Good day to all the wise gurus and digiphiles alike
I am soon to become the proud owner of a Mark Levinson No.31 Reference transport. I am getting it for a ridiculously good price, so I could not resist. I have lusted after one of these for about 20 years, so I am ****-a-hoop. But, I am not much of a digiphile or digital expert, being more of an analogue, LP-nut, so my expertise in this area is limited. I would like to know the opinions of the forum members about this unit.
Furthermore, I was thinking of getting a good D/D upsampler, and then feeding the output of the upsampler to a hi-rez DAC, maybe something based on the ESS Sabre chip. Would this work? I don't have any DVD-A or SACD discs, so this is not something I am worried about now. I would just like the get the best out of my current collection of redbook CDs.
Lastly, and this is something that might have some folks choking on their dinner, but are there any suggestions on possibly upgrading the old girl? I am sure ML used the best parts available at the time, but could there be places to look at that could be improved?
Thanks in advance for the responses and advice.
Regards,
Deon
PS. I am also getting a Mark Levinson No.36 DAC along with the Mark Levinson No.31 transport, and will be using that combination to start with. I am also planning on 'Lampizising' that No.36 with a tube output stage. I am getting the No.36 basically for free, thrown in as part of the overall package, so I can play with it a bit. I do think a good (with the emphasis in GOOD, as in great!) tube output stage could really make a big difference in performance. Any comments on this? Thanks in advance.
I am soon to become the proud owner of a Mark Levinson No.31 Reference transport. I am getting it for a ridiculously good price, so I could not resist. I have lusted after one of these for about 20 years, so I am ****-a-hoop. But, I am not much of a digiphile or digital expert, being more of an analogue, LP-nut, so my expertise in this area is limited. I would like to know the opinions of the forum members about this unit.
Furthermore, I was thinking of getting a good D/D upsampler, and then feeding the output of the upsampler to a hi-rez DAC, maybe something based on the ESS Sabre chip. Would this work? I don't have any DVD-A or SACD discs, so this is not something I am worried about now. I would just like the get the best out of my current collection of redbook CDs.
Lastly, and this is something that might have some folks choking on their dinner, but are there any suggestions on possibly upgrading the old girl? I am sure ML used the best parts available at the time, but could there be places to look at that could be improved?
Thanks in advance for the responses and advice.
Regards,
Deon
PS. I am also getting a Mark Levinson No.36 DAC along with the Mark Levinson No.31 transport, and will be using that combination to start with. I am also planning on 'Lampizising' that No.36 with a tube output stage. I am getting the No.36 basically for free, thrown in as part of the overall package, so I can play with it a bit. I do think a good (with the emphasis in GOOD, as in great!) tube output stage could really make a big difference in performance. Any comments on this? Thanks in advance.
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Hi Deon,
Me too have been lusting for one. There's a 31.5 transport & 30.5 dac( I think)
that's for sale at a local dealer but the asking price makes me wonder if I
should pay that much for something that's almost 20 yrs old. Your very lucky
to get it for a song. Fiddling with the dac should be fine. I would leave the transport
alone. That CD Pro on the 31 is rare, perhaps you should hunt for a spare as well.
Me too have been lusting for one. There's a 31.5 transport & 30.5 dac( I think)
that's for sale at a local dealer but the asking price makes me wonder if I
should pay that much for something that's almost 20 yrs old. Your very lucky
to get it for a song. Fiddling with the dac should be fine. I would leave the transport
alone. That CD Pro on the 31 is rare, perhaps you should hunt for a spare as well.
Hi Deon,
Never forget that placement of power transformers and power supplies was carefully planned. You can't drop more stuff in there and not do damage to the performance. With an external chassis you can control these factors, and you can use the same output buffer with other DACs this way. You can pick off the signal before it hits the output buffers in the DAC.
