Rudy Crichlow

Which audio system sounds better Nakamichi or Mark Levinson?

sirsomo

Mark Levinson definately sounds better imo. But neither sound as good as a well tuned aftermarket system would.

Percy

I'd give my vote to the Levinson. Nak has better midbass but the Levinson has better overall clarity. This is from extended listening sessions of course.

Percy

Lexusfanatic

Mark Levinson, definitely.

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

I had the Nakamichi system until I ripped everything out except the headunit.
I haven't heard much of the Levinson system, but I'm sure it sounds better than the Nak system. The Levinson components and amp are better quality. The Nak only sounds good at low to medium volumes. I've found the Nak components to be mediocre quality vs. the advertising hype, though the headunit is excellent.
I may have stuck with the factory system if I initially had the Levinson system, but a voice from God kept calling me to rip the Nak system out.

edman611

Finally i have been looking for some one who has kept their headunit and replaced the amp for a very long time. would you please tell me how you did it, did you have to run the aftermarket amp through your factory amp, did you use rca's, a converter, how did you do it?
Please help me out im stuck here. Thanks ED

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

edman: First you need to tell me whether or not you have the Nakamichi headunit, then I will tell all....

edman611

YES I HAVE THE NAK WITH THE NAK CHANGER AND I WANTED TO KEEP THE CHANGER ALSO

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

edman: Your PM says that you have a '93 sc400 with the Nak system. I can only comment on the newer Nak system in the GS. I do not have schematics for your version, sorry. If you happen to already have the schematics and you can fax them to me, I can be of further help.

If you can determine whether the CD vs. radio/tape switching is done in the headunit, rather than the amp downstream, then you can tell whether you have one set of preamp outputs to deal with (if switching is done in the amp, then there are two sets of L/R preamp leads to the amp, ). What I did (since the newer Nak system has only one set of preamp outs (there is front/rear, but they are from the same source)) was splice into the 'front' L/R preamp leads and attach some good quality shielded cable. I ran these into the inputs of my aftermarket EQ, which has an adjustable input gain setting and can handle reasonably high-level inputs (higher than standard line level, but lower than speaker-level). The EQ regenerates new front/rear sets of high-level balanced outputs, which are then run to my amps.

If you're going to do this you'll need a schematic with the wire colors and connectors identified for your SC. There are also a bunch of different combinations of wiring vs aftermarket equipment that you can use to rig up the system the way you want. It is not limited to what I have described above. It is also useful for you, or someone else, to put an oscilloscope on the headunit's preamp outputs so that you know exactly what voltage swing you're dealing with. You can then mate it up with another piece of gear whose inputs are appropriate.

Hope that helps.

edman611

I really appreciate you trying to help. Thank you ?what is your fax #?

disco_y2k

they both kinda suck, rip it all out and go with clarion