Pretty interesting tale about your Levinson stuff fizzing out. I am also under the impression that their new stuff is supposed to be rock solid. This doesn't change your circumstance though. There should not be any "fact gathering," they should have overnighted you new gear and sent prepaid labels to send the broken stuff back.

You can't underestimate the effect of internet chatter about unreliable gear and poor customer service.

I have been in this same boat and it is VERY frustrating!!

What direction are you headed if not sticking with Levinson?

Yeah ... dealer(he's brand new to Levinson) is telling me the Harman guys are just amazed I've had 3 units fail now. Said they just generally have zero failures but I don't buy that as when I made the purchase ... refurb gear was available for a discount. One doesn't generally refurb perfectly good equipment. I didn't necessarily expect over night as even the preamp is heavy and would be expensive to overnight but I didn't expect that after almost 3 months of making a $40k+ purchase I'd still not have a properly working system. 2 523's and 1 536 not working correctly. I let the dealer know that after 2 defective 523's I won't entertain another one of those so I asked him to either replace with a 52 Reference as some accommodation pricing or refund it. I would be willing to replace the 536 one time to see if the second one works correctly. If I refund the pre only I'll probably just go with an ARC Ref6 but only after an in home demo. If I refund the entire system I'll just do the Ref6 and the new 160M and call it a day for a while. At this point I'm so tired of dealing with this that I just want it to be over. As an FYI ... I didn't even post about any of this for the first 6 weeks as I gave the dealer and Levinson ample time to resolve before posting.

George

After designing and manufacturing quality gear, handling of in-field product issues is the number one thing any manufacturer must do well. The dealer plays a big role in that too. It’s very unfortunate they are not resolving this satisfactorily.

Every manufacturer has failed units, including McIntosh, D’Agostino, Apple, Mercedes, NASA, Boeing, Caterpillar, Deere, IBM, and EMC.

Not AMC... :laughin:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...3000893%29.jpg

:D

OMG! I remember those!

First piece of good news in a while ... got the 536 swapped out today and now have 2 perfect amps. Woo Hoo! Thanks to both Harman and my dealer. Dealer assured me we would have this resolved this week for sure. We are just trying to see if we can work out a way to get me into a Ref52 that isn’t too painful since I’ve had all the issues with the 523. Hopeful. Thanks to everyone for supporting me in my time of need! LOL

George

A buddy of mine drove one of these throughout high school. He had the dashboard customized with prismatic/iridescent metal, and used air fresheners to mask the "smoke".

Update ... the dealer working with Harman came up with a completely acceptable solution to get me into a No52 Reference Pre so my hat's off to them both ... took longer than I would have liked but they definitely made up for it so I would have no hesitation buying from the dealer or Harman again since they did the right thing. Now ... just waiting for the shipping notification! LOL

I'll do a thorough review once its in and burned in good.

George

That’s a much better status George, good for you!

I will be interested to read your comments on the comparison.

Congratulations!

I really like my 52 and have no complaints but I did have firmware issues when I got it (the first one). Hopefully you're shipped one with the latest firmware...
Fingers crossed!