Mark Levinson No. 534: Pure Path stereo amplifier

The Mark Levinson No. 534 is a fully differential, fully discrete dual-mono Pure Path amplifier that can effortlessly drive virtually any speaker with impeccable fidelity, musicality, and...

Mark Levinson No. 534
Mark Levinson No. 534

The Mark Levinson No. 534 is a fully differential, fully discrete dual-mono Pure Path amplifier that can effortlessly drive virtually any speaker with impeccable fidelity, musicality, and openness. The Mark Levinson Model #534 delivers 250 watts per channel into an 8 ohm impedance and can handle even a 2 ohm load.

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The amplifier uses proprietary Pure Path discrete circuitry, which provides high-current, direct-coupled amplification without the use of coupling capacitors in the signal path. Thanks to this circuit topology, the terminal is able to cope with any speaker systems, incl. with speakers that have unstable impedance and provide clear, open musical sound with impressive stereo imaging. The circuitry uses minimal overall feedback for optimal output impedance, and the voltage gain stage and driver section are Class A. In this case, the cascades use a special cascode circuit based on dual low-noise field-effect transistors with a control pn junction in conjunction with bipolar planar transistors BJT, which allows increasing the gain, improving linearity and minimizing distortion.

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The chains use top-class components that have been carefully selected and guarantee a minimum noise level. In the gain and feedback adjustment circuits, resistors are installed that have thin-film elements made of tantalum nitride and retain their characteristics during fluctuations in ambient temperature, as well as providing a minimum of noise and not affected by magnetic fields. The model has a high slew rate, low harmonic distortion of 0.02% (1 kHz) and provides wide bandwidth.

The Mark Levinson Model No. 534 features a heavy extruded aluminum body (Alloy 6063-T5) and is precision-built with extremely tight tolerances. The amplifier is equipped with balanced as well as unbalanced inputs. To connect the speakers there are four pairs of screw gold-plated terminals with proprietary Hurricane clamps, with the help of which you can organize a two-wire connection of the speakers. On board there are trigger connectors (input/output), an RS-232 interface, USB ports and a LAN port, thanks to which the terminal is easily integrated into a smart home system or a local network, and its settings can be changed using the web -page.

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The Mark Levinson No. 534 amplifier includes two identical monophonic power amplifiers, each of which is assembled on a separate board and mounted on a separate massive heatsink. The power supply unit has a large shielded toroidal transformer that uses separate secondary windings to power the right and left channels.

Characteristics Mark Levinson No. 534

Output power 2 x 250 W (8 ohms, 20 Hz – 20 kHz, THD less than 0.3%, output: 2.83 V), 2 x 500 W (4 ohms)
Minimum load impedance 2 ohms
Frequency characteristic 10 Hz – 20 kHz (± 0.2 dB)
Signal-to-noise ratio more than 85 dB
Input impedance 60 kOhm (XLR), 30 kOhm (RCA)
Voltage gain 26 dB
Harmonic distortion less than 0.02% (1 kHz)
Inputs balanced XLR, unbalanced RCA
Other switching interface RS-232 (RJ11), LAN port, USB port (designed for connecting a USB drive with software updates or for importing configuration configurations), MicroUSB port (designed for connecting the device to a computer for access to internal web page)
Speaker output 4 pairs of gold-plated screw terminals with Hurricane fixing screws
Power supply shielded toroidal transformer (1900 VA), 8 discrete fast-acting Schottky rectifier diodes TO-220 (40 A, 250 V) per channel (16 in total) and 18 electrolytic filter capacitors per channel (36 in total), which ultimately provides a capacitance of 118800 uF
Transistors 12 discrete bipolar output transistors TO-264 (15 A, 260 V, 200 W) per channel and 12 discrete bipolar transistors TO -220 (230 V, 70 MHz) per channel (one for each output transistor)
Power consumption 350 W (power on, no signal), 70 W (standby), 5 W (power-saving standby), less than 0 .5 W (eco standby mode)
Dimensions (WxHxD) 438x197x533 mm
Weight 46.7 kg