I am SOOO pleased that His Master's Voice has chipped in with his Very Talented View of my comments (and others). Let me say from the outset that anyone who helps people optimize the workings of a modern high-tech record player with that teensie needle supposedly transferring music from the vinyl micro-bumps to a pair of speakers deserves a great deal of credit. records sound good and they are an important catagory in high-end audio, and are likely to remain so for quite some time (IMO). I used to be proficient at setting up a Thorens since it came with all the tools i needed anyway. but i would not be
that comfortable handling a $1000+ cartridge and a Triplanar arm, on some table that
looks like the Starship Enterprise, so hats off to Mr. Fremer for his expert guidance.
(and for Elusive Disc for that matter as well.)
OKAY, SO I keep TRYING to explain why i opened up this discussion, NOT to tell everyone what sounds good or bad or "i don't know". but Hell, in 2011 Stereophile reviewed the new M.Levinson 532H stereo amplifier and found it to be wonderful and said it was unequivocally a Class A product. this amp costs 1/5 as much ($8500) as the Reference 53 amplifiers, a piece i have owned now for over 6 months. my previous amps were ML-33H's, a well respected amp for many years now, and i felt the 53's represented a significant improvement. prior to the 33H's i had a pair of ROWLAND monoblocks, and the 33H's were so much more dynamic and alive in their presentation it was a real eye-opener. but i never lost my love for the Rowlands just the same, although they are admittedly quite different sounding.
I won't bore anyone further with the many other amps i have had in my system for years and learned how noise/distortion becomes less and less of a problem with better designs and better parts. With the 53's they have a very vivid, dynamic, and open presentation, very clean, and IMHO no discernable artifacts, grain, or other distractions.
I do find that better recordings become enticingly close to reality, and as i have found some outstanding performances as well the whole system perks up nicely and gets out of the way that much more. But even if you don't happen to like them or the guts inside that
has "inherent limitations", that doesn't make them that much better or worse than doezens of other excellent-sounding solid state amplifiers that are ALSO trying to walk the line between sounding mechanical on one extreme vs tubey on the other. If Sterophile found the 33H's were hard to review because they "didn't have a sound of their own", the LEAST you could say, and SHOULD SAY, is that the 53's were an attempt by Levinson to keep to that theme while lowering the noise floor even more, and getting rid of the anvil-like weight of the 33's and delivering even MORE power to speakers requiring it. If you feel they are too dry for your tastes, that's fine.
but the gist of the review would completely discourage anyone from wanting to go hear them, and seocondly leave the readers wondering if the entire design is faulty in some way.
Harmon states emphatically that they conducted numerous exhaustive listening tests until they felt that they had acheived the best product they could make. this amplifier wasn't just designed on a piece of paper, and then built according to some theoretical goal. I can clearly hear that they made a better amplifier. So If the #532H sounds so good, why didn't they just stop there? i am sorry, but when 1 + 3 = -2 then i have to weigh in and offer an alternative view.
I have subscribed to Stereophile for a long time now, and i find it very entertaining and it does introduce me to what's out there. i am a computer-audio dunce (still) and would like to put hi-rez files into my system somehow, but i feel it should be just as easy as playing a record or a cd. but Stereophle can make some really dumb remarks, come up with some less-than-believable contents, and i don't even look at Recommended Components anymore, which makes two issues a year mostly a waste of time and paper.
And i wish they would hand over reviews of the "best of the best" components to someone else for a change, and also someone who has a REALLY GREAT ROOM to review them in. and Mr. Fremer, if you are reading this, unless a component represents a threat to the health and safety of the owner, END EVERY REVIEW with "go audition this product for yourself to see if its performance appeals to you." The dismissive remarks you made about the ML- 53's make me wonder if you were suffering from a severe head cold (ah chooo!).
