Acoustic system by Mark Levinson. Mark Levinson. History of the Legend. Hot but cool

Many audiophiles consider Mark Levinson Audio Systems a symbol of true High End. There are not many companies in the history of High End Audio that have such a high and unquestioned reputation. All high-end amplifiers in the world are routinely compared to the Mark Levinson No. 33 Reference Mono Power Amplifier, a true High End legend, the standard for all others.

Mark Levinson Audio Systems was founded by Mark Levinson in 1972 with the introduction of the first JC-1 preamplifier, a symbol of Mark's distinctive approach to audio reproduction. He was not only a capable musician with good engineering training and a talented designer, but also had excellent hearing, which allowed him to rely solely on his golden ears in his own developments. Despite the small production volumes, the company quickly became famous among admirers of the most advanced sound, regardless of cost and expenses. Mark Levinson's High End devices have consistently used the most expensive parts of the highest quality.

Mark Levinson's first preamplifier marked the beginning of a series of incredible audio components that would cement America's reputation as a leader in high-end audio design. In addition, the JC-1 convinced even the most die-hard audiophile that tubes do not have a monopoly on truthful sound. The JC-1 preamp evolved into the ML-1, then joined by the ML-2, a mono power amplifier. Then Mark Levinson created the ML-3 power amplifier - a massive and ultra-stable dual monoblock that could completely master even the most capricious speakers of the time.

In the mid-1980s, despite a number of innovations such as a fully modular preamplifier and outstanding studio reel-to-reel tape recorders, Mark Levinson Audio Systems found itself in financial trouble. Madrigal Audio Laboratories, a distributor of a sister brand, came to the rescue. Mark Levinson's tradition of handcrafted designs of the highest quality has been maintained, and key employees have been regrouped to continue the design and manufacturing process. The reorganization strengthened financial discipline and expanded engineering staff.

The time was favorable for change - the audio industry was quickly switching to CDs as the main source of music. And although the digital-to-analog converter created by the company was not the very first, nevertheless, the reference processor Mark Levinson No. 30 was immediately hailed by experts as a new standard in sound. It was an achievement that showed that digital technology had finally reached a level of maturity. A year later, reference CD transport No. 31, fulfilling Mark Levinson's desire to offer audiophiles the most sophisticated reproduction system for digital sources. It also marked a milestone in the history of design, performance and sound quality.

While the Mark Levinson name was already established as a premier supplier of hardware to home system enthusiasts, Mark Levinson decided to forge a relationship with Lexus, Toyota's luxury car division. Working closely with Lexus engineers, Mark Levinson leveraged his experience, as well as that of Harman International's other automotive divisions, to ensure that Lexus audio performance matches its superior driving performance.

Today, more than three decades after the company's inception, Mark Levinson continues to expand the horizons for audiophiles both at home and behind the wheel, not forgetting the home movie lover.

During its existence, the company managed to change its name and owners (as Madrigal Audio Labs it is part of the Harman International group), but these changes did not change the main thing - the highest quality of its products. The company is still considered a trendsetter in the world of High End Audio, and Mark Levinson brand equipment is consistently recognized as a reference, occupying the top positions in various tests and ratings.

Today, the Mark Levinson line includes several dozen models of amplifiers, processors and players, designed for the most demanding connoisseurs of sound and image.

Today, more than three decades after the company's inception, Mark Levinson continues to expand the horizons for audiophiles both at home and behind the wheel, not forgetting the home movie lover.

Today, the Mark Levinson line includes several dozen models of amplifiers, processors and players, designed for the most demanding connoisseurs of sound and image.

Mark Levinson is an American private company, a subsidiary of Harman International Industries. The company specializes in the development of Hi-End audio equipment: audio amplifiers, preamplifiers, digital audio processors and other audio components for audiophiles. Headquarters are located in Elkhart, Indiana.

Founded in 1972, the company of the same name Mark Levinson has in a short time become synonymous with the concept of High End. Mark was born in 1946 in Oakland, California. His father is Daniel J. Levinson, his mother is Maria Hertz Levinson. Mark grew up in the Boston area and then in New Haven. His father, a psychology professor, worked at Yale and Harvard for forty years. The author of the fundamental work – Seasons of a Man’s Life (Stages of a man’s life).

My son showed musical inclinations from childhood. By the time he was 20, he was already playing double bass and trumpet with some of the greatest jazz musicians: John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Johnny Griffin, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett. This became possible thanks to his talent and his father’s professional connections.

At the age of 21, he created what would change his life - an audio console for the legendary Woodstock Music Festival (1969).

Four years later, he founded his first company, Mark Levinson Systems. The first product was the LNP-2 preamplifier, which used circuit principles from the audio console. Ten years later, in 1982, the company named after him was taken over by Madrigal, after which many new products were released. Mark Levinson, as a developer, had nothing to do with them. But not only him, Madrigal management also fired his closest colleague, Tom Colangelo, and some other key employees.

