Mark Levinson N390S guide

Mark Levinson N390S owner manual

Convenience Features

Communications Links

Fully Balanced Design

Too often, high performance CD players have eschewed convenience in the hopes of seeming more “performance-oriented.” While there were good arguments for such a “minimalist” design in the days of analog turntables, the time is long gone when the audiophile needed to give up operational convenience for musical performance. After all, convenience features in a digital product are largely a matter of writing appropriate software, and have no affect on the quality of the digital data itself.

The Nº390S supports a variety of custom programming options, including “delete programming” wherein selected tracks are omitted from the play list. This allows the user to skip the one or two songs on an otherwise good disc that have been overplayed ad nauseam. The Nº390S will remember such programs for thousands of discs, should you want to save that many programs.

As with all Mark Levinson 30-series components, the Nº390S incorporates a sophisticated inter-component communications bus. Unique among high performance audio systems, Mark Levinson 30-series components offer a degree of system integration that makes even complex systems a pleasure to use.

For example, bringing the Nº390S CD Processor out of standby will also bring the Linked preamplifier and power amplifier(s) out of standby, and select the appropriate inputs on the preamplifier so that a CD can be enjoyed. Even a sophisticated system with many components can thus offer one-button simplicity of operation.

In short, the Mark Levinson Nº390S establishes a new standard for performance and practicality among high end CD players and should be auditioned by anyone who desires the finest in digital audio.

The Nº390S is fully balanced in both the analog and digital domains. Information from the disc and single-ended digital inputs are immediately converted to balanced signals and routed to balanced DACs by way of an LVDS (Low Voltage Differential Signal) transmission line. This design technique, borrowed from separate Mark Levinson digital processors, preserves the faultless timing of the digital audio signal made possible by our Closed Loop Jitter Reduction (CLJR) system mentioned earlier in this manual.

An Arlon 25N® printed circuit board provides the foundation for the critical analog audio circuit. First used in the Nº32 Reference Preamplifier, this superior material offers superb dielectric properties and helps the Nº390S achieve remarkable performance with complex audio signals.