Help - Mark Levinson Owners

I have found that a really top-flight power cord is not necessary for my Ref. No. 32. I use a decent Essence cord, but substituting a Shunyata did not make that much of a difference (then again, the front end is plugged into a Hydra). I may be the case that the regenerating power supply of the Ref. No. 32 minimizes power supply issues. For almost all other front end equipment, I find the Shunyata cords to work extremely well.

I've also generally heard good results with NBS power cords, but, if you think the Shunyata Anacondas are expensive. . .

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I have a NBS Statement power cord that is excellent and both the BMI Shark and Whale Supreme were dramatically better than the NBS. The Shunyata Black Mambo was good but was not even close to being as good as the NBS.
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I think that BMI Sharks, Whale Supremes and Orca's are by far the best value on the market and outstanding power cords in their own right.
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Larryi is right on. You don't need a top-of-the-line cord with the Levinson power supplies. I currently use a Shunyata Diamondback on my Levinson DAC, and a Taipan on my Levinson amp. The Taipan is overkill for the amp.

Other gear in my system have shown much greater gains with expensive power cords.

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I have to politely disagree with Rex & Larryi. In my system, the sound from my Levinson 23.5 improves greatly and degrades greatly depending on which power cord that is in place.
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I strongly suggest that you look for a good deal on some used high end power cords, do your own comparative listening, and decide what you like from there. You can easily resell the cords you don't want to keep on Audiogon with little or no loss of money.
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I went through about 10 different brands and models of power cords in the process when I was looking for an ideal cord and I can assure you I am glad that I did.
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A good power cord on a pre-amp or CD player is a relatively inexpensive upgrade that can bring a lot of improvement. For me it was a good as a component upgrade.
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Good Luck and let us know how you make out.
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Rgds,
Larry
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Hi Cello - I'm not sure exactly what you're disagreeing with :-)

I too have found that some power cords cause great degradation on my Levinson gear. I would strongly recommend AGAINST using cords from PS Audio, JPS, or Cardas with Levinson gear - they had overwhelmingly negative effects when I tried them.

I have also found definite benefits and improvements with some power cords, just as you did. My point was, with the current Shunyata line in particular, that I did not need to buy the top-of-the-line cords to get these benefits. There was no need to buy an Anaconda when a Taipan did the trick.

There was another brand that I tried that showed improvements, but didn't reach the improvement level of the Shunyata Taipan until I got up into the $1000 range.

OTOH, I have other gear (source and pre) that showed continued improvements with more refined power cords.

I hope this makes what I said originally a bit more clear.