Quote:
Originally Posted by jdandy
Mike.......Yes, show conditions are often not ideal for auditioning new components. I do think this new Mark Levinson № 519 Audio Player looks very nice, although I am surprised by the slot loading disc player. For some reason that doesn't strike me as a premium way to handle compact discs. The slot loading player handles Redbook CD's and MP3 discs but doesn't play SACD. That seems unusual to me since the digital streamer side of the component decodes and reproduces DSD as well as PCM, FLAC, ALAC, WAV, MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG, APE, AIFF, and WMV files. MSRP is $17K.
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Dan - I believe the likely reason that it doesn't support SACD playback is due to the lack of currently available SACD transports. Since Esoteric stopped selling their transports to other manufacturers several other companies similarly no longer handle SACDs even though their digital sections support DSD. Some companies like Luxman and Marantz now manufacture their own in-house SACD transports for use in their top gear, but that takes a pretty significant investment to achieve.