MARK LEVINSON No.519

MJ06.08.2020

Digital sources

In 90’s dustbins were full of discarded vinyl records, ten years later we have seen the end of tapes, and after another decade had passed huge collections of CDs were ripped into MP3s and stored in iPods. These days see the return of the vinyl and tape, yet the CDs keep being discarded in favor of subscription to music libraries in an endless hunt for ´higher´ resolution. Who cares that your DSD or 24bit/192kHz files were upsampled from often lossy formats, it is business, isn´t it?

These days virtually everyone can build a capable DAC or a streaming device and I therefore keep wondering – why then there are so few that sound really good? Not only does the Mark Levinson № 519 sound good, to me it ranks among the finest digital sources available today.

100% reference

Function and form

96%

Ease of use

92%

Sound

100%

Appearance

I always had an affinity to Mark Levinson aesthetics except their sources that were somewhat too industrial, cluttered with buttons and unergonomic to me. This has changed with the № 519. The Mark Levinson № 519 player exudes dignity, authority and sovereignty. It is a business class player taht is built to last forever and that's why its price comes with it. Although it is handcrafted in the U.S. the fit and finish is impeccable. Harman have redesigned their products not a long time ago and the new aluminum housing with black and silver trim looks gorgeous. If you compare it to the 18^th century appearance of D’Agostino electronics or rather clumsy and unfinished designs of Pass Labs then the aesthetics of the Levinson are fresh, modern and clean. Dtto for the № 519’s remote control that fits in hand like a pebble from a river with a perfectly balanced center of gravity, and is superintuitive.

As a flagship digital source the № 519 is a showcase of technologies, with one exception: though its DAC does support DSD, its transport does not support SACDs. It is a pity, especially considering that the new Mark Levinson № 5101 can play SACD discs. But this is nitpicking for the № 519 in the CD mode outshines most high-end SACD spinners.

This is what Harman says about the player:

The Mark Levinson № 519 is a complete, modern digital audio player for today’s music lover. It combines wireless and wired streaming with a slot-loading CD player, plus connections for USB drives, additional digital inputs, wireless Bluetooth® aptX®, and HARMAN Clari-Fi® music restoration technology; all in an uncompromising package featuring Mark Levinson Pure Path system design in a 6000-series aluminum chassis. The № 519 sports a large, full-color TFT display, comes with a matching remote control and can be controlled with iOS and Android apps. Apart from the built-in Spotify Connect, Qobuz, Deezer and Rhapsody/Napster, the Nº 519 also enables playback and authentication of MQA audio files and streams from Tidal or Roon, and plays from a USB drive, or via DLNA.

Bass management

Weight

Slam

Articulation

The very short 'executive summary' would read something like very delicate and detailed, clean and luminous presentation, and outstanding soundstaging capabilities.

Even prehistoric recordings like Bee Gees' New York Mining Disaster 1941 (Polygram) sounded as fresh as recorded this morning. I could hear deep into how the song was mixed and how the sound engineer panned individual tracks. Mark Levinson № 519 stunned me with how resolving it was in front-to-back perspective - the guitar on the left was closer to me, off-center, and completelty dettached from the speaker with almost scary presence in the room. The cello on the right was placed on a diagonal from the guitar, behind the right speaker, and vocal harmonies were locked in an undefined space in the middle. The voices appeared coming from a single spot almost as if they were correlated to mono, but they were so wonderfully discernible from each other that I put the track on repeat and indulged what I heard.

Clarity & delicacy

Detail

Air

Transparency

Thank You is a #2 track of Chris Jones' Roadhouses & Automobiles (Stockfisch) and the № 519 portrayed the strings with visceral delicacy as if the sound was embroidered from zillions of tiny details and the listening was like bathing in effervescent and sparkling waters. But the player was far of showing off - in fact it was extremely understated in its delivery of sound. Give me 10 minutes of auditioning to evaluate the Mark Levinson № 519's performance and I would wave it off. Listen to it for several days and you are likely to find any return impossible, the player weaved a cobweb around my ears without me noticing it. So a week later when I disconnected it it was like an end of holidays, end of endless swimming in those effervescent rainbow waters.

Tonal accuracy

Timbre

Dynamics

Temporal resolution

The grip of the Mark Levinson № 519 on the lows is amazing. During regular playback the terrific lows remain unnoticed - as I said the player is very understated. It may be due to its extremely relaxed midrange that does not push on ears, but when music asks for a push, like in No Sanctuary, the № 519 starts sending seismic waves across the room and the deep and resonating bass leaves you frightened in your armchair. The thing is that the Mark Levinson can really play a deep bass note, unlike some competitors that substitute the deep bass competency by a hotter lower midrange. I could also hear quite a difference between the № 519 and my resident Accuphase DP-720. The latter provided a hint of ripe fruitiness and analog seduction, while the former was more on the dry side, like a top studio gear, with massive amounts of effortlessness and unforced resolution.

Spatial resolution

Holography

Soundstage width

Soundstage depth

This text is an extract of our full review of the Mark Levinson player that can be found here: Mark Levinson No.519.

Price as reviewed:590 000,- Kč

Recommended resellers

Absolute Audio s.r.o., Praha, tel. +420 777 739 377

Nisel SK, Bratislava, tel. +421 905 203 078

Manufacturer's website: http://www.marklevinson.com

Associated components

Sources: Accuphase DP-720, Rockna Wavelight DAC
Amplifiers: TAD-M2500 MkII, Mark Levinson No.585.5
Interconnects and speaker cables: Ansuz Signalz C2, Krautwire MAX, Krautwire Numeric, Cardas Audio Clear Beyond, Cardas Audio Cygnus
Loudspeakers: TAD Evolution One E1, Revel Performa F328Be
Power conditioning: Shunyata Research Denali, Ansuz C2, Synergistic Research Atmosphere Level 2, Ansuz Darkz, Trigon Volt

Gallery

77%

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