Biography of Mark Levinson

In the late 1990’s, Levinson began a new phase in his career, characterized by a desire to bring no-compromise performance to a wider audience. Red Rose Music was a huge critical success, with amplifiers such as the Affirmation and loudspeakers such as the Rosebud MKII. Red Rose Music’s first power amplifier won the product of the year award from the most respected audio magazine in Italy.

It’s a tribute to Levinson’s obsession with quality that almost all the products built and sold by his three companies are still in use. They rarely come up for sale on the secondary market and when they do, are frequently the objects of bidding wