Who Has Heard The New Levinson Gear
- Thread starter Steve Williams
- Start date
I'm a Levinson fan. I like their house sound. I have two Levinson 436's in my listening room and I have Proceed three and two channel amps in my theater. Used to have the Proceed AVP2+6 in my combined two channel listening/surround theater room in my old house. When I have needed service, Levinson has always taken great care of me. But, if I were you, I wouldn't buy their 502 Media console. For less money, you could buy the Denon Surround Processor plus a top outboard sound processor and hire a top specialist like Keith Yates to come over and tune it so that when you use your room for theater, you'd have outrageous, immersive, you are there sonics. Given what you would have to work with, I can only imagine what Keith plus an outboard processor could do. Unless you want to buy the 502 plus the outboard processor and Keith......
Just my two cents.
Just my two cents.
Honestly, I can't imagine what that would be. Also, if you go the route I advise, which I strongly (strongly!) advise you to do -- it will enable you to get room tuning capability (Keith plus his magic box) that neither the Denon or the Levinson (or any other single piece of gear) will give you.
But, you're looking at a $35,000 Levinson surround processor! Ask Keith the price to bring an outboard sound processor and tune your room for theater. I bet you can get the Denon, an Oppo Blu-Ray player, the outboard processor and Keith to come tune it all for less than that -- and you'd get better results.
The MSRP on the Anthem D2v is about $1,000 more than the Denon and IMO you couldn't go wrong with either of them, especially in your application. There are some differences in the minutiae with one have a tiny edge here and the other having a tiny edge there making it a virtual wash. Owners of both sing their praises and its hard to find a dissatisfied customer with each piece enjoying fierce customer loyalty. If it came down to the looks, I'd go with the Anthem, but I would have no problem with the looks of the Denon. In the final analysis, you will probably be bypassing a sizable chunk of its capacity no matter which you choose. Flip a coin or pick one based on the face plate.
Another way to decide might be to talk to your installer. Make sure you have a guy who knows the piece backwards and forwards, especially the room tuning capability. If you're not going to go the Keith route -- get a guy who can work with the room tuning capability of one of these pieces. Find out with which of these two he is most comfortable and go with it. In capable hands, you should be able to get excellent results with either one.
It's OK to look Rob. I was not thinking of buying but I knew you would be able to compare them. Based on your Denon reviews one would be better served to go with Denon and do what you suggested. For me at this time I spend more time up there listening to music than watching movies so spending any money now on a processor just ain't happening.
Just so folks don't think mass market products and Levinson gear are created equally, here are the distortion product of one sample from each:
ML performance is 5X better.
ML performance is 5X better.
I am not sure the person who buys a $1000 vacuum instead of a $150 one gets to ask that question
.Seriously, I have a 7-8 year old Mark Levinson No 360S DAC (about $8K then). I tested it blind against a number of mass market products and it easily outperforms them.
That said, for movies no, it doesn't matter. Room correction/EQ is far more important there.
Just so folks don't think mass market products and Levinson gear are created equally, here are the distortion product of one sample from each:
ML performance is 5X better.
I'm all for overkill engineering and I am a Levinson fan, having voted with my pocketbook. 5X better is always nice, but when we're talking about THD+N at these levels, there are serious questions about whether these differences are even audible during playback with mixed tones and we're really comparing one piece of gear that offers serious overkill engineering in the Denon with another piece that offers sublimely ridiculous overkill engineering in the Levinson.
OB said he had a budget to watch. With an eye on budget, this is the type of thing I would sacrifice first, especially knowing his application which is seriously tilted towards heavy investment and time spent with his two channel gear while home theater comes second.
I hear you. We're just spinning the colors on the rubic's cube, window shopping, daydreaming and jawboning.
Hey -- tell that to Amir -- he wants you to buy the Levinson. At least I'm trying to save you money!
Well, let me ask you this. If you are playing 16-bit CD, how many those bits would you like your equipment to faithfully reproduce?
I suggested the same for movies. But don't want someone else stumbling here for other application think all boxes are created equally.
Similar threads
 | Steve Williams Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator |  | Ron Resnick Site Co-Owner | Administrator |  | Julian (The Fixer) Website Build | Marketing Managersing |