Levinson could not sit idle and in the same year (1982) he founded another company - Cello Technologies, which became a cult thanks to its products and, in particular, thanks to the Palette analog equalizer.

In 1999, he left the company, sold the rights to use his name, and founded another company, Red Rose Music.
Under this brand he has released several beautifully recorded SACD discs, as well as several amplifier and acoustic models. Some of them could be seen in the TV series Sex and the City. In 2000, Levinson began work on creating audio systems for Lexus cars. At the same time, the company bearing his name was purchased by the giant Harman International Group.

After breaking up with Kim Cattrall, Levinson moved to Switzerland, his mother’s homeland. There, in 2007, he founded his new company - Daniel Hertz S.A. Hertz was his mother's maiden name. The company's products are very expensive audio systems that are very popular in Japan. It is worth noting that Mark Levinson is producing. He took part in several projects that were awarded various music awards. He works with Jacky Terrason, Joe Lovano and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band.

Highlights of the release of products under the Mark Levinson brand

In 1972, the first JC-1 preamplifier was released, which symbolized the company's approach to sound reproduction. Mark Levinson was not only a capable musician with good engineering training and a talented designer, but also had excellent hearing, which allowed him to rely solely on his “golden ears” in his own developments. The JC-1 was a testament to the synthesis of manufacturer vision and science. The product's release marked the beginning of a number of innovative audio components that solidified America's reputation for designing high-end audio equipment.

Despite the small production volumes, the company quickly became famous among admirers of the most perfect sound. High-End Mark Levinson equipment has consistently used the most expensive parts of the highest quality, regardless of cost and expense.

The JC-1 subsequently gave birth to the ML-1, whose manufacturing technology and engineering innovations formed the basis for the creation of the ML-2 mono power amplifier. The ML-3 also appeared, a power amplifier built on two massive monoblocks. It was so monumental that it could control even the most unpredictable and capricious speaker systems of the day.

In addition, the JC-1 convinced even the most die-hard audiophile that tubes do not have a monopoly on truthful sound.

In the mid-1980s, despite a number of innovations such as a fully modular preamplifier and outstanding studio reel-to-reel tape recorders, and constant developments in audio, the Mark Levinson company found itself in a difficult financial situation. However, the traditional superiority of Mark Levinson's handcrafted systems was undeniable. Madrigal Audio Laboratories, a distributor of a sister brand, came to the rescue. The personnel of the Madrigal Audio Laboratories and Mark Levinson subsidiary, whose composition underwent some changes, safely continued design and production. The reorganization strengthened financial discipline and expanded engineering staff.

The Hi-Fi industry was moving towards digital playback and the CD as the main music medium. Although Mark Levinson's reference No. 30 processor was no longer the first digital-to-analog converter at the time, it was hailed as a new benchmark in audio reproduction. It was an achievement that showed that digital technology had come of age. Mark Levinson realized the rapidity and at the same time the necessity of everything that was happening in the world of sound research and its reproduction. Now was the right time for new discoveries and achievements.

The following year, Mark Levinson No. 31 was developed, a CD transport demonstrating the latest complete digital playback system. No. 31 became another crowning achievement of design, manufacturing and received a well-deserved assessment of sound quality. Mark Levinson, firmly regarded by audiophiles and movie buffs as the premier supplier of A/V components, has expanded its production boundaries with a collaboration with Lexus, the luxury automaker, a division of Toyota. Working closely with Lexus engineers, Mark Levinson drew on the expertise of Lexus and Harman International's other automotive divisions to provide vehicle interiors with sound that was increasingly rich in depth and authenticity.

During its existence, the company managed to change its name and owners (as Madrigal Audio Labs is part of the Harman International group), but these changes did not change the main thing - the highest quality of its products. The company is still considered a trendsetter in the world of High End Audio, and Mark Levinson brand equipment is recognized as a standard, occupying the top positions in various tests and ratings.

More than three decades after its first product, Mark Levinson continues to unlock the potential of audio in high-end components and systems. They are able to satisfy both music lovers and fans of cinema battles. The Mark Levinson product line includes several dozen models of amplifiers, processors and players, designed for the most demanding connoisseurs of sound and image. Today Mark Levinson represents the same aspirations: to reveal the breadth of horizons of perception; the same sustainable standards; the same extraordinary approach; unchanging credo: accuracy and reliability.

