I spoke with a two friends of mine who work at a high end shop that sells Levinson equipment. I asked them what the repair history and problem patterns were on the 37/39/390S.
I have known these guys for years and they have always been honest with me.
They are one of the highest volume ML dealers in the US.
Can you tell I am trying to add some validity to my post? ; )
They said that the early 37s were problematic and it was traced to the units not "surviving" the shipping. They literally used to ship units back and forth to this shop to study what was happening. Those problems were resolved by using a different transport screw and locking mechanism.
They also said that usually with these transports that if they were problematic, it was usually right out of the box. Once the unit was used for a few hundred hours, if there were not any problems up to that point, it was rare that one would develop after that.
The problems generally were related to the drawer mechanism and laser alignment, the former being consistent with the post on this thread.
The unit can also be a little finicky about CDs that are too thick, or are not equally balanced because of too much ink or paint on one side of a CD, which can cause a little wobble. The ML transports seemed to be the only brand with this problem.
All in all they said it has been a very reliable piece for a high end transport, and just as good if not better than other high end brands that they were familiar with.
Anyway, I ended up buying a used 37 (not from them). Thank you for all your comments and knowledge on this.
