Mark Levinson 331 or McCormack .5 Rev. A

Thanks Chuck, Do you leave your 331 on standby when not in use or does it run to hot. Also, if I decide to go with a 331 I will only have a little over 3" left in my rack for top ventilation. Will this be enough. One last question I heard the 331 will not accept Nordost Z-plugs or any cable that is terminated with bananas...true?

Hi John; The 331 actually runs pretty cool-- Don't remember about use of banana plugs though. Re: Chuck's comments on the 331. I shouldn't have made it sound like I was bashing the 331, which I didn't intend to. The 331 is a beautiful well built amp, but in my system, the McCormacks were just more musical. At the time I had a Sony XA7 CD player, Muse Model Two DAC, SF Line 2 pre-amp, and very good Syn. Res. ICs and spkr. cables. As I now have ML 37 transport and 360S DAC, the 331 may work better, but I'm so happy with the DNA-2DX that I'm not motivated to try anything else. Hopefully you can audition the 331 and let your ears be the judge. Cheers. Craig.

Hi Jla - I am not familiar with the McCormack amplifiers, but I have been using two M-L 331s in bi-amp mode with Vandy 3A Sigs for a number of years. I think that this set-up works very well. Certainly, the Vandys liked to be bi-amped: base, resolution and soundstaging all improved. I always left my M-Ls on standby when not in use. It is true that the M-L amps take spade lugs; they have some very nice plastic handled knobs that are great to use in tightening without over-tightening.

Thanks Kweifi, But does the 331 allow for the use of banana's? In my case Nordost Z-Plugs.

They will not work with the zplugs. You can send your nordost cables back to the factory for re-terminating.