Mark Levinson No.53 Mono Amplifiers As with all Mark Levinson reference products, it goes without saying that the Nº53's primary function is to reproduce sound at the most uncompromising level possible. Following in the tradition of solid-state power amplifiers such as the Mark Levinson ML-2 and Nº33, the new Nº53 continues to prove that solid-state electronics can compete with the best-sounding tube designs. More specifically, the Nº53 is Mark Levinson's very first switching power amplifier. Despite their many advantages - increased efficiency, greater power, compact dimensions, reduced weight and lower heat dissipation compared to their linear counterparts - switching power amplifiers have generally been viewed with skepticism by the audiophile community due to technical limitations. inherent in pulse circuits, and assumptions about the resulting sound quality. The Nº53, however, is the end result of extensive research and development work dedicated to finding ways to highlight the advantages of switching power amplifiers, overcome their weaknesses and create an iconic product truly worthy of the name - the Mark Levinson reference.

The Nº53 has an impressive power rating of 500W into 8 ohms, with overall dimensions of just 533(H) x 227(W) x 533(D)mm and weighing only 61kg – undoubtedly maintaining the efficiency for which switching amplifiers are widely known. It is capable of delivering phenomenal power levels to virtually any speaker load to support both instantaneous and sustained power demands. Still more expressive, the Nº53 does this trick without the slightest change in quality parameters while maintaining a constant, thermally balanced operating temperature. Unlike most switching amplifiers, the Nº53 has amazingly efficient power management, so its operating temperature does not change, no matter how hard or how long the amplifier is loaded.

These power amplifiers are called switching amplifiers because they turn the output devices on and off in very rapid succession, simulating the input signal. One set of output devices controls the positive half-wave and the other set controls the negative half-wave. The result is that less power is wasted as heat because the workload is essentially cut in half. Unfortunately, this also poses significant design challenges in terms of how to deal with the switching noise that is created by the constant switching of output devices on and off, as well as a phenomenon called “deadbands.” Traditionally, these have been two of the factors that have contributed to switching amplifiers' reputation for being second-rate in sound quality. However, with its Nº53 Mark Levinson managed to overcome these obstacles and raise the quality bar to an unprecedented height.

The Nº53 eliminates switching noise without sacrificing audio quality using a new patented and original Interleaved Power Switching (IPT) technology which, among other things, increases the Nº53's switching frequency to an extremely high 2 MHz. The advantages of this are twofold: Firstly, it places the fundamental frequency of the switching noise and its harmonics far beyond human hearing, so that they do not directly affect the sound quality; Second, it makes it easier to remove switching noise from the signal using much weaker filters without negatively affecting the critical audio range. The result is an operating frequency range that is flat across the audio spectrum and only a few dB lower at 100 kHz - impressive for any power amplifier, but astounding for a switching design.

Nº53 also overcame the dead zone problem. Deadbands are intervals of silence in the audio output created when the output devices driving the positive and negative half-waves of the signal are both turned off. This usually occurs at the "zero crossing point", whenever the audio signal is sent from a positive amplitude to a negative amplitude or vice versa. This is a fairly common occurrence - in a 20 kHz audio signal this point is crossed 40,000 times per second. Such transitions become a problem because... Even the best output devices cannot switch on and off instantly, so the result is a series of signal dead zones every second. Obviously, the larger the zone, the more harmful its consequences for the audio signal. Many designs minimize dead zones by keeping both output devices off for as short a period as possible. Unfortunately, this increases the possibility that both output devices will be turned on at the same time, which could damage or destroy them. The Nº53, on the other hand, was designed using a proprietary technology that allows both sets of output devices to be turned on simultaneously for short periods of time to completely eliminate dead spots without damaging the output devices or reducing their lifespan. In other words, this solves the deadband problem and preserves the long-term reliability of the Nº53.

The primary purpose of power amplifiers is to amplify the input audio signal without distorting it, and to handle a wide range of speaker impedances effortlessly at any volume level, with all the power and grace that reference-quality audio reproduction requires. Nº53 is designed in this direction. The chassis is a compact vertical design, consisting of three separate internal compartments to provide shielding and isolation of the various circuits - the power supply at the bottom, the four amplifiers in the middle and the control circuitry at the top. The power supply is completely isolated and shielded from the rest of the amplifier to reduce interference from magnetic fields and high-current devices. The extremely low-noise toroidal transformer has a huge power reserve of 2800 VA, and the stabilizer circuit uses four 47,000 µF capacitors with low series discharge resistance (ESR). The four amplifiers in the middle compartment, each equipped with a pair of coils, are mounted symmetrically and mirrored to maintain channel separation. Working together, the four amplifiers increase the effective switching frequency from 500 kHz to 2 MHz to provide the best sound quality known from a switching amplifier. The control circuit has its own, independent regulated power supply and is shielded from the rest of the amplifier to prevent interference with the audio circuitry. 2074103 1

Multi-kilogram toroidal transformers are the main fighters against network interference

For the true audiophile, capacitors are characterized not only by their capacitance, but also by their sound.

