MQA Certified

The Nº 519 is now also an MQA certified “Full Decoder” which enables playback and authentication of MQA audio files and streams (MQA Core decode, render, MQA stream decode and authentication). The Nº 519 enables full MQA playback while streaming MQA files from Tidal or Roon, playback from a USB drive, via DLNA, or an MQA encoded CD. MQA is an innovative award-winning British technology capable of “delivering the sound of the original master recording”. The master MQA file is fully authenticated and is small enough to stream or download.

Mark Levinson Pure Path Circuit Design

Since 1972, Mark Levinson has been dedicated to the uncompromising art of sound, with the guiding principle of musical purity above all else. To achieve that goal like never before, Mark Levinson engineers scoured company archives, ultimately developing a circuit-design philosophy called Pure Path. On a conceptual level, its hallmark principles include a discrete, direct-coupled, fully balanced, dual-monaural signal path that delivers unrestricted, uncompromised sonic purity.

Far from merely arranging high quality components in an intelligent manner, Pure Path is the meeting of science and art: Mark Levinson engineers are tasked to create the best possible measured AND subjective performance. To quote Albert Einstein: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Pure Path highlights in the № 519 include folded cascodes, the acclaimed Mark Levinson Precision Link DAC, and Main Drive Headphone amplifier output.

Analog Mastery: The Folded Cascode

Mark Levinson components are designed around a Pure Path amplifier circuit concept that makes heavy use of a circuit design element called a cascode. Originally created for improving the bandwidth of vacuum tube circuits in radios, Mark Levinson engineers deploy cascodes in Pure Path circuit designs to both improve bandwidth and enhance linearity. A cascode combines two transistors so that they operate as a single composite device that functions like a single transistor, using the wanted characteristics of each component transistor, and rejecting the unwanted characteristics.