• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Heritage

THE BRAND COMES INTO PLAY

The problem was evident to anyone who really listened to recorded music: Recordings rarely, if ever, lived up to the original performance. To some, that didn’t matter. To others, it mattered more than anything. This is the story of the Mark Levinson brand. Born in 1946, Mark Levinson was a music and electronics prodigy whose name lives on through a range of ultra-precision audio components. He grew up in the Boston area and later moved to New Haven, Connecticut. Music, particularly jazz, quickly became the focus in his early life, and before the age of 20 he was playing double bass or trumpet with the likes of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Chick Corea. Rather than attending college, Levinson decided to tour Europe while playing bass with pianist Paul Bley.

In his early twenties, Levinson merged his musical and technical talents as he reportedly created the sound mixer used onstage during the legendary Woodstock Music Festival. This experience, coupled with his activities within various recording studios, led to experimentation with electronic design and sound playback. Mentored by electronics pioneer Richard (Dick) S. Burwen, he founded Mark Levinson Audio Systems (MLAS, Ltd.) in 1972, where his hand-built stereo components soon became a reference standard within the consumer-audio industry. These pieces were not designed to a price point but rather created to overcome any known limitations in playback. As he told Adrian Low, president of Audio Excellence, in a 2009 interview, “Dick [Burwen] gave me the concept of using the highest quality of engineering, parts and materials in the service of music reproduction.”

Products crafted with this philosophy, including the LNP-2 Preamplifier with its peak-reading VU meters that could capture the first quarter of a 20kHz waveform, today are regarded as the cornerstones of the ultrahigh-end audio component industry.

In 1982 Levinson parted ways with MLAS, and the company was purchased by Madrigal Audio Laboratories in 1984. Madrigal engineers were unflinching in their commitment toward building Mark Levinson products that were the best-sounding, longest-lasting, easiest-to-use audio/video components in the world. “Under its CEO/founder Sandy Berlin, Madrigal Audio Laboratories offered great products from a fantastic design team,” said John Atkinson, editor-in-chief of Stereophile. “Sandy had the ability to build teams of people that could build first-class products. The combination of a great industrial-design team, a great product-design team under Tom Calatayud, and a knowledgeable sales team was the secret of the brand’s success.”

Jon Herron, who served as director of communications and then director of product development at Madrigal Audio Laboratories from 1993 until 2001, concurred. “We had an incredible team at Madrigal, the likes of which I have never seen elsewhere,” he recalled. “Whether you looked at the sales and marketing side, or engineering, or the people on the production floor, the intelligence, commitment, passion and enthusiasm for what we were doing were unsurpassed. It was an honor to be a part of that team.”

Phil Muzio, who became Madrigal’s CEO in 1996, met and then worked with Levinson at MLAS in 1974. When it came to sound, Muzio fully embraced the tenets laid out by Levinson. As he told Stereophile’s David Lander in 2002, “Our goal – and we’ve said this consistently for 30 years – is to re-create the original musical event. That goes beyond saying a violin sounds like a violin and a trumpet sounds like a trumpet. I’m talking about being able to convey the emotional message that the artist can convey in a live performance. Our job is to re-create that within a home.” Madrigal went on to produce some of the brand’s most seminal products, including the Nº20 Monaural Power Amplifier, the Nº26 Preamplifier and the Nº30 Reference DAC Processor. Muzio was also instrumental in brokering the landmark partnership that put Mark Levinson entertainment systems inside many Lexus automobiles.

HARMAN International Industries purchased Madrigal Audio Laboratories in 1995. As company founder Sidney Harman said at that time, “Madrigal represents the jewel in the crown of HARMAN International,” and he subsequently implemented a hands-off management policy.

In 2003, the Madrigal facility was closed, and the Mark Levinson brand relocated to HARMAN’s Lexicon® facility (later becoming the HARMAN Specialty Group, with the Revel® speaker brand), where it continued to craft precision instruments capable of extracting every nuance and shading within a recording. Such precision was beautifully incorporated into the Nº53, the first-ever Reference Monaural Amplifier from Mark Levinson, as well as the four new product concepts revealed at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. As Philipp Krauspenhaar, president of Sun Audio in Munich, Germany, said, “These new Mark Levinson products – the Nº52 Reference Dual-Monaural Preamplifier, the Nº585 Integrated Amplifier, the Nº519 CD/SACD Disc Player and the Nº560 Digital Audio Processor – look very good, with outstanding specifications. They will help retain the momentum of the Mark Levinson brand.”

