Audiophilepure

Read Here

“Let’s not forget about the Mark Levinson No 523’s phono preamplifier. First of all, I was quite surprised at this onboard phono preamp’s flexibility. And of course its sound quality! As with its headphone amp, the phono preamp that is in the Mark Levinson No 523 is hardly an afterthought. As I said in the introduction of this review, this phono preamp uses the same design principles as the No 523 itself, with a fully discrete design running in Class A, with tantalum nitride thin-film resistors and polypropylene capacitors. Mark Levinson doesn’t publish many specifications in regards to its phono preamplifier, but I have no doubt that due to its two channels being physically separated from each other, its channel separation specifications are most likely very impressive. I use low-output moving coil (MC) cartridges, and I found it very easy to adjust the phono preamps gain settings and loading options. It was quite a simple task, as I used its front panel input knob to scroll through the menu options, and then used it’s enter button to select the desired options. The phono preamp’s menu choices include opting for either an MM or MC cartridge, resistive and capacitive load options, balance, either high or low gain, and its infrasonic filter.”

Comments are closed.