yakim

Oh, really?

Let us upgrade Mark Levinson standard with a JL Audio never-heard-of-by-anyone whatever....

brywhite

Since we are talking about sound systems in cars I guess JL Audio would be a consideration because they have been focused on car audio since the late 80's. I guess the company was actually founded in 1975. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JL_Audi

JL's only real "home" type product are the Fathom and Gotham subwoofers ranging in price from $4,500 & up to $14,000. Their low end "eSub" 12" starts at about $2,000. The Fathom and occasionally Gotham units are at times available for "used prices" on Audiogon and discussed in their forums 1000+ times.

hankinid

You'll find more people by far classed as "luddites" in the audio world than in any other group that comes to mind. Wait until you hear that speaker cables shouldn't be coiled as it slows down the electrons and causes distortion.

ClaytonW

I did a quick quality comparision with some good quality audio (CDs - Mozart etc.) between ML in my '16 LX and '14 LS. It looks that ML in LX is slightly better - when parked in a garage... Than I did the same comparision at highway speeds. Well, LS is far better when driving because much less noise. I suppose that replacing ML in LX has no sense. i would replace the vehicle first :-)

hankinid

Cars and truck-like cars especially are not really designed with perfect acoustics in the top-10 of design criteria. Sometimes, all you can do is turn up the volume to drown out the wind noise. Frequency response within a dB from 20 to 20K might be an unreasonable demand. As was posted, after a certain amount of money spent, you're beginning to imagine improvements.

yakim

I used to be an audio ludite (I don't quite know what it means but it sounds bad), but I've been restored and made whole again. No more cable risers, CD tweaks, my turntable is gone, fat hoses of a cable are replaced with thin wires from a no-name guy who works out of his garage... That said, I ain't messing' with Mr Mark Levinson in his honor, yet another shot of Stoli

lexusrus

Haha, I'm with you. 😊😊😊☺

After a certain amount of money and effort spent on the auto sound system, any additional money/effort can only be heard by dogs, cats, and bats!!! I just don't SEE (or hear) any point in messing with an already excellent ML system.

brywhite

Update: After a bit of time and testing I now think the Levinson system is actually quite good. Prior to testing, I had a School House Rock DVD in the unit for my kid to watch in the back seat. I hadn't used a CD in the vehicle (because who does that anymore?) so I foolishly assumed that since the fidelity of the School House Rock DVD and my primary source, SirusXM was so poor, I assumed the Levinson system was at least partly responsible.

I put in a audiophile reference CD of a recording I had which included a song called "Jazz Variants" by The O-zone Percussion Group. I know it's a weird selection but it has impressive dynamics. If you can sit through it for a couple minutes, you can get an idea of said dynamics (even compressed on your computer) with this YouTube Video of the piece:


Let me tell you, the Levinson System comes alive and really blew me out of my seat - I was scared that something would break - but the system handled it. If you can bare to sit through this song you'll see why. All those 19 speakers actually do something when this is played and YES! The subwoofer actually works! And very well I might add.

With SiriusXM it's as if only the front speakers on the dash are working and I guess the door speakers add some bass fill but it's not very good. I scrubbed around on the internet and found that SiriusXM compresses their stream to between 32kbps and 64kbps. Crazy! Our cheap downloaded music is better than that. A CD is 1441 kbps and a well recorded performance put on CD can be very impressive sounding.

In a post above I suggested seeking out a better source component like a Digital Audio Player which would play higher resolution formats and output its analog signal through the 3.5mm headphone jack into the AUX 3.5mm input in the Levinson system. These DAP's can be had for between $100 and $3,000 so depending on budget, there is really something for everyone.

So based on this I would encourage anyone who thinks the performance of the Levinson system is weak AND hasn't tried a better source, do so prior to attempting to tweak the Levinson system with aftermarket DSP or speaker drivers.

yakim

The summary: Do not mess with Mark Levinson. Never try to insert some boondoggle basement made whatchamacallit into the chain. Period.