The Levinson 336 is a 10k amp. The reason Levinson repair center charges 3000 dollars is brutal. This is how they make a huge profit. The 336 when the caps explode it will take out the 3 surge resistors on the slow start circuit. you can replace those wires very cheap. These surge resistors are there to protect the amp in case there's a short or capacitor fail. No other high end amps have this cap problem. The reason they used philips caps made in China. They used these caps on 331/332/333/334/335/336 and Levinson 33h. These caps need to be changed on these amps. You can replace these caps for 800 dollars on 336. These caps are very hard to find. I have purchased caps for all these amps from factory. Very expensive. Because no one uses this high voltage for filter supply.
Should I buy a new amplifier; and if so, what?
I have a Mark Levinson 336 amp, Levinson 380S pre-amp, Levinson 390S CD Processor and Thiel 7.2 speakers, with Audience interconnects, cables cords and an Audience AR-6TS2 conditioner. Recently, my amplifier's bad caps blew the drivers in my speakers (including the woofer and crossover circuitry) -- that will probably cost me about $3,000, and the replacement of the caps would cost another $3,000. So, I am contemplating purchasing a new amplifier. Can anyone suggest a good amplifier to consider for my system? Thiel said they have used Krell and Simaudio with the 7.2's with nice results, and probably a few others -- I need to re-contact Thiel's customer service rep. Any suggestions, recommendations from Audiogoners would be appreciated.