Expensive CD players - worth it?

[Barry]

It's always possible that at some point Accuphase would sell out to some big corporation but there's no sign of that happening. They deliberately limit production and how much they export, it's all in the old Japanese family craftsman tradition.

By contrast, Levinson IMO was a bit of a chancer. I think he was just a marketing man, I don't think he actually designed any of the equipment himself, he got people in to do it. And when he had the chance to sell the brand and even the rights to his name, he did so. Then IIRC he was bringing in cheap China-made equipment and selling it as 'Madrigal' for top dollar. Had a demo of it in New York years ago now (2000) wasn't impressed. It was not bad, but IMO not remotely worth the money.

Have to say I thought QUAD still had a UK based service department that supported all their kit, maybe that has gone now, I don't know.

It is a bit academic now, but you are right in as much to say Levinson was an 'interesting' character. Originally Levinson intended to travel to India to learn to play the sarod (?), an Indian stringed instrument. On the way he stopped off in Switzerland to buy a portable tape recorder. Whilst visiting the Stellavox company, he was so impressed with the quality of their products, he did a complete volte face and returned to the US with the intention of starting his own audio electronics company.

The first items he made was a mixing desk used at the Woodstock festival. These were designed by him and used propriatory Burwen audio modules. The next designs were started by him, but finished by John Curl, who went on to design subsequent items for ML (which is why their designations are JC .. ). After the JC-2 preamp, Curl left the company to be replaced by Tom Colangelo, and the designations returned to the ML .. notation.

After selling Mark Levinson Audio Systems to Madrigal, Levinson started a new audio company Cello, retaining Colangelo as designer. In turn Cello 'morphed' into Red Rose which, I believe, used a Chinese company to build the valve-based electronics. By this time Colangelo had left to start up his own company: Viola.
So yes, an interesting career and an interesting character.