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This review annoyed me always and now I'm gonna spill it out, in a decent way of course.
For starters:
"Before launching into Stereophile's first-ever report on a Mark Levinson product, an important point needs to be clarified."
First ever report on a Mark Levinson? That's says it all. Levinson started his operation in 1972 fourteen years before this review. In that time MLAS produced already the LNP-2, JC-1 DC and AC, JC-2, ML-1, ML-2, ML-3, ML-5 and 5A, Ml-6 and 6A, ML-7, ML-8, ML-9, ML-10, ML-11, LNC-2 HQD System how could you all miss them J. Gordon? TAS, AudioCritic, Revue de Son, Audio etc.. did not miss them but the oldest high-end audio orientated magazine choose deliberately to ignore this output for more then a decade of the most well known high-end audiobrand already in that era.
Furthermore the rest of this review is full of sneers like:
"introducing a line of no-holds-barred audio products priced beyond the means of any sane individual.."
"there are perhaps more insane audiophiles than anyone had hitherto dared imagine."
"Mark Levinson, through the years, has earned a reputation as the perfectionist's McIntosh—a brand that is most likely to be carried by salon-type establishments which specialize in selling systems to the carriage trade, rather than components to hobbyists."
My guess is that there was a unhealthy kind of animosity between Mark Levinson and J. Gordon Holt from the beginning and Stereophile in those days could not maintain a level of professional objectivity to let the Levinson audio equipment itself proof to be reviewed instaed of the entrepeneur that's selling it.
I know of course that Gordon Holt past away and I did like most of his writing very much. He was a pioneer as Levinson was, they should be respected and credited for that IMO, and it's a shame that this review doesn't pays tribute to that.
Maybe Mark Levinson (MLAS - Cello - Red Rose - Daniel Hertz)himself could explain what went wrong in this relation.
