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Description: Remote-controlled line-stage preamplifier. Gain: –73.1dB to +18dB. Inputs: two stereo balanced (XLR), four single-ended (RCA), one Mark Levinson Link communications connector, one 1/8" mini-jack for external IR repeater. Outputs: one balanced stereo main output (XLR), one single-ended stereo main output (RCA), two stereo record outputs (RCA), one Mark Levinson Link communication connector. Input impedance: 100k ohms. Output impedance: <6 ohms. Input overload: >16V. Maximum output: 16V RMS, balanced. Power consumption: 40W.
Dimensions: 15.75…

I was particularly interested in hearing the No.38 after having spent some time with two other fully balanced preamplifiers: the $4495 Audio Research LS5 ($5990 with the BL2, the latter needed to accept single-ended inputs), and the $3495 Sonic Frontiers SFL-2. (Both of these preamplifiers were superbly musical, and highlighted just how good the best of today's preamplifiers have become.)

I auditioned the No.38 driving a Krell KSA-300S, or Audio Research VT-150 tubed monoblocks. Loudspeakers were Thiel CS3.6es, the Vision Acoustics Soloist (reviewed elsewhere in…

The No.38 exhibited extraordinary technical performance on the bench—its measurements were as good as preamplifiers get. First, I measured an input impedance of between 95k ohms and 115k ohms at the balanced inputs, within measurement error of the specified 100k ohms. The single-ended inputs had an input impedance of 90k ohms. With an active volume control, the preamplifier doesn't have the "bomb-proof" input overload characteristic typical of a passive potentiometer. The No.38's input-overload margin (fig.1) was exactly as specified: 16V at the balanced inputs,…

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-…

Before the Mark Levinson No.38S took pride of place in my system, I used the sample of the No.38 reviewed by Robert Harley for several months. The basic '38 is functionally the same as the 'S version, but soundwise, there was no contest. The balance of the less-expensive preamp is smooth, but in comparison with the 'S, it lacked detail and clarity. It's not that it sounded dark in, say, the way the Melos SHA-1 does, but the No.38 failed to get enough of a handle on the excitement embedded in the recordings. On…

Indulge my fantasy for a second—I'm talking about a system with DC-to-light bandwidth, zero noise and distortion, and unlimited dynamic range and resolution. It's an audiophile conundrum: When output precisely matches input, have we attained nirvana?

Maybe not. Most CDs and LPs aren't all that transparent, so I'm wondering if our obsession with transparency is misplaced. Soundstaging? Not if you listen to rock or jazz—the music's spatial depth, low-level ambience, dimensionality, and reverberation are all fabricated in the mix.…

It always starts with some chick. She saves him. Or she breaks 'im in two. And suddenly a song that will define some singer-songwriter's career jumps out of his head, trickles down his arm, out of his fingers, onto paper, and across the strings.

For Jason Isbell, that woman "smelled like cigarettes and wine / and she kept me happy all the time." And in a quatrain where Isbell separates…

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say thanks to…