Integrated Amplifiers

The director of engineering for Harman's Luxury Audio unit explains that the No5000 series is very much designed as an entry-level for the Mark Levinson brand: 'Although these products are by no means inexpensive, they offer uncompromised performance and quality at only about half the price of their No500 series counterparts. We believe this will open up the Mark Levinson brand to a much wider audience, including modern listeners who "consume" their music in many different ways'.

Talking about how the company achieved lower price-points for the new models, he explains that 'We held a two-day "summit" with our US-based manufacturing partner to work together on making these products simpler (and therefore less expensive) to build and test. We started with a clean sheet of paper: we didn't just recycle existing designs and remove things'.

The clearly modular design of the No5802/5805 was primarily to achieve efficiencies in build, testing and servicing: 'We don't currently have plans to offer upgraded hardware, nor to offer the option to convert a No5802 to a No5805'.

So what's next for the range? 'We previewed our No5101 streaming CD/SACD player at the Munich High End Show. This will play both types of discs, as well as content from a USB drive, your home network, or, when used with a smartphone/tablet app, online streaming services. And we have several other No5000 series components currently in development, so stay tuned!'