Mark levinson no.532h

I owned the 532H and the 326S preamp and I just put them together back in my system. They are so fluid, balanced from top to bottom, music just flows not highlighting any range of reproduction. Each recording and each instrument sound so different, color and tone and shading, and the noise floor is so low that acoustics of the room or hall come through as you hear on only a real good tube system but with dynamics. Brass as the bite, but not the glare, a sax has a golden tone, and color, along with fingering and the sound coming from sax opening, in other words not just notes and 1st attack, the whole instrument. Vocal recorded well are holographic, the piano has wooden over tone from the keys not just notes and sharpness, you hear the Ivory. My Mcintosh system which I love had more grunt, more upfront, heavier sounding, big bass, yet in the mix was more glare, I always felt it was warm and bright at the same time and the noise floor cannot compete against the ML.

The ML compared to upfront gear would sound more laid back due to it being more natural, but once you relax and listen it hits you how well these two ML units are reproducing the recording and again each recording stands on its own, while McIntosh and Krell and other leave their imprint on every recording. My 532H has been boxed up for several years as well as the 326S so this is the sound I am getting after 2 days of being turned back on, it will take a few more weeks to come into their own.

I also must say those who say it looks lacking internally, well that is only because of how they placed the parts and transformer. This is not a cheaply built amp.

How good is this power supply? you turn the amp off and keep right on playing as if it was still on at the same volume, that tells you how much storage the power supply has, my McIntosh gear amp turns right off with no sound coming from it.

Who has the most storage the ML and my McIntosh is 100 watts more. 300 vs 400 McIntosh, both sound good but different, ML is the accurate one of the 2, the McIntosh is more forward with a heavy sound to it, the ML is more depth, width, and placement, in place of the closer sound field of the McIntosh. 2 amps with a different perspective of sound reproduction. ML are keepers and I am glad I hung on to them. 

I recently upgraded to the Levinson 526 preamo and 534 amp and WOW, what a great sounding combination. Very hard to put into words. The 532H  went down the road to a lucky new owner, it sound fabulous with the 526 pre. 

Amp to the preamp is important and matching brands and the era of each is the way to go. They were voiced together. The ML 432 with the 326S is also the way to go.

I own a 532H and have paired it with Dynaudio Contour S3.4 speakers and PSB Imagine T3s with great success. Nothing calls attention, just brings out the best in the speakers. I've mated it with a ML 326S preamp.

Not all 5 series were great.
Mark Levinson makes great linear amps, all of them sound upper end audio, even the very old models.
They did stick their foot into Class-D with the hideously expensive $50K  No.53 Class-D monoblocks, credit to them trying very hard to get rid of the inherent problems that plague Class-D, but it never reached the achievements in sound quality they got from their linear amps.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/mark-levinson-no53-reference-monoblock-power-amplifier

Cheers George      

I like Mark Levinson amps, but i prefer the older 3 series over the 4 series. Have not heard a lot of the 5 series since the local dealer closed his doors some time ago. The 332, 335 and 336 where and still are great amps.

I had the 532h with my F50s and it was good.  Recently, I changed speakers to the Ultimat Studio2 and I feel it is a really excellent combination.  The amp seems to have great control over the speaker as in soundstage and low end extension.  

I have been tempted to try and compare it to a Pass Labs X250.8.  Not that anything is lacking but curious to see if there are any differences.