Integrated amplifiers — Mark Levinson № 5802

The № 5802 is an integrated amplifier for digital sources only, introduced by Mark Levinson in 2019 alongside a sister model, the № 5805. Both belong to the № 5000 series with a new industrial design, and the 5802 is designed and built in the USA, where it was priced at USD 8,500. There are no analogue inputs at all, so every source arrives through the built-in converter or Bluetooth.

Key specs that matter

Output is 125 W RMS per channel into 8 ohm from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, close to 250 W into 4 ohm, with stable operation down to 2 ohm. Distortion plus noise stays under 0.035% at 1 kHz and full power, bandwidth runs from below 2 Hz to 100 kHz at minus 3 dB, and A-weighted noise is more than 103 dB down. Output impedance under 0.098 ohm gives a damping factor above 82 to 10 kHz. Six digital inputs are fitted - one AES/EBU on XLR, two coaxial, two Toslink and asynchronous USB - plus aptX HD Bluetooth. PCM up to 384 kHz and 32 bits and DSD up to 11.2 MHz, native or DoP, are accepted, with full MQA decoding. The chassis measures 438 mm wide, 145 mm high on its feet and 507 mm deep, and weighs 27.6 kg.

Engineering and use context

The PrecisionLink II converter pairs an ESS Sabre 32-bit chip that includes jitter elimination with a fully balanced discrete current-to-voltage stage, reaching 5.7 V RMS at full scale. Seven PCM filters, optional upsampling to 352.8 or 384 kHz and four DSD filters are selectable. The dual mono class AB power stage is fully discrete and direct-coupled, with a voltage gain circuit derived from the № 534 power amplifier. Two high-speed drivers run in class A ahead of six 260 V, 15 A output transistors, while two Thermal-Trak devices hold bias steady regardless of load or temperature. A toroidal transformer rated above 500 VA has separate secondaries for each channel, and four 10,000 uF capacitors per side sit on the output board. The MainDrive headphone jack is fed in class A by a preamp stage sized to drive headphones directly, with output impedance below 2.5 ohm. The 25 mm thick front panel is bead-blasted, black-anodised aluminium. Idle draw is 95 W and the maximum is 500 W, and a green standby mode takes less than 0.4 W.

Pairing

Two pairs of high-current binding posts allow bi-wiring, and a variable RCA line output is provided for extending the system. Ethernet, RS-232, IR input and 12 V trigger input and output link it to control systems, with setup via an internal web page.

Alternatives

The Mark Levinson № 5805 is the sister integrated that swaps the AES/EBU and second coaxial inputs for one balanced and two single-ended line inputs plus separate MM and MC phono stages.