AlexusAnja makes a very good point - very few people know or care who Mark Levinson is.

Lexus may have an older demographic.....but many of the members of this forum are below the age of the demographic - I'm 45. My dad, who is 70 loves his jazz/big band, and he wants it to sound good.

A luxury car manufacturer should design and build a system that does most things well - jazz, classical, various rock, and a few others. You don't design for hip hop or rap, because an avid rap and hip hop listener is going to custom build their own system. IMHO, sound quality is not important for hip hop...just loud and thump.

Now, you've designed your system to do a decent number of things well. Hire some big Madison Ave. marketing firm to come up with names from their naming systems.....

Couple of other ways to solve the problem - Levinson says he has designed an automobile sound system that is outstanding, yet also makes economical sense for the manufacturer. They can use his brand (Red Rose), or make something up. He also works with LG who now makes great product, so they can be the provider.

Lexus has made it sound like Mark Levinson designed the LS system.....I find it disappointing that Lexus would skirt the edge of honesty.

Go to their site with this link:
http://www.marklevinsonlexus.com/luxury.asp

 

hey killergs; can i ask on what mode you listen to your ml mostly, i.e. radio, cd, satellite, and also what are your preferred genres of listening?? maybe its just what i listen to but i firmly believe that my old gs because of the smaller cabin made the whole system sound tighter and more responsive..


bigup '808'

 

I have a 1992 SC400 with Nak (I'm the original owner) and a 2004 LS430 Ultra Luxury with Mark Levinson. The Mark Levinson is far superior. But of course that may be partly due to the quietness of the LS430.

 

what brand systems are in non-UL ls430? is there a name for it besides stock...

 

I listen to Cd's b/c radio sounds lame, I wish I had sat radio, but no way i'm paying monthly fee for radio! I mostly listen to R/B, Hip Hop, and Rock. Even though I like the Nak in the GS, maybe Hip Hop was better in the GS w/ smaller cabin reasons, but overall I fell the ML in the LS is clearer and better.

 

I listen to CD's, iPod (vais tech sli), and satellite radio.

Music includes most everything except rap & hip hop. I like medium to decent volume but not loud.

System sounds best (IMO) in iPod mode, but it is important that the iPPod's equalizer is turned off. If not - lot of distortion

 

hmmm, i would have thought it would sound better with the equalizer on and configured properly, but i have never tried it. in fact i don't even own an ipod.

 

You get to do all the fun stuff!!

 

This will change your musical life. Load up to 16gb of music (8gb on smaller unit). I have 13gb on my iTunes which equals 3,300 songs.

The Vais Tech SLI makes your iPod work in your car with steering controls, display on Nav is nav installed, and it sounds great.

The iPod has a built in equalizer, but it doesn't need it for headphone use. Definitely keep it off when running in your car.

 

ha ha... yeah, there was chocolate fountain there too, with plenty of strawberries and other fruits to just dip away. Surprisingly, from the starting gate, they were serving wine too. I had a few little snacks.

There was a driving event for the RX350 too yesterday, but we were not able to make it. Wonder if anyone else on forum had gone.

 

alexus, were the sales people really pushy or rather right on top of you trying to 'help' you answer any questions you might have??

mafpolo, i have a g1 phone with 16 gigs of all my favorite music. i guess the vais tech thing would probably work good for this too..

 

I don't care if Mark Levinson designed the Mark Levinson system or not. He didn't. All I care is if it is a great system.

I don't care if Etsuro Nakamichi designed the Nakamichi system or not. He didn't. All I care is if it is a great system.

I think that it boils down to this for a company thats success rides on the name of its founder: Does the unique personality and tradition of quality persist even after its founders are gone?

 

YOu pose a good point there grasshoppa'?

 

No, it was a showing event, no salespeople, atleast they didn't seem like salespeople to me. They were quite helpful with questions. They were probably presenters, given the full go-around of the new RX. If nothing else, the people serving the wine were pushier. I had no less than four servers come up to me asking if I wanted wine. NO !!!! I drove, I don't want to drink.

Going off track here... but let me bring it back to earth. The new RX350's ML actually sounded pretty good with the car off and nothing going around. I don't know how many speakers, but sounds better than the RX300 I have for sure.

 

i have noticed that occasionally i'll find a song on a cd that just sounds amazing on my ml but then the song will end and its back to the hollow classical effect sound. i wonder if they used one of these tactics???