levinson 32 heat

I had a similar experience to Dan. One side ran much hotter then the other, and the unit had a "whine". After sending mine back for the third time, my dealer convinced Levinson to provide me with a refurbed/restock unit (both pieces). I haven't had any problems since, but the controller will throw off some heat in standby (which the cat loves...). Bottom line, if you can't keep your hand on it, something's wrong.

I bought a used 32 about two weeks ago. I left mine in
stand-by and it runs warm but not hot. I keep the two units
side by side on the same shelf and there's proper ventilation.
I think that the whine is a clear symptom that something is
going wrong. I own a ML-36S DAC, a ML-331 power amp and a
ML-31.5 transport too and I've noticed that the 36S and 32
reach about the same temperature while in stand-by. The 31.5
is not warm at all and the 331 is significantly less warm
than the 36S and 32 (surely because it's designed to have
great heat dissipation).

its biased pure class a thats why it runs hot dont worry about. biasing at pure class a is why it sounds so good

Wadia,

Most linestage/preamps are Class A biased. Given the low output of linestages, excessive heat is normally not an issue with solid state linestages. Besides, with the Ref. No. 32, the amplification stage, input switching and volume resistor ladder is in the box that Fmj said is not hot. The box that is hot is the power supply/logic control circuitry box.

The power supply box does get somewhat hot, but the kind of heat Fmj is reporting (even the knobs are warm to the touch) is not typical of normal running condition.

Chris, it seems that you have an unusually hot running reference control unit. This is not normal, I've had mine in stand-by mode and on since February this year and it never gets "hot", only warm when on and then equall temperature right, left and middle. The control knobs on the front never get even warm on my unit. Go back to ML and ask them for advice, it could be your amp circuit, make sure that there is no risk of excessive wear.

As for Dan, his unit seems to be faulty, or there is something else wrong in his setup...I would take the recondition unit, as long as ML gives full warranty, only then he may find out if its really the controller box or not. Also, why not have the dealer do all this for you...for a $16k pre-amp he ought to!!!