Kenyon86

New to site. Recently told that the 'head' in the Mark Levinson Audio System is out - and that an after market used product would cost $1,700.00 to replace it. All linked in with my GPS system - GPS is working fine, but no radio function whatsoever.

Am I doomed to spend nearly $2K to have this system repaired/replaced?

Love my car but think that I may have to endure sound of silence for a while if this is as cheap as I can get this.

Any advice, thoughts, suggestions, please?

yeskay

it may be possible to repair the original head unit. take it to any radio repair shop to identify the cause

some

I finally took apart my 86280-0w100 Mark Levinson amp from my 2004 ES330 after almost a year of sitting in silence.
I found one tiny component causing the problem: A blown capacitor. It was clearly rattling around the case and the internals were flopping around as well.
I identified the part number as "Nichicon PW series 39uF 16V aluminum electrolytic capacitor"
I will order a couple and fix the one that was out as well as possible the one next to it.
Such a simple fix? The tricky part was getting to the amp in my trunk:



finding the screw drivers (Torx T10 and a 5/16 socket wrench)
and lastly finding the hidden screws under the Mark Levinson label on the amp

Hope this saves a few people money.

Harold2t

Have you had any luck with the replacement of the capacitor. Also can you share the location of your bad capacitor and whether it was burnt and just what that looks like. I have opened my box up and found all capacitor intact, but I did find one in an impossibly remote location that seems slightly discolored.
I contacted a vendor who repairs these things and they want a minimum of $475 to fix. I am hoping to do this myself.
Also I have seen a thread regarding compatible Mark Levinson amps with slightly different model numbers. Can someone direct me to this thread.
Thanks

patil005

so just replaced head unit in my 2005 es330. i thought the mark levinson amp had gone out and a after market head unit would'nt work.but guess what. IT DID!!!! just replaced with a pioneer dvd and it works perfectly. had to go to best buy and get a harness for it. made by METRA. cost was $100.00 but well worth it.feel free to ask any questions about it

some

Despite how simple I thought the fix would be in my prior post, I am not an engineer so the fix didn't take. I ended up buying a used replacement unit. I have the old unit available as a spare part if anyone is interested in it.

some

This is great information! As you know, non working amps will generally work on the navigation side of things but not with the radio.
I'm assuming the amp is responsible for mixing the radio and gps channels together,
I'm guessing you've plugged your new unit into the working channel and the head unit is mixing the gps and radio/cd audio together without assistance from the amp.

patil005

I really don't know.i had someone else hook it up for me.but I did take it out and look at it.there are some wires in the back that aren't hooked up.plus I just noticed my fog lights aren't working anymore.but I'm going to have that looked at this weekend.ill keep you posted

Unkichunki

I have a answer reguarding your capacitor situation, usually a capacitor will become leaky meaning it will start to leak dielectric acid so the charge and discharge and amplitude and output voltage will be to low, so usually this means that the voltage going to the amplifier output I'C will be too low causing the output I'C to become too hot and it will fail. What happens is the Output I'C tries to regulate the low voltage but it's not a regulator so it fails. To make a long story short, usually when you find a bad cap other components have failed as a result

Gekko

it may be the amplifier -

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...pair-tech.html