Read up on buffer design in the tubes section before deciding on which to build. Stay in the reality of good engineering practice rather than following one person's guidance (referring to Mr. Lampizising in particular). If you are really set
The transport probably needs servicing by now. Get that done before changing anything. There are many transports in older product that outperforms current products. Keep that in mind if you plan on "upgrading" anything.
-Chris
You are obviously reading the wrong guru's work. There is no sense in carving up a decent DAC when you could do a better job designing the tube output stage externally and running the signal through it. I do have a CD player with a factory tube output stage. It is something that gives the sound a "flavor", but would not do a good DAC any favors. Anyway, go ahead and try this, but don't do anything to the DAC that you can't come back from 100%.
Never forget that placement of power transformers and power supplies was carefully planned. You can't drop more stuff in there and not do damage to the performance. With an external chassis you can control these factors, and you can use the same output buffer with other DACs this way. You can pick off the signal before it hits the output buffers in the DAC.
Read up on buffer design in the tubes section before deciding on which to build. Stay in the reality of good engineering practice rather than following one person's guidance (referring to Mr. Lampizising in particular). If you are really set
The transport probably needs servicing by now. Get that done before changing anything. There are many transports in older product that outperforms current products. Keep that in mind if you plan on "upgrading" anything.
-Chris
I think that depends on the price and how much you enjoy the sound. Me? I got my set for ZAR12,000 (that is slightly less than US$900 at current exchange rates), so I did not hesitate. 😀
I have tracked a seller down on eBay that sells the laser unit for these transports. When I have paid this set off, I will be buying one of those to future proof my investment. I was just wondering if some of the caps might not be worth replacing. And everyone keeps on talking about the advances made in the digital field- are any of them backwards compatible?
Regards,
Deon
PS. For any of the doubting Thomases out there, I can give the URL to the South-African forum where these units where advertised. I have gotten some real bargains off that forum, like my current CD-player- a mint Denon DCD-1630G that I got for a mere ZAR1500 (that is just over US$100). Great forum, great guys, great deals in the classified ads. 🙂
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Hi Deon,
Sounds a lot better for buying equipment over where you are. Stuff around here is more expensive than is reasonable. I'm glad you have some good selection. For one, it would be nice to be able to pick up a nice Denon CD player for around the money you are paying. I would keep the DCD-1630G as well if I were you.
-Chris
Sounds a lot better for buying equipment over where you are. Stuff around here is more expensive than is reasonable. I'm glad you have some good selection. For one, it would be nice to be able to pick up a nice Denon CD player for around the money you are paying. I would keep the DCD-1630G as well if I were you.
-Chris
Hi Chris
Absolutely 100% agreed!! I am not going to massacre the ML chassis at all! Hammond sell some very nice, small aluminum chassis (I am thinking of the Hammond 1590LBBK or Hammond 1590Z060BK chassis), and I will be using two of them, bolted on to the back of the ML chassis (one per side- see pic below), using existing ML chassis bolt holes. I will be using the bolt-holes left by the XLR plug to attach the Hammond chassis to the back of the ML chassis. The PSU will be in it's own separate, external alu chassis. But before I even go there, I will build the tube stages and then wire the outputs of the DAC chips directly to the tube stages and listen. If it does not make a significant improvement, I will return everything back to normal. The tube stages will be connected directly to the output of the DAC chips, ala' Lampizator, but I will be using my own tube stages. I do however think the tubes will make a significant enough difference that they will end up staying, but I am open to be proven wrong.
Thanks, that sort of confirms my own suspicions, so I will have an EE friend of mine have a look at it. He also works/worked in the digital field, so I am sure he will be able to help.
That is actually one of the reasons I like this old unit- it has the CDM-4 mechanism. Naim rated it so high they bought out all the NOS stock they could lay their hands on for their own CD-players. I think it is a great old transport, and I think it will work very well for years to come. My old Rotel RCD-965 still works like clockwork, no hassles, and she has a lesser version of the same transport.
Lastly I want to ask you what you think of my idea with the upsampler. Do you think it will be worth it? I might have to do a bit better than the Behringer Ultramatch Pro. I might have to save up for something like the MSB Signature 384 kHz Upsampler or a second-hand dCS Purcell or something. Those might cost me 2 - 3 times as much as I paid for the transport, but will it be worth it?
Thanks again for you advice. I have taken it to heart. 🙂
Regards,
Deon
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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Oh I am. It has some very nice Burr Brown PCM1704 DACs inside (one per channel!). And yes, I am also going to Lampizise it, testing before committing to the final mods, but I also think it will be a very worthwhile improvement. 😉 😀
Regards,
Deon
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Hi Deon,
If you come across another 31 at this price let me know, I'll
jump onto it lol. Haizzz my local dealer wants USD 9000 for
the whole set
If you come across another 31 at this price let me know, I'll
jump onto it lol. Haizzz my local dealer wants USD 9000 for
the whole set
I can't see any reason why an upsampler would help you. Most modern DACs are sigma delta and do sample rate conversion anyway. Oddly enough many DACs also measure better at 16/44.1...
Here is a another option for US$9000:
Reference CD Transport N° 31
Reference Digital Processor N° 30
Dual Monaural Preamplifier N°26S
Dual Monaural Phono Preamplifier N°25
Power supply PLS 330
Power supply PLS 226 x 2
Mark Levinson ML 30 - ML 31 - ML 26S - ML 25 - PLS 330 - PLS 226 on eBay
Hi Deon,
You may find that you like the sound of tubes, but in actual fact, a well designed tube stage will sound similar to a well designed solid state stage. As they both approach perfection, they will tend to sound more alike. For the record, I enjoy both technologies and will use whatever technology suits the job better. But, I don't like either if designed poorly. Enjoy your experiments.
-Chris
How about saying that you want to add a tube (or valve) stage? I find the use of the word "Lampizise' extremely annoying. That person's web site is chocked full of horrors and misinformation. Lots of good equipment destroyed.
You may find that you like the sound of tubes, but in actual fact, a well designed tube stage will sound similar to a well designed solid state stage. As they both approach perfection, they will tend to sound more alike. For the record, I enjoy both technologies and will use whatever technology suits the job better. But, I don't like either if designed poorly. Enjoy your experiments.
-Chris
If you have this and are not going down the sacd dsd path, this PCM1702K (I think the 36s had the PCM1704K) with HDCD Multibit is a killer dac, in my view the best way of converting Redbook, DVD-A and DXD.
And from memory it has digital volume control (with max level set), so you set it to your system gain and not worry about "bit stripping" with too lower a listening volume setting.
I would love to own this.
If your into modding it.
I think the only way you could improve on this dac, is maybe to give it a good feedback free I/V stage (I like solid state because you can direct couple) and good dc coupled buffer after it.
And use the AT&T ST connection, proper glass fibre (don't bend it too much) with indexing gel, I found it best on a Wadia pair that had the same multiple connection setups.
Cheers George
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Hi George in certain ways I agree with you but my all time fav is the Ultra analog D20400A dac. Had a Sonic Frontier dac. Sold it off cause the damn input receiver died on me twice. The ML 30 sound just as good but also has the same worries on the input receiver.
Hi George,
-Chris
That's fine, but you have to make sure the design is bang-on. No feedback to help you or to straighten up a falling V/V characteristic (compression).
How could I ever disagree with that statement? Although the latest DACs deserve a look too.
-Chris
I haven't had a chance to listen to too many CD players with those Philips transports. Micromega is definitely my favorite from all I've heard. But I'm talking vintage Micromega, like the Duo, Trio, Solo, etc. I didn't really care for the Microdrive, which used CDM9. BTW, original Goldmund Meta Research Laser 1 and 2 was made by Micromega.
There were a number of well-known manufacturers who used Philips products. Have you heard a Studer or a Revox?
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