Gary16

There are no real "issues" with the 502. I don't know of any product at any price that doesn't have some minor problems that show up in the first units. Look at all the Blu-ray players including the Denon 3800. Or many of the plasma and LCD flat panels. The problems that develop do not take away from the excellence of the product overall. Early adopters are used to this. The Levinson people have been more than responsive and have taken care of any problems quickly. As has Denon with their 3800. The bottom line is that these are top of the line products that deliver what they are supposed to.

pfslai

If it's firmware issue I can understand. Ribbon breaking off because it's too tight??? Also a year or so ago one of their new preamps being reviewed by stereophile had a volume control knob issue...this also happened to my several years old 380 volume control knob too.

Gary16

The ribbon issue is admittedly a strange one. My 502 was shipped twice by UPS -- once to the dealer and then to me -- and arrived with the outer box slightly crushed and with a hole on one side and yet my unit was perfect -- no broken ribbons. How did two other 502's suffer a different fate? I don't know but it would seem not to be a design flaw or else mine certainly would have suffered the same breakage. Seems like the other units were handled extremely carelessly by the delivery people.

Lefisc

First thanks for all your help. If there is any issue here is that there instruction booklet should be written better.

First, there is an easy solution to the blackout Audio controls. THE CURRENT INPUT must be something that lines up with what you want to adjust.

When I was listing with the unit set to “2 Channel” sound, the audio adjustments in 5.1 and 7.2 were grayed out. You have to switch to a 5.1 (or a 7.2) input for those to come up. It took some time but I figured that out.

But this new batch also got the first software update for the machine

Having first the No. 40 and switching to this is a bit like having Windows 98 and switching to XP. That is, they changed the name of a function and where it is, but it is kind of the same function, got you have to look for it.

It is certainly better sounding that the 40, with a lot more options. Again, the instruction booklet is a bit wrong. For example, it give you a “quick” way to start out and set up a DVD player input. But, at least on mine, some of the default video settings are not correct. They should have referred you to this section or shipped the unit with those settings.

I am also comparing it to my 30.6. I have a 31.5 transport and a 30.6 d/a. As far as I can now judge, and I have not had the new unit warmed up yet, it is at least as good as the 30.6 and I think a bit better. This would be great. Making the system simpler would be better.

(A final note on the No 40: The 40 was supposed to hook and link with the 30.6/31.5/32, but it failed miserably at it. I also noticed that although the combination was supposed to use the 30.6 for all left and right functions there was a degrading of sound. That is a 30.6/31.5/32 combination sounded better than a No 40 30.6/31.5/32 combination.)