Sporting a bold new industrial design and PrecisionLink II DAC, the Mark Levinson No 5101 looks to plug the current gap of high-end SACD players but also brings streaming smarts.
With a wide range of supported digital audio sources and formats, the No 5101 allows playback of physical media including SACD, CD-A, CD-R and CD-RW. It supports FLAC, WAV, AIFF, OGG, MP3, AAC and WMA formats.
The No 5101can stream from NAS drives as well and DLNA and UPnP devices connected to the same network as the No 5101 via Ethernet or WiFi. It can also navigate and playback audio files from a USB flash drive connected to the USB type-A input.
Additionally, with one coaxial and one optical S/PDIF digital input, the No 5101 serves as a premium stand-alone DAC. The latest generation ESS PRO Sabre 32-bit D/A converter with jitter elimination circuitry and a fully balanced, discrete current-to-voltage converter directly descended from the No 5802 and No 5805 integrated amps form the heart of the digital audio processing stage.
In addition to the digital inputs, it has one coaxial and one optical S/PDIF digital output which will pass a PCM stereo signal through to other devices such as integrated amplifiers.
A toroidal transformer mated to 13,600uF of filter capacitance forms the heart of the linear power supply which powers the DAC and all analogue circuitry. Individual regulators for each channel assure dual monaural operation.
The power supply, transformer and control PCBA’s are encased in a steel cage shield isolated from the digital and analogue audio signal path.
The robust slot-loading transport is suspended on steel standoffs floating on a PVC and styrene-butadiene rubber sandwich and shielded with a steel cover.
With the No 5101, the one-inch-thick solid aluminium front panels are bead blasted, black anodised, and machine contoured to flow seamlessly into the sleek glass display, which itself is recessed into a bead-blasted and clear-anodised aluminium bezel.
No 5101 is being previewed at Munich HIGH END 2019 and will be available in fourth quarter 2019 with estimated pricing of $5,500.
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