Solid State Preamp Reviews

I had an opportunity to briefly use the Mark Levinson No.38 in my small-room system, but I didn't do any tightly controlled A/B tests against the Threshold T2. I don't think the No.38 is in the same sonic league as the T2—it was never able to move me emotionally. It sounded clean and quiet but dead, and lacked life, sparkle, and musical joie de vivre. The No.38 also seemed dynamically compressed, with little differentiation between ff and fff passages.

With the T2, musical contrasts were quite well-defined, with almost no sense of compression. Only the Audio Research LS5's dynamic presentation surpassed that of the T2. The Levinson No.38 was not a sonic contender, but its ergonomics were impeccable. A more interesting comparison would be to put the T2 up against the Mark Levinson No.38S, something JA does in his review of the Levinson elsewhere in this issue.—Steven Stone