I recently took my 02 LS430 into the dealer with the following problem:

All stations listened to on FM1 lost audio every 5-7 seconds (sounded like a CD with a bad scratch in it). Problem did not occur to stations on FM or FM2. Interesting that if I listened to a 'skipping'; station on FM, the skipping was not present.

Per my dealer, this is a known issue with all Mark Levinson radios and is caused by the RDS feature. Disabling AF turns RDS off (huh - that is not what the manual says) and the problem disappears. As I understand RDS is broadcast on a subcarrier of the FM frequency, it seems improbable to me that having the radio tuned to a non RDS station would cause the skipping behavior observed. And as an audiophile (ask me about my Merdian setup), I fibnd it very hard to believe ML would build something with this sort of problem.

Supposedly Lexus USA is aware of the problem and is researching a solution.

Anyone know more about this problem?

Regards . . . John Haverland