Only powerful radiators encircling the amplifier body save 30 output transistors from overheating

In 1972, the talented American musician and engineer Mark Levinson founded the Mark Levinson company of the same name in Connecticut. And for 30 years now, Hi-End fanatics have been composing a huge number of legends and stories around this name. One of them says that even the word “Hi-End” was coined by Mark Levinson himself. But the fact is that all high-end amplifiers in the world are compared with Mark Levinson No. 33 Reference Mono Power Amplifier, is no longer a legend, but a fact. It’s not for nothing that the amplifier is called a reference.

Can a capacitor play?

Levinson was one of the first to think about sound quality and the reasons that shape it. Before him, it was believed that the better the technical parameters of the equipment (wider the bandwidth and less nonlinear distortion), the better the sound. Mark expressed an idea that was almost seditious for engineers, but understandable for a musician - the priority should be placed not on technical characteristics, but on human perception of sound, live listening. It never occurs to anyone to evaluate a Stradivarius violin by its ability to reproduce a frequency of 35 kHz. And Levinson began to create his amplifiers not according to technical parameters, but according to the criterion “it sounds or doesn’t sound.” The criterion for rejecting parts (this capacitor works, but this one doesn’t) was blasphemous for traditional electronics engineers. Mark sounded not only radio components, but also circuit solutions. As a result, after numerous trials and errors, Levinson came to those decisions, many of which remain to this day.

Hot but cool

The company's most famous amplifiers were the Mark Levinson model No. 20.6 (by the way, all equipment of the legendary brand is produced only under numbers), which appeared in the late 80s. The amplifier consisted of two non-lifting separate blocks - one per channel. In addition to its large weight and size, the amplifier did not have very high output power, it was as hot as a stove, but it sounded like God. It was similar to the sound of the best tube amplifiers, but with transistor solidity - velvety bass and an open midrange. No. 20.6, even after a decade, no one thinks about scrapping it - it still delights the ears of its owners.

The amplifier was heating up for a reason. Mark Levinson engineers use pure Class A circuit design, in which the output transistors are constantly on, meaning current flows through them even when there is no signal. This mode has the lowest possible efficiency (up to 20%), but allows for minimal distortion. For example, transistors used in class D equipment (usually digital amplifiers) operate in switch mode, and the amplifiers themselves have an efficiency of more than 90%.

It is also no coincidence that the Mark Levinson amplifiers are high in weight. Oddly enough, regular mains power has the greatest impact on the sound.

Ideal sine

Even in Moscow, the standard 220 V is different - the spread, depending on the area, is from 160 to 260 V. But this is not even the worst thing - the voltage is highly contaminated, that is, it differs from the standard sine wave.

A lot of everyday distortions penetrate into it: a neighbor shaves on the floor above, a child plays Nintendo, a wife blow-dries her hair. Just as low-quality gasoline can cause interruptions in a well-tuned Japanese engine, distortion, along with electricity, entering the amplifier spoils the output signal. By the way, it is for this reason that true audiophiles call the night hours the best time for listening - from 11:00 pm to 1 am, when most “jammers” are already asleep.

Contaminated voltage, as well as dirty gasoline, is dealt with using filters. For example, on the current flagship Mark Levinson No. 33 there are voltage regenerators, the principle of which is to rectify the voltage and further generate an ideal sine wave using a reference master oscillator. And no compact pulsed current sources at the input, which introduce at least small but their own distortions. Only toroidal transformers, which have the least electromagnetic radiation, are very heavy and powerful - at peak moments the amplifier can consume up to several kilowatts of electricity. Moreover, there must be at least two transformers - one per channel. Traditionally, Mark Levinson amplifiers are built on the “dual mono” principle: the circuits are not connected in any way, and in flagship models they are even housed in different housings. This was done for better separation between the channels - they are absolutely separated.

Another parameter that affects the sound is the output impedance of the amplifier. The lower the output impedance, the better the amplifier copes with complex speaker loads. The resistance written on the speakers (4 or 8 Ohms) is average. In fact, each frequency has its own resistance, and at some frequencies it may fall below the permissible level. And if the amplifier has its own high output impedance, then it does not handle this frequency band well.

Transistor Choir

There are two ways to achieve low resistance. For example, increase the amplifier feedback depth. The deeper the feedback, the lower the amplifier's output impedance. But this negatively affects the perception of sound - it turns out more even, but “dead,” as experts say.

In Mark Levinson amplifiers, low output impedance is achieved by paralleling the output stage transistors. This is well known from a school physics course - when connected in parallel, the total resistance drops. The number of output transistors can reach three dozen per channel, while the usual norm is two. Moreover, for these dozens to work together, a strict selection is necessary - they must, like a choir, sing together. If transistors are usually selected according to one or two static characteristics, then at Mark Levinson they are selected according to six dynamic ones. And all the same, the last word remains with the rumor - whether they will play together or not. Hi-End is not measured by any instruments - this is its essence.