Mark Levinson #38 preamp Professional Reference - modded

30-day money back (less shipping and fees), 1 year warranty from Empirical Audio.

This ML38 is a gently used reference preamp that has been used in several exhibit systems that earned best of shows at CES and RMAF in the past for Empirical Audio.

The sound of this preamp is nothing like other ML38's, ML38S ML380 or ML380S. It is identical functionally and aesthetically. Just sounds a LOT better. Competes with the 32 for sure.

It was professionally modded by Empirical Audio to improve sound quality. We have also modded the ML38, ML38S ML380 and ML380S in the past, but we don't mod anymore since we produce our own product line now. Our mods are solid and professional, some of the best in the industry. We have thousands of modded products still in use world-wide. Empirical Audio has been in business since 1996. The problem with the stock preamp is that it is quite "dark" sounding and compresses the music. The "S" versions are less bad. With the Empirical Audio mods, the dynamics are unconstrained and it is open and airy sounding, competing with preamps 5X more expensive.

The mods include power delivery upgrades internally as well as a partial rewiring with point-to-point perfect crystal silver wire insulated loosely with Teflon tubing. Some other wiring replaced with twisted-pair copper-plated silver with Teflon insulation. The majority of the longer traces were replaced with silver wiring, cutting the traces at both ends. These long traces are what gives the preamp a dark sound. Lots of cap upgrades, including Nichicon gold larger caps and lots of Black Gate FK series electrolytic caps.

Our reputation as a modder during our modding years, 1999-2009 was the highest in the industry. Returns were virtually zero. Ask anyone that has one of our modded products.

This component is simply a joy to use and simple to reprogram and customize. It always works perfectly. The output impedance is low, about 5 ohms, so more cables sound good with it.

The reason that we are selling our active preamp reference is that we exclusively use our own DAC for volume control now, or sometimes we will use a transformer-based passive linestage. We want to upgrade our speakers to Vapor Audio Nimbus, so we need the cash.

This unit was $3800 plus $2000 worth of mods. Includes original double-box, manual, fuses, wrench, power cord and remote control. Most stock 38s in this condition from original owners sell for around $2500, so the mods are only $300 and well worth it, and these sellers don't offer money-back guarantee and 1 year warranty like we do.

Buyer PayPal address must match the shipping address in the US. Buyer pays 3% PayPal fee.

If you are non-US resident, contact me and I can arrange for Wire Transfer and FEDEX intl shipping.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
http://www.empricalaudio.com