Any recent experiences with the Mark levinson 512

I'm reviewing the 512 at home now as a potential upgrade from my ML390S. Wasn't really impressed with the sonic improvements, considering the cost, until I also upgraded my speaker cable from Gryphon blue to Nordost Valhalla. Also upgraded to Nordost power cord for the player as it made a discernible improvement to clarity, dynamics and soundstage; although the main gains in this area were provided by the Valhalla speaker cable. Comparing the 390S and 512 with the cable improvements in place for both is like chalk and cheese, or more appropriately, recorded and live. Redbook recordings took on a palpability, clarity, spaciousness and dynamism that is breathtaking at first hearing. SACD is the same but more so. In comparison the 390S sounded rounded and muffled, like listening through some kind of padded earmuff. The 512 sounds drier than the 390S, which sounds positively warm by comparison, however having attended a live orchestral concert only last night there is no doubt that the timbres the 512 produce are more accurate. As usual, a disadvantage of the 512 is that bad recordings stand out more while good recordings sound even better. Having said that the Led Zep remasters that sounded way too bright on the 390S (before the cable changes) sounded more bearable on the 512. I listen mostly to classical music, rock, contemporary folk and some blues. All good on the sound front then and convincingly much, much better than the 390S. The bad news is that the 512 error correction allows scratches to voice, that is scratches produce pops and cracks not unlike static discharge - very annoying! Also on one occasion the 512 simply stopped working in the middle of a track and went into standby for no apparent reason, it later replayed the same disc without problem. I should mention the demo 512 has something loose in the case which you can hear moving around if you tilt the case. I gather it came to my supplier in that condition. Whether this has anything to do with the above problems is impossible to say. Will probably not proceed with the purchase - given previous reports of unreliability who needs irritating problems at the price of the 512? A great shame ML can't make this a reliable unit. Will keep the Nordost power cord and speaker cable however.
Remaining parts of the system: interconnects are Valhalla driving ML33Hs directly from CD player. Speakers are SF Stradivarius Homage.

Gnomus, thanks very much for your excellent post. I have a Meridian 808.2 and was thinking of making the move to the 512 instead of possibly upgrading to the 808.3 because of cost and the fact that I have always been a Levinson user since the mid 80's. Also, this would give me an all ML front end along with the 326S and 433.
After having several conversations and reading some older posts, I like you have concerns.
Thanks again for your input

In the end I had no further trouble with 512 and bought it on the strength of its CD playback. As a matter of interest, as part of my research, I took the digital out from the 512 and ran it through a Berkeley Alpha Dac direct to the amps. The Berkeley was warmer but didn't have nearly the same clarity or sense of live presence, of harmonic and dynamic detail, the 512 gave the same material. Of course there was also an extra set of cables interposed, quality Harmonic Tech with AES ends, so they may or may not have contributed to the Alpha Dac not equalling the 512. Hope you've had some success in your decision making Rwherbster.

Very recently I've heard the 512 it is a very good player among the best but in my friend's house a group of friends made A/B comparison thoroughly with the set dcs puccini&uclock and it was obvious to all participants that dcs gear was superior. Furthermore in soundstage, bass, dynamics, big orchestras the difference was pretty amazing for dcs gear.
The system was ML326S preamp, Plinius sa103 monoblocks, Revel's latst top speakers. The cables from full Harmonix loom and also changed to Stealth loom with same findings.
The supremacy of dcs puccini&uclock was equall in red book pcm and sacd playback.
In Europe it make sense such comparison because you can find the dcs combo in competitve price range with ML512.
Also with dcs combo someone has computer audiophile access in contrary with ML512.

I would like to thank both of you gentleman for your enlightened remarks, however I think for the time being I will stay put with my Meridian 808.2. After much thought I just do not feel comfortable with the current Levinson situation. They have lost so many talented people, moved operations countless times, no longer do their own service work and it appears they have had a diminishing dealer base. I have been a loyal Levinson customer since the mid 80s but will take a wait and see approach before making this change. Many thanks, Ron