legal eagle
Sound Hound
YOU FOUND A MARK LEVINSON ON THE STREET CURB? WHERE THE HELL DO YOU LIVE, AND HOW COME WE DONT COME VISITING MORE OFTEN??!!:tears:
What Is Your Favorite Pre-Amp?
- Thread starter Retro Stereo
- Start date
YOU FOUND A MARK LEVINSON ON THE STREET CURB? WHERE THE HELL DO YOU LIVE, AND HOW COME WE DONT COME VISITING MORE OFTEN??!!:tears:
It gets better......
My boss and some work mates used to go on walks at lunchtime. He knows I'm into all this stuff, and I have a friend who has several Mark Levinson pieces, so I'm sure he has heard me speak of them. Anyways, he waits until about 4:30 pm and then goes to me and says "oh yeah, there's a house on our route where there's a bunch of stuff out at the curb, and there's one of those.....m something things... in with the junk". So we go back and forth and finally I spit out "Mark Levinson" and he goes, yeah that's it. So I say, when did you see this and he says lunchtime, 12:30 or so. Now, it's 4:30, almost 5PM, so I ask him where (I'm frantic by the way), make him get in my van with me and off we go. We get to the house on a very well traveled street and there it sits amongst the debris, in a walnut veneered 19" rack with a bunch of other stuff. So he helps me pick the whole rack up and stuff it into the back of my van and off we go. Never thought to look for the power supply, wouldn't have known what it looked like anyways. There was junk everywhere, probably a pile 30 ft. wide by 6 ft. by 3 - 4 ft. high, they must have emptied out the entire basement or house. Old TVs, all sorts. The person who lived there must have been either a repairman/fixit guy or a junk collector, but based on the electronics in the pile he must have repaired stuff..... and that's how you find Mark Levinson out at the curb....
Splatter Pak
High-End Scrounger
Call me crazy, and I have the speaker cables hanging around my neck as I type this, but I am going in the opposite direction. This is what I'm about to try:
My digital side will have the DAC feeding [via its own gain knob] a small tube amp, which will power the main speakers. No preamp.
The analog side will have the phono preamp feeding the Stax energizer directly, and I will use the Stax's gain knob. Again, no preamp.
Moving-coil 'phones can plug directly into the DAC.
I'll figure out tuner and tape later - I suppose a preamp will have to sneak back in there somewhere...:yes:
:yes:
I almost forgot to say: there have not been many, but my favorite preamp was a modded Music Reference RM-5 MK III [outboard power trannies [two!] and tube upgrades].
Splat
My digital side will have the DAC feeding [via its own gain knob] a small tube amp, which will power the main speakers. No preamp.
The analog side will have the phono preamp feeding the Stax energizer directly, and I will use the Stax's gain knob. Again, no preamp.
Moving-coil 'phones can plug directly into the DAC.
I'll figure out tuner and tape later - I suppose a preamp will have to sneak back in there somewhere...:yes:
:yes:I almost forgot to say: there have not been many, but my favorite preamp was a modded Music Reference RM-5 MK III [outboard power trannies [two!] and tube upgrades].
Splat
legal eagle
Sound Hound
It gets better......
My boss and some work mates used to go on walks at lunchtime. He knows I'm into all this stuff, and I have a friend who has several Mark Levinson pieces, so I'm sure he has heard me speak of them. Anyways, he waits until about 4:30 pm and then goes to me and says "oh yeah, there's a house on our route where there's a bunch of stuff out at the curb, and there's one of those.....m something things... in with the junk". So we go back and forth and finally I spit out "Mark Levinson" and he goes, yeah that's it. So I say, when did you see this and he says lunchtime, 12:30 or so. Now, it's 4:30, almost 5PM, so I ask him where (I'm frantic by the way), make him get in my van with me and off we go. We get to the house on a very well traveled street and there it sits amongst the debris, in a walnut veneered 19" rack with a bunch of other stuff. So he helps me pick the whole rack up and stuff it into the back of my van and off we go. Never thought to look for the power supply, wouldn't have known what it looked like anyways. There was junk everywhere, probably a pile 30 ft. wide by 6 ft. by 3 - 4 ft. high, they must have emptied out the entire basement or house. Old TVs, all sorts. The person who lived there must have been either a repairman/fixit guy or a junk collector, but based on the electronics in the pile he must have repaired stuff..... and that's how you find Mark Levinson out at the curb....
You are enjoying this green envy of ours, aren't you :yes:
?You are enjoying this green envy of ours, aren't you :yes:
Not at all, it makes for a good story is all..... We all have gear envy, my friend with the Levinson stuff had a system that cost 5 times what mine did and he commented one time about how much better my stuff sounded.... drove him nuts.
I'm sure there's a bunch more stories out there about how people came across deals at garage sales and the like. My TD125 was purchased from a guy I worked with, I saw the box in the back of his car at work and asked him if it really WAS a Thorens and he said yes. Asked him why it was in his car, he said that he'd had it since college back in the 70s, tried to sell it at a garage sale and couldn't. He wanted $25 for it, immediate cash sale to me, and now it's in my basement with my demo'd out LP12, my $300 A77 and a bunch of other stuff in my collection. Sometimes you just get lucky. This topic would probably make for a good thread/new post/whatever they call it..... "What's the best deal you ever got on a piece of gear?"
For the life of me I have no idea what a preamp like the ML was doing in an old rack that obviously came from a bar, there was, in addition to the ML, a two channel DJ type mixer for two turntables, an SAE 2800 stereo parametric EQ (which I also have, but it needs work), a 4 channel lighting controller which works, and maybe something else, I don't remember. No amps, nothing else, just this stuff. If the DJ mixer had phono ins, why did they also have the ML? Don't know.
Thanks for letting me share my story. AND, it's a great preamp for it's age, although I have nothing to compare it to. The Nak CA5 sounded slightly better than the Dayton Wright SPA that I had always lusted after and the ML sounded much better than the Nak. The DW was another deal, but that's another story.............
Cheers!
john_w
Miscreant
There was a "best score" thread a while back. I can't find it now though. Although if you search on "best score" you will find a LOT of similar threads here!
Finding a Levinson on the curb has to be pretty close to the best deal I've heard of! :thmbsp:
Arkay
Lunatic Member
Mark Levinson curbside find... I'm dumbstruck!!!
[He shakes head to clear it, and proceeds...]
My favorite preamps that I currently own would probably be:
Marantz 3650
Preamp section of Esotec PM-5
Sansui CA-2000
Not sure how to rank them, but possibly in the order shown; I like each in different ways, for different reasons.
I've stupidly sold off or passed up on or missed out on several others that might have bested these, but such is life... not complaining, though: I think these are very good-sounding preamps already, that I'm lucky to own!
[He shakes head to clear it, and proceeds...]
My favorite preamps that I currently own would probably be:
Marantz 3650
Preamp section of Esotec PM-5
Sansui CA-2000
Not sure how to rank them, but possibly in the order shown; I like each in different ways, for different reasons.
I've stupidly sold off or passed up on or missed out on several others that might have bested these, but such is life... not complaining, though: I think these are very good-sounding preamps already, that I'm lucky to own!
theebadone
Super Member
Preamp
The best preamp that i own right now, would have to be the mcintosh MX-110 Z series. It's a great sounding piece of gear, Great tuner, very nice phono stage, and it even looks good.
The best preamp that i own right now, would have to be the mcintosh MX-110 Z series. It's a great sounding piece of gear, Great tuner, very nice phono stage, and it even looks good.
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