No account of CT audio-history could be complete without Mark Levinson. Above: a 1973 advert for his first product, the LNP-2 pre amplifier. Although it cost $9,050 (yup….) in 2013-dollars, a unit recently sold on eBay for $4500.… so not a terrible investment overall.
Click here to download (not my link…) Barry Willis’ account of the career of the CT audio legend. It’s worth a read. Starting with… age 22, he built the console for Woodstock.
3 replies on “1973: The Mark Levinson Pre Amp”
If I recall John Curl and not ML designed most of all the ML stuff before ML sold out. He later married Kim Cattrall, the two wrote an exceptionally raunchy sex manual, and then divorced.
Wrong assumption that John Curl designed the ML stuff from Levinson.
John Curl was hired by MLAS Ltd. is a designer and he designed the Mark Levinson JC-1 (Phono Preamp) and JC-2 a preamp. He made the first drawings for a power amplifier dubbed the JC-3 but left soon thereafter and Thomas P. Colangelo designed all of the ML Series (ML-2, 3, 5, 6a and b, 7 and 7a, 9, 10 and 11) and after that most of the Cello equipment a company founded by Levinson in 1985.
The LNP-2 professional preamp was designed by Levinson himself and Dick Burwen.
Curl did indeed design ML equipment. He still designs highly regarded equipment. Also writes on blogs. He has been very vocal about how Mark Levinson cheated him out of royalties for his designs. Previous poster is correct that Levinson did marry Catrall who famously played a big slut on Sex and the City and they did write a book before she divorced him. His latest shtick is trying to sell highly overpriced watches..