Mark Levinson N390S owner manual Special Design Features, New Generation

A New Generation

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Special Design Features

Congratulations on your purchase of the Nº390S CD Processor. The design team is confident you will enjoy the outstanding performance of the Nº390S for many years. In case you are interested in technical details, what follows is a brief outline of some of the key technologies in your new CD player.

The task of a CD player is easy to define: it must recover the correct data from the disc and convert that data to a series of analog voltages with neither amplitude nor timing errors (sometimes called “jitter”). As simple as this sounds, achieving it in reality has been extremely difficult—as evidenced by the significant sonic differences between various CD players.

Conventional CD player design depends heavily on the quality of the oscillator used to control the rate at which the disc spins. This oscillator exists in an extremely “noisy” electrical environment close to the motor that spins the disc. The electrical noise introduces timing errors in the delivery of the digital signal that have come to be known as “jitter.” Subsequent handling of the digital audio signal in traditional CD player designs cannot improve upon this “jittery” signal, lacking a better reference. To the contrary, the various stages of signal processing between the laser pickup and the actual conversion to analog can only contribute additional jitter of their own.

The Mark Levinson Nº390S leaps beyond conventional digital audio technology by employing a proprietary, closed-loop jitter- reduction system in conjunction with a double speed CD-ROM drive. Using a custom-made crystal oscillator with better than five part-per-million accuracy, the digital signal is re-clocked immediately before its conversion to analog, eliminating transport-related jitter from the digital audio signal. This same crystal oscillator controls the all-digital servo used to control the rate at which the disc spins, and the digital to analog conversion process.

In effect, the design of the Nº390S turns the accepted status quo on its head. By placing the all-important reference clock immediately prior to digital to analog conversion, and slaving all the mechanical sub-assemblies to it rather than the other way around, the signal presented to the outputs of the Nº390S is uncontaminated by electrically- or mechanically-induced jitter. The sonic advantages of this design are immediately apparent in the clarity, warmth and stunning dynamic contrasts exhibited by the Nº390S.