Mark Levinson products will continue to be introduced only when new technologies that have shown promise on paper are perfected and proven through rigorous in-house development and evaluation procedures. Erik Christensen, president of Steensen Audio & Industrial Products in Denmark, praises the brand and its products. “Working with the Mark Levinson brand over the last 25 years has been very important for me,” he said. “It has been a pleasure to see how people behind the brand remain focused on bringing the performance to a higher level. They can still surprise me with improvements that I thought would be impossible!”

PRODUCT TIMELINE

1973

LNP-2 Low-Noise Preamplifier with VU meters

1974

JC-2 Preamplifier

1977

ML-2 Monaural Power Amplifier

1979

ML-3 Stereo Power Amplifier

ML-6 Dual-Monaural Preamplifier

1980

ML-7 Stereo Preamplifier

1981

ML-9 Dual-Monaural Power Amplifier partner for ML-10

ML-10 Preamplifier with built-in power supply

ML-6A Monaural Preamplifier based on ML-7

1982

ML-11 Dual-Monaural Power Amplifier partner for ML-12

ML-12 Dual-Monaural Preamplifier powered from companion amplifier

1984

ML-10A Preamplifier

ML-12A Preamplifier

1985

ML-6B Preamplifier

ML-7A Preamplifier

1986

Nº20 Monaural Power Amplifier

1987

Nº23 Dual-Monaural Amplifier

1988

Nº20.5 Monaural Power Amplifier derived from Nº20

Nº25 Phono Preamplifier

Nº26 Dual-Monaural Preamplifier

1989

Nº27 Dual-Monaural Power Amplifier

1990

Nº23.5 Dual-Monaural Power Amplifier derived from Nº23

Nº28 Preamplifier

Nº29 Dual-Monaural Power Amplifier

1991

Nº25S Phono Preamplifier derived from Nº25

Nº26S Dual-Monaural Preamplifier

Nº30 Reference Digital Processor

1992

Nº20.6 Monaural Power Amplifier derived from Nº20

Nº27.5 Dual-Monaural Power Amplifier derived from Nº27

Nº31 Reference CD Transport

Nº35 Digital Processor

1993

Nº38 Preamplifier

1994

Nº30.5 Reference Digital Processor derived from Nº30

Nº33 Reference Monaural Power Amplifier

Nº38S Preamplifier “S” version

1995

Nº37 CD Transport

Nº300 Series Dual-Monaural Power Amplifiers consisting of Nº331, Nº332 and Nº333

Nº36 Digital Processor

1996

Nº39 CD Player utilizing Nº37 transport

Nº31.5 Reference CD Transport derived from Nº31

Nº36S Digital Processor “S” version

1997

Nº33H Monaural Power Amplifier

Nº380 Preamplifier

Nº380S Preamplifier “S” version

1998

Nº300 Series Dual-Monaural Power Amplifiers updated with Nº334, Nº335 and Nº336

Nº360 Digital Processor

Nº360S Digital Processor “S” version

1999

Nº32 Reference Preamplifier

Nº30.6 Reference Digital Processor

Nº383 Integrated Amplifier

2000

Nº434 Monaural Power Amplifier from Nº400 Series

Nº436 Monaural Power Amplifier from Nº400 Series

2001

Nº390S CD Player “S” version

Nº40 Media Console

2003

Nº431 Stereo Power Amplifier from Nº400 Series

Nº432 Dual-Monaural Power Amplifier from Nº400 Series

Nº433 Triple-Monaural Power Amplifier from Nº400 Series

2004

Nº51 DVD Player

Nº326S Preamplifier “S” version

Nº320S Preamplifier “S” version

2008

Nº502 Media Console

Nº512 CD/SACD Disc Player

Nº53 Reference Monaural Power Amplifier

Nº532 Dual-Monaural Power Amplifier

2009

Nº531H Monaural Power Amplifier from Nº500H Series

Nº532H Dual-Monaural Power Amplifier from Nº500H Series

Nº533H Three-channel Power Amplifier from Nº500H Series

Nº535H Five-channel Power Amplifier from Nº500H Series

2013

March: Nº52 Reference Dual-Monaural Preamplifier

In-Development: Nº585 Integrated Amplifier

In-Development: Nº519 CD/SACD Disc Player

In-Development: Nº560 Digital Processor