Harman’s Mission to Revitalize Mark Levinson

Dinesh Paliwal gets it. Paliwal is CEO of the sprawling Harman International pro and home audio conglomerate. Under his watch, the 70-year-old company has doubled revenues to $7 billion, grown to 27,000 employees, and amassed over 6000 patents. But Paliwal understands that having done well doesn’t mean you get to stand still. He’s investing in the future, and several of those investments are good news for audiophiles.

For instance, aware that Millennials might well get their first exposure to good sound in their fancy new rides, Paliwal purchased the car audio divisions of both B&W and B&O. This in addition to the company’s already strong presence in the sector courtesy of its own Harman, JBL, Infinity, Revel, and Mark Levinson brands. Paliwal also gleans that with audio having gone largely digital, software plays an increasingly important role in maintaining—or improving—the quality of the source. Software can also aid simplifying operation and personalizing audio for the listener. Consequently, Paliwal spent roughly $1B to acquire Silicon Valley’s Symphony Teleca for its digital expertise.

Most importantly, from TAS’ perspective, the CEO gets that Mark Levinson is the “cherry” atop the Harman empire—that it lends cache to the entire Harman product range. For this reason, after a long dry spell, the Mark Levinson unit is reaping investments from its parent the likes of which it has never seen before.

That investment is taking many forms. First, there is the new Levinson team—highly seasoned, yet quite fresh to Harman. One of its leaders, Todd Eichenbaum, who serves as Director of Engineering not only for Mark Levinson but also for Revel and Lexicon (Harman’s “Luxury Audio Group”), spent twenty years as Krell’s primary designer. Having spent three years at Harman, he is now the vet compared to his staff, which have mostly been hired in the past six to twelve months.

Harman is also giving Mark Levinson access to its $400 million R&D budget, and has established a separate, dedicated Levinson R&D facility in Connecticut, where the company was born. The R&D center, initially established two years ago, was recently expanded to 5500 square feet. Part of that space is given over to a beautifully outfitted listening room.

Paliwal also believes that top-flight service must be an integral part of the consumer’s Mark Levinson experience. To that end, he is assembling partners that can provide “white glove” delivery and setup. Such services are not uncommon in this industry, but Paliwal’s vision extends to services such as a dedicated support line where customers can request, for instance, a SWAT team to come and optimize their system before a big event.

As a result of this infusion of capital, people, and facilities, Mark Levinson now has more new products in its pipeline than at any point in its history. The company will release two of these newcomers at the upcoming CES in January, and a total of eight will bow before the end of 2016. This product influx is intended to make up for the dearth of new products over the past six years. Indeed, the only recent new ML component was the N^o585 integrated amplifier/DAC. That $12k unit, the first from the new team, has a slightly different mission than previous ML product. Thanks to its (relatively) low price, the N^o585 can offer fans of the brand’s Lexus automotive audio systems their first step into a Levinson home system. In terms of international awards and initial shipments, the N^o585 is already the company’s most successful launch ever.

We won’t have to wait until CES for one of the forthcoming products. In November, ML released the N^o536 400W monoblock amps. At $15k apiece, these brutes are designed to serve as an upgrade path for N^o585 owners—as well as companions to the still-under-wraps CES components. I had the opportunity to see and hear the latter during a two-day October press event at the Levinson R&D facility and its factory in nearby Massachusetts. I’m not allowed to publish anything about those new components until CES, but given that that the company wants to present a “full lineup” of electronics at the show, you can probably guess what they are.

While at the Levinson facility, I met Dinesh Paliwal, as well as Todd Eichenbaum and his crew. I was pleased to learn that the CEO’s dictate to the team is, “No compromise,” which is music to any engineer’s ears. I was also glad to observe that the company is no longer disavowing its illustrious origins. Today, Mark Levinson the company willingly pays homage to Mark Levinson the man—and even to some of his design principles. This isn’t surprising considering that Eichenbaum’s first exposure to the possibilities of high-end audio—an episode he describes as life-changing—came courtesy of early ML gear. When he arrived at Harman, Eichenbaum was determined not to re-create Krell, but rather to propagate that seminal experience. One of his first tasks at Harman was to delve into the schematics of those early Levinson products, adopting, adapting, and updating design elements.

The resulting sound, which I heard in the posh listening room outfitted with the latest ML gear and Revel Salon II loudspeakers, is smooth, rich, and refined. During the listening session, pace proved rock-steady, and dynamics were never shy. Despite the overly treated space, which robbed the sound of some air and treble energy, I was consistently drawn into the music.

Once upon a time it was hard to find a serious audio showroom that didn’t feature systems anchored by hulking silver-and-black Mark Levinson components. Those days have waned, but Harman is on a mission to bring them back. Based on what I saw and heard in Connecticut, the pedigree and attitude of the people I met there, and the fastidious quality orientation of the factory (see sidebar), the company is on a promising course for a strong return.