Audiophile Icon Mark Levinson Reveals Industry Secrets - Part 1

[@AudiophileJunkie]

This is just the beginning! Stay tuned for many more parts where we delve deeper into Mark Levinson's insights and the Daniel Hertz brand as well as tough questions he fields from me on his patent and certain health benefit claims. Every audiophile should find this interview captivating! Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below.

[@ashvarma2486]

Great idea to interview Mark Levinson. Huge fan of his highly innovative work. He is also a great musician and has played with some legendary musicians. Thanks for sharing.

[@bilguana11]

As an audio dealer, manufacturers and distributors will hurt you if your sales go down. And consumers and dealers were hurt when manufacturers started selling online themselves. Before the internet was ubiquitous, manufacturers who sold directly to customers was frowned upon and called "selling out the backdoor".

[@adsph]

I look so forward to this. Thanks Jason.

[@chungang7037]

Really refreshing to hear this perspective...I'd like to hear what he thinks is the cutoff point when diminishing returns kicks in, in terms of pricepoint.

[@1moderntalking1]

The Maria amp alone costs about $30K shipped to Australia so most music lovers sadly will never experience good engineering simply because DH will not mass produce. So DH is more for rich music lovers specifically. Unless manufacturing is industrialised , the poorer music lovers will never experience it unless there is trickle down technology permitted by mass production. Its a catch 22 situation for DH.

[@AudiophileJunkie]

It's a fair point, but remember that these products include multiple products in one, so you save a lot in terms of paying for extra chassis, cables, etc. It's a bespoke product that isn't mad produced, so there will be a threshold of budget necessary. However, for this hobby, it's not unreasonable given the pedigree of Mark Levinson and the R&D/investment he did.

[@TheThatsnasty]

@@AudiophileJunkie HIs amps perform worse than an AHB2 for 1/15th the cost lol. He's literally a racketeer himself, the irony of his comments, and selling things from $15-30k is hilarious.

[@dan-qe1tb]

About the only secret I would be interested in hearing about, in this case, would be how the industry is able to fleece people based on a familiar name having a lot of experience in the business. I can't believe what Daniel Hertz components cost. Comparable equipment is available for far less. To the point where Borresen speakers look like a good deal. I can get X2s for less money than Mark's Eva bookshelf speakers. I don't think any amplifier is worth 13,200 euros, which is what Maria starts at.

[@Ivy13276]

What about if I would tell you that $13200 Maria integrated amp would keep up with a $100000 stack of dac, preamp, amplifier plus cables? Crazy right? Dare a Daniel Hertz dealer to compare if you can!

[@chordasamindow]

@@Ivy13276 My Daniel Hertz dealer let me compare the Maria 50 integrated with my Absolare integrated, in my home. The Maria was nothing special (and has no remote and requires bare-wire speaker cables). Maria is a class D amp w/ dac -- there are lots of these out there.

[@sidesup8286]

Levinson was always an exclusionary brand. That is, you pretty much had to be rich in order to afford anything at all from this company. He talks of greedy companies, but can anyone name any product from Mark Levinson ever, that was hobbyist priced; that was reasonably priced? I heard old Levinson equipment at length twice; once driving B&W 801 speakers, and the sound despite being ok for cleanness, disappointingly lacked openness. And I heard Levinson limited edition power amps costing I think $38,000 back in 1988, through big Magnepans and Denon 1500 cd player as the source, and that system's sound was memorably very good. It was the first time I heard cd reproduction that I liked.

[@AudiophileJunkie]

It's true that his stuff has always been expensive, and the new Daniel Hertz stuff is expensive too. However, I think he's referring to the industry charging ridiculous amounts of money for things that equate to knock off Rolexes inside and also tons of upsells on other things that do nothing. Bespoke state of the art products always will cost more than some budgets can afford.

[@sidesup8286]

To be fair, I have not heard enough Levinson to know if it is in the same state of the art league as say, Gryphon, T+A, D'Agastino, Audionote or even Herron or Hegel. If it is really in state of the art company performance wise or just priced to make enormous profit. There are many audio forums where the OP has posed the question to other audio users; "What are the most over priced and overrated brands of all time." Of course audio forums are not the best thing to go by. Much mis-information on those. The Mark Levinson Presents audiophile record lps, they used to make many decades ago, are very sought after on the used market.

[@AudiophileJunkie]

You should be able to make your own decisions after doing research, but the least valuable "research" is online forums. Listen to this interview...do your own independent research...try to audition yourself and come to your own conclusions.

[@sidesup8286]

I can't say that the audio forums haven't helped me, as I look back on my audio journey. Very few things that I bought had I been able to hear in advance; the way things are nowadays. Audio reviews have also helped me. I buy mostly used and vintage, but I often try to find out what was, for instance, their top of the line amplifier back then. When companies came out with a new line of audio equipment; they know that the sound quality of their top of the line model defines them. It defines how advanced they are compared to the other audio companies. If their top of the line models are not that good and get a bad review, people en-mass will infer that their whole line is not up to par. I do find that companies often gave you something special with their top of the line models. Realizing that, makes buying without actually being able to audition first; less risky and less likely to result in "mistakes." I have been lucky buying used; sight unseen and not being able to audition anymore. So many stores have closed down.

[@alexkemmler]

@@AudiophileJunkie "upsells on other things that do nothing" - literally his amps. This man is a crook. Don't interview him any more if you have any self-respect. He claims digital processing can fix what's wrong with digital audio. Yes, it's as stupid as it sounds.

[@ctbarker321]

I highly doubt a company as small as Mark Levinson is manufacturing his own silicon. This is a task usually reserved for companies such as Google, Samsung, Intel, Apple, etc. It is more likely he is custom programming a chip which is some variation of an ARM chip which is used heavily in cell phones and other embedded computing platforms. It could even be a SOC such as a Raspberry Pi. It is hyperbole and misleading to say that he makes his own chips. You should clarify.

[@ptg01]

So true.... It's a bit of a scam.. especially the 'upgrades' that happens all the time....

[@chordasamindow]

Do you have a financial interest in Daniel Hertz products? Were you paid for these videos with Mark Levinson?

[@AudiophileJunkie]

Lol... No...I actually had serious questions about the claims in the patent which led to this interview. You need to watch the entire thing with more parts to come.

[@andreasakritas]

So, he wants companies to stop advertising and try to be profitable?

[@AudiophileJunkie]

I didn't get that impression, but it seems like he's relying on word of mouth. It's more like the Tesla model for "advertising" versus traditional marketing.