Mark Levinson No.512 CD Player---Opinions

I'm disappointed with the styling compared to ML's previous disk players. It now looks like every other box styled player. I am glad to see the Esoteric transport in there however.

Just some CDs my dealer had (Dave Matthews, Kind of Blue, classical, etc.); I don't really pay attention to SACD performance as the selection of titles isn't nearly broad enough for my tastes. I'm going back with my own CDs next week for a proper demo with gear I know and in a room I'm familiar with; that will allow me to make a proper judgment.

The stylish black metal machine is massive and has ll of the Levinson styling aspects. I think that it sounded far superior to the 390S but as Bar81 points out, the Burmester 001 is just better in every way. $15k versus $23k for the Burmester. Also, I have owned/do own other less expensive CDP's and none of them do the music any justice. I am glad that my pocket can afford my ear otherwise I would be miserbale with my hearing versus buying comparison.

To see the 512 player on the link was very dissapointed on the design side comapre to the 15K price. Mark Levinson had always a strong character, as the look of a player. Now the Chinese will have an easy job to copy this player look.:)

On the other hand, I'm a bit surprised that they use the Neo VRDS. I belive the 390S was built on a completly different way. ML used a pro CD drive in the past, read the data fast in advance, stored and played the sound from memory.
Esoteric went on the ols shcol way, built a very precise drive and an expensive DAC, just like Sony and Accupase. Now I'm just wondering how this player works.

I belive there must be financial problems behind. I heared that HK wanted to sell ML. Probably they have less mone on research.

But of course these things are not important, the most important thing is the sound.

The Esoteric VRDS-NEO drives spin at a 4x rate and reads data into a buffer (see the Teac USA Esoteric website. The control over the disc is very accurate given the mechanical design. Not sure whether ML is in trouble financially- but Harman does have a contract with Lexus and compared to other high end manufacturers, one would imagine that Harman should be able to distribute the cost of its boutique brand or afford to have it only break even or even be a status and loss leader.