listen to.