Opinions On Mark Levinson No. 36 DAC Repair

I have had non-warranty repair work done by Ben Jacoby at HEAR and this man is second to none....would not hesitate to ever have him work on any of my equipment. This guy knows his stuff...and is VERY honest about what he does.

Thank you Garebear for the input.
Joe Nies

I had a ML-36 combined with an AR-1 CD player ... simply loved the setup ... later took the ML out of the system ... the sound was a bit different, though not much, and I immediately wondered why I had spent almost $4k for a DAC that, in my opinion, didn't compete well with the AR inboard DAC ... nor with the Musical Fidelity DAC that I next purchased for a fourth of the price.

The ML is nice-looking and perhaps makes you feel like you've done the right thing by having it ... sell it and go in another direction ... that's the sport of this stuff.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

I am leaning towards the PS Audio DL III with perhaps a Cullen Level IV Mod.

Can you perhaps tell me how the PS Audio sound is compared to Mark Levinson?

Thanks

Hi

Thanks for all the replies so far. Just some feedback as follows.

I borrowed and tested the stock PS Audio DL III in my setup. Very strange thing. The Micromega Solo could not read discs with its digital out to the PS Audio DL III. At the same time when I used a pair of RCA interconnects to go straight to the preamp, it could read the discs. I guess it could be a grounding incompatibility between the units although I did not have the problem with the Mark Levinson No. 36 DAC.

The dealer lent me a cheap NAD C521BEE player and I hooked it up to the PS Audio DL III and to my preamp to A/B with the Micromega Solo.

My initial thoughts were with the advance in both transport and digital technology, this setup would easily outperform the old Micromega Solo as a player and would perhaps give a sound quality close to if not better than the Micromega Solo/ ML No. 36 DAC combo.

My impressions - rather surprising - I preferred the Micromega Solo. The NAD/ PS DL III combo had more gain. All the sounds were there in the mix. The lateral soundstage was wide. However, I found the sound rounded although there was more body. I can see why some people liken it to vinyl - it gave me the impression of the sound from a lower end turntable like the Rega Planar 2 I used to use. There was no clear delineation of instruments - don't get me wrong - you can hear the different instruments but they did not present themselves as specific images with a distinct image I found on the Solo. They also didn't make music together - they were just there separately in a clump playing. The soundstage also lacked depth. The Solo had a more extended high end although grainy in parts with high frequency piano notes and vocals. However, the pace and interplay among the instruments made music vis-a-vis the NAD/PS DL III combo and I found myself forgetting the shortcomings. There was also greater delicacy in the overall sound and timbre of the music.

In all, I recall the sound from the Micromega Solo/ ML 36 combo being better than this. I used the same cabling in the NAD/ PS DL III as I used to in the Micromega Solo/ ML 36 combo, so if I assume the PS DL III to be at least equal if not better than the ML 36, then I guess the NAD might not be a good match or is a poor quality transport compared to the old Micromega Solo.

Just my 2 cents and back to the search.