Mark Levinson No 360-S Owners manual

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Owner’s Manual

Nº360S

Digital

Processor

Madrigal Audio Laboratories

WARNING: TO REDUCE THE RISK OF FIRE OR ELECTRIC SHOCK, DO

NOT EXPOSE THIS APPLIANCE TO RAIN OR MOISTURE.

CAUTION

RISK OF ELECTRIC SHOCK

DO NOT OPEN

CAUTION: TO REDUCE THE RISK OF ELECTRICAL SHOCK, DO

NOT REMOVE COVER. NO USER-SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE.

REFER SERVICING TO QUALIFIED PERSONNEL.

The lightning flash with arrowhead symbol, within an equilateral triangle, is intended to alert the user to the presence of uninsulated “dangerous voltage” within the product’s enclosure that may be of sufficient magnitude to constitute a risk of electric shock to persons.

The exclamation point within an equilateral triangle is intended to alert the user to the presence of important operating and maintenance (servicing) instructions in the literature accompanying the appliance.

Marking by the “CE” symbol (shown left) indicates compliance of this device with the EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) and LVD (Low Voltage Directive) standards of the European Community.

NOTICE

This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio communications. However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this equipment does cause interference to radio or television reception, which can be determined by turning the equipment on and off, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:

•Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna;

•Increase the separation between the equipment and the receiver;

•Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected;

•Consult the dealer or an experienced radio/TV technician for help.

CAUTION: Changes or modifications to this equipment not expressly approved by the manufacturer could void the user’s authority to operate the equipment.

HDCD® and High Definition Compatible Digital® are registered trademarks of Pacific Microsonics, Inc.

The information contained in the manual is subject to change without notice. The most current version of this manual will be posted on our web site at http://www.madrigal.com.

Important Safety Instructions

Please read all instructions and precautions carefully and completely before operating your Mark Levinson component.

1.ALWAYS disconnect your entire system from the AC mains before connecting or disconnecting any cables, or when cleaning any component.

2.This product is equipped with a three-conductor AC mains power cord which includes an earth ground connection. To prevent shock hazard, all three connections must ALWAYS be used. If your electrical outlets will not accept this type of plug, an adapter may be purchased. If an adapter is necessary, be sure it is an approved type and is used properly, supplying an earth ground. If you are not sure of the integrity of your home electrical system, contact a licensed electrician for assistance.

3.AC extension cords are not recommended for use with this product. If an extension cord must be used, be sure it is an approved type and has sufficient current-carrying capacity to power this product.

4.NEVER use flammable or combustible chemicals for cleaning audio components.

5.NEVER operate this product with any covers removed.

6.NEVER wet the inside of this product with any liquid.

7.NEVER pour or spill liquids directly onto this unit.

8.NEVER block air flow through ventilation slots or heatsinks.

9.NEVER bypass any fuse.

10.NEVER replace any fuse with a value or type other than those specified.

11.NEVER attempt to repair this product. If a problem occurs, contact your Mark Levinson® retailer.

12.NEVER expose this product to extremely high or low temperatures.

13.NEVER operate this product in an explosive atmosphere.

14.ALWAYS keep electrical equipment out of the reach of children.

15.ALWAYS unplug sensitive electronic equipment during lightning storms.

From all of us at Madrigal Audio Laboratories, thank you for choosing

the Mark Levinson Nº360S Digital Audio Processor.

A great deal of effort went into the design and construction of this precision device. Used properly, it will give you many years of enjoyment.

Table of Contents

Unpacking and Placement .........................................................	6
Send in Your Warranty Card! ...............................................................	6
Unpacking the Nº360S .......................................................................	6
Placement of the Nº360S ....................................................................	6
Operating Voltage .....................................................................	7
A Quick Start….......................................................................... 8
Warm up & break-in period .................................................................	9
Special Design Features ...........................................................	10
“24/96” capability & HDCD® ............................................................	10
Guarding against obsolescence ........................................................	10
An “intelligent” FIFO .........................................................................	11
Superior isolation between sources ...................................................	12
HDCD® Gain-Matching ............................................................	13
Front panel, Nº360S ................................................................	15
toggle HDCD gain adjustment .......................................................	17
Display, Nº360S .......................................................................	20
Rear panel, Nº360S .................................................................	22
IR input tip polarity .........................................................................	24
Linking connections .......................................................................	25
Building link cables ........................................................................	25
Male XLR output connector (digital) ................................................	26
AC power cord polarity ..................................................................	27	5
Setup and Installation	28	5
Setup and Installation	28
Nº360S Input Names ........................................................................	28
Making Digital Connections ..............................................................	29
Making Analog Connections .............................................................	30
Making Link Connections ..................................................................	30
Making PHASTLink Connections ........................................................	30
Building PHAST cables ....................................................................	31
Input Names ....................................................................................	31
Naming Your Inputs ..........................................................................	32
Remote Control of the Nº360S .................................................	34
Teaching Nº360S Front Panel Commands .........................................	34
Teaching Other Nº360S Commands ..................................................	35
special commands table .................................................................	36
Linked functions .....................................................................	37
Standby link .....................................................................................	37
Name link ........................................................................................	37
Play link ............................................................................................	37
Display link .......................................................................................	38
Polarity link.......................................................................................	38
Troubleshooting ......................................................................	39
Care and maintenance .............................................................	41
U.S. and Canadian Warranty ....................................................	42
90-Day Limited Warranty ..................................................................	42
Five Year Extended Warranty ............................................................	42
Obtaining Service ....................................................................	43
Specifications ..........................................................................	44
Dimensions .............................................................................	45

Unpacking and Placement

Send in Your So far, you have only half a product. The other half is the ongoing ser- Warranty Card! vice and support we can provide you to complement your new compo-

nent and help you maximize your enjoyment of it. Unfortunately, we cannot give you this other half of the product you just purchased unless you tell us where to find you.

Sending in your warranty card will automatically add your name to our mailing list, and will allow us to contact you for the occasional special offer. We do not share this list with anyone; all names are held in strict confidence. We simply want the opportunity to provide superior service, as our way of thanking you for buying one of our products.

Unpacking the Nº360S Unpack your Nº360S Digital Audio Processor and remove all accessories from the carton. Keep all packing materials for future transport.

Included with your new Mark Levinson processor is a pair of knit,

6 white gloves designed to assist you in the initial unpacking and placement of your new purchase. Please accept them as a token of our appreciation for having purchased one of our products.

Placement of the The Nº360S should be placed close to your digital source equipment, Nº360S keeping interconnect cabling short. We recommend shelf mounting to

allow for proper ventilation. The Nº360S is designed for continuous operation, which is why it features a standby mode rather than a full “off” mode—it is designed to be connected to the AC mains at all times for the best performance.

Please allow 3 to 4 inches of clearance above the Nº360S to allow heat dissipation through air circulation.

Drawings are included in this manual to facilitate special installations and custom cabinetry (see “Dimensions”).

Operating Voltage

The Nº360S Digital Audio Processor is set at the factory (internally) for 100V, 120V, 220V, 230V or 240V AC mains operation @ 50 or 60Hz. (230V/50Hz only in European Union countries, in compliance with CE regulations.) This voltage setting cannot be changed by the user. Make sure that the label on the bottom panel of the Nº360S (adjacent to the AC cord) indicates the correct AC operating voltage for your location.

If the voltage indicated on your Nº360S is incorrect, or if you wish to change the AC operating voltage of your Nº360S as the result of moving to a different country than the one in which you purchased your digital audio processor, see your Mark Levinson dealer.

The Nº360S can be powered by a normal 15-ampere AC mains line. If other devices are also powered from the same AC line, their additional power consumption should be taken into account.

For optimal sonic performance and longevity, the Nº360S is designed to remain powered at all times (the standby switch merely mutes the processor’s outputs and turns off the display). There is an initial break-

in period of approximately 300 hours before the Nº360S achieves opti- 7 mum performance.

A Quick Start…

We recognize that many people are understandably eager to begin listening to their new components, and that reading the manual is often done (if at all) at a later time—perhaps while listening to music through the new product itself. We strongly recommend that you read this manual thoroughly, as the Nº360S Digital Audio Processor incorporates several unusual features which enhance its operation.

Fortunately, we can help you get some music up and running on your system quickly, so that you may begin enjoying your new digital processor while reading more about it. The goal here is simply to make some music as quickly as possible. The following procedure assumes that the rest of your system is already connected (e.g., preamplifier to power amplifier, to speakers, etc.).

1Turn off your associated components

This minimizes the opportunity for a momentary electrical surge

disturbing your system while making connections. If you have a large power amplifier, allow its power supply to fully discharge be-

8 fore proceeding (which may take as long as several minutes, depending on its design).

2Connect the AC cord to the Nº360S and to your AC outlet

The AC receptacle for the power cord is located underneath the Nº360S, in the center of the unit. (This design reduces noise by bringing the power into the chassis precisely where it is needed, rather than routing it throughout the unit.) The Nº360S will take a few moments to initialize and will then be ready to use.

3Connect a digital source to input 1 or 5

Inputs 1 and 5 on the Nº360S are configured from the factory for CD transports, the most common type of digital transport. Input 1 is an aes/ebu (XLR-type) digital input; Input 5 is an S/PDIF (RCA-type) digital input. These digital inputs are found on the rear of the Nº360S. Use high quality digital cable such as Madrigal MDC-1 for XLR-type, or MDC-2 for RCA-type connections. (All other inputs are configured as “not used” and will need to be named before they can be used. Naming of inputs is covered in this manual.)

4Connect a set of analog outputs to your preamplifier

The Nº360S has both balanced (XLR) analog outputs and singleended (RCA) outputs. They are found on the outside edges of the rear panel. As viewed from the front, the left side contains the Left channel and the right side contains the Right channel. Use high quality analog cable such as Madrigal CZ Gel.

5Select the input you are using by pressing its front panel button

6Turn on the other components; slowly raise the volume

Congratulations! You should now be able to enjoy your favorite music while reading the rest of this manual.

Note:	It is always a good idea to turn on your power
	amplifier(s) last, in case one of your other components
	exhibits a turn-on transient of some sort. Similarly,
	when powering the system down (rather than simply
	using standby), turn off the power amplifier(s) first.

Warm up & Although your Mark Levinson Nº360S digital processor delivers out- break-in period standing performance straight out of the box, you should expect to

hear it continue to improve as it reaches its normal operating temperatures and its various components stabilize. It has been our experience that the greatest changes occur within the first 25-50 hours, but that the Nº360S will continue to improve in sound quality for about 300 hours, after which time it remains quite constant.

The only exception to this rule is if power is removed from the unit, allowing it to cool down. In this case you should expect a relatively brief warm-up period before the Nº360S’ sound quality is at its best.

Special Design Features

Congratulations on your purchase of the Nº360S Digital Audio Processor. The Madrigal design team is confident you will enjoy the outstanding performance of the Nº360S for many years. In case you are interested in technical details, what follows is a brief outline of some of the key technologies in your new processor.

“24/96” capability & In addition to the common 16 bit at either 44.1 and 48 kHz sampling HDCD® rates used by digital sources such as CD and DAT, your Nº360S also

supports the two channel 24-bit/96 kHz signal that was defined as part of the DVD-Video standard (and which will certainly be included as part of a larger DVD-Audio standard when the industry agrees to such a thing). As of the writing of this manual, such “24/96” material is just beginning to become available, and we expect availability to grow quickly over time.

In addition to true 24-bit capability, the Nº360S also incorporates High Definition Compatible Digital® decoding to take full advantage of the increased resolution available from HDCD-encoded 16-bit CDs. The

10 High Definition Compatible Digital® format retains much of the resolution inherent in professional twenty bit recordings, by encoding this information more efficiently within the sixteen bit space available within the Compact Disc format.

Guarding against There are many promising technologies on the horizon, many or all of obsolescence which may be included as part of a DVD-Audio disc standard. These

technologies differ in many significant details, but they all promise revolutionary improvements in sonic quality. While such a DVD-Audio standard has not gotten past the draft form (as of the writing of this manual), we have gone to great lengths to design the Nº360S to be able to accommodate new standards as they are introduced.

For example, we designed our own “digital interface receiver” that can be reprogrammed in software to receive and sort out many different types of digital transmissions. This is critically important, since the finest digital processor in the world is of little use if it cannot receive the desired signal in the first place.

Similarly, we have implemented both digital decoding and filtering in powerful, general-purpose Sharc DSP chips, rather than relying on purpose-designed chips that may well be obsolete as soon as a new format is introduced. These Sharc chips can perform a wide range of functions, including many that are not yet defined, simply by loading

new software as needed. In this respect, the Nº360S is more like a modern computer in its architecture, whereas most audio processors are akin to mere appliances, designed to provide only a fixed set of functions.

Everything that the Nº360S “knows” how to do is stored in non-volatile computer memory. Updating this “flash” memory to accommodate newly-announced formats of functions is a simple matter of connecting the Nº360S’ RS-232 port on the rear panel to a PC and downloading new information. The process takes but a few minutes, and minimizes any chance of premature obsolescence for this fine product.

An “intelligent” FIFO Unlike most processors which are highly dependent on the quality of the digital signal they are fed, the Nº360S Digital Audio Processor delivers outstanding performance with even less-than-ideal digital signals.

“FIFO” stands for “First In, First Out.” It describes a simple buffer in which the digital information is stored temporarily on its way to being converted to analog. Just as a large water tower can provide a steady source of water to a small town, despite hour-to-hour variations in the supply of water from the well, a FIFO can provide a steady, consistent source of digital data to the converters which are responsible for chang-

ing that data into music. Even if there is significant “jitter” (inconsis- 11 tencies in timing) in the incoming digital information, the output of

the FIFO is controlled by a special clock with tremendous accuracy. The result largely eliminates the jitter and allows the musical information to be reproduced cleanly, without jitter-induced distortions.

The trouble with most FIFOs lies in their behavior when the incoming signal is poor enough to cause the “water tank” to overflow or to be emptied. Normally, a FIFO would then have to “invent” false data to fill the gap, throw away excess data, or revert to non-FIFO operation. None of these approaches is acceptable, as they all represent serious sonic compromises.

Of course, one could simply use an extremely large buffer. Unfortunately, this solution is a poor one.

A larger buffer implies a longer delay between when information goes in and when it starts coming back out. With laserdiscs, for example, you must keep the in/out delay small so as to keep the soundtrack synchronized with the picture on the screen. An oversized buffer would make every movie’s audio out of step with its video, an unacceptable situation. Of course, one could bypass the FIFO for movies, at the cost of losing all of its distortion-reducing benefits.

Madrigal engineers have developed a proprietary buffer management scheme which reduces reproduced jitter to less than 20 picoseconds while maintaining the synchronization of sound and picture in movies. It employs a buffer large enough to absorb the jitter found in transports of reasonable quality, yet small enough to have imperceptible delay. The rate at which data is released from the FIFO buffer is controlled by software to track the long-term data rate of the incoming signal, allowing the buffer to absorb all the short-term variations which cause sonic degradation. This approach yields a “smart” FIFO buffering scheme which rejects virtually all incoming jitter without requiring an enormous buffer and suffering the consequent audible delay. It also avoids the sonic penalties associated with the various strategies used when a buffer overflows or empties.

Superior isolation One of the advantages of a separate digital audio processor is that you between sources can take the money which might have otherwise been spent on several built-in D/A converters and put it into one, superior processor which

will enhance the performance of all the transports with which it is used. Ironically, many outboard processors fail to live up to this potential due to interference between their various digital inputs.

The Nº360S provides outstanding isolation between its inputs, realizing the full potential of the various digital transports with which it is 12 used. In fact, all unselected digital inputs are disabled. As a result, the

selected input effectively has the Nº360S “all to itself” for its conversion to analog.

	HDCD® Gain-Matching
	Some HDCD-encoded recordings are mastered at a level which is no-
	ticeably lower (6 dB) than conventional recordings, to allow for greater
	dynamic peaks. To avoid unexpected changes in average volume when
	going from one disc to another, the Nº360S can automatically reduce
	the volume of all recordings by six decibels. To remind you of of when
	it is in this mode of operation, the Nº360S will display “-6 dB PAD”
	when locking on a digital input signal in the HDCD AUTO mode.
	In our listening tests, we have determined that the only sonically trans-
	parent gain-matching technique is to raise the volume of the preampli-
	fier by the requisite 6 dB when playing those discs that require it. All
	other design options introduce a compromise in sound quality.

For Best Performance:	We strongly recommend that you use the HDCD
	MANUAL gain-matching in your Nº360S digital audio
	processor.
		13
	If you are using the Nº360S with a Mark Levinson Nº380 or Nº380S	13

	preamplifier, simply name the appropriate input on the preamplifier
	“No36” (explained in the preamp manual), and connect the two prod-
	ucts with a Communications Link cable. In this case, the Nº360S will
	tell the preamplifier to change its volume setting as necessary to com-
	pensate for differing CD mastering techniques, and you never have to
	think about it. (The preamp’s display will show “HD+6” to indicate a
	change required by the HDCD recording being played through the
	Nº360S; it will revert to normal and show “HD+0” when you return to
	conventional recordings. Older Nº38 and Nº38S preamplifiers may re-
	quire a new EPROM to take advantage of this feature.) This technique
	ensures that you always get the best possible sound from your system,
	without any unexpected changes in level, regardless of the recordings
	you play.
	If you are using the Nº360S with any other preamplifier, follow the
	steps below. (You will have to adjust the volume on some HDCD re-
	cordings manually.)

1 Press and hold the mode button on the front panel

After a few seconds, the display will change to show SET NAME and the current name of the selected input. When you let go, it will show NAME and the current name of the input. (Ignore this for now. You’ll learn how to rename your inputs to match your sources later on in this manual.)

2press the polarity button so the display shows “HDCD MAN.”

Repeatedly pressing the polarity button will toggle the display between “HDCD AUTO” (meaning that the Nº360S automatically lowers its volume on conventionally-mastered discs) and“HDCD MAN.”(meaning that gain-matching is turned off; HDCD-encoded discs will still be decoded properly). If you try to change from one to the other while a Nº380 is Linked, the Nº360S will display “HDCD No38” (indicating that the equipment already knows what to do).

Using manual gain-matching ensures that the HDCD digital filter always operates at its maximum resolution, although you may now have to manually turn up the volume on some HDCD recordings, beyond your usual settings.

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