Marklev.com Revival !

I'm glad to announce that the website hosted under the name "marklev.com" since 1999, which I had to shutdown a few years ago, will slowly come back to life here.

The structure of the website will be simple : each equipment will have its own blog entry, pages will be used for categories.

Please do not hesitate to leave comments!

The IMF Electronics (loudspeakers) website which used to be hosted under marklev.com is at http://www.imf-electronics.com, check it out please !

You can contact me through this form.

Stéphane.
Paris, France, May 2014.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Preamplifiers

Below, the list of preamplifiers designed by Mark Levinson :
  • JC-2 John Curl #2 preamplifier.
  • ML-1 modular stereo preamplifier.
  • ML-6, ML-6A and ML-6B mono preamplifiers.
  • ML-7 stereo preamplifier.
  • ML-10 and ML-10A stereo preamplifiers.
  • ML-12 and ML-12A basic stereo preamplifiers.


Power Amplifiers

Mark Levinson Power Amplifiers: only 4 designed, one became a legend.

The job of the amplifier is to take a few volts as input and output a lot of volts. If they can handle lot's of current it means that theycan drive loudspeakers with low impedance, like some electrostatics panels for example.
All Mark Levinson amplifiers can drive virtually anything.
ML-2

Class A

ML-2 2 × 25W monoblocs (the legend).

Class AB

ML-11 2 × 50W class AB (the entry level)
ML-9   2 × 100W class AB (the cool one)
ML-3   2 × 300W class AB (the huge one)


To understand the difference between class A and class AB amplifiers one can read the according page on the Wikipedia.

Basically, class A amplifiers need a lot of current from the power source even when idle, as a consequence they run very hot. The class AB amplifiers do not have this drawback, they can get hot but not that much and they need only a small amount of current when idle. Class AB means that the amplifier runs in class A from 0 to X watts and then switch to class B. Of course you don't hear anything. Typically the value X is a few watts.
Some simple explnations with schematics here : http://forum.qscservice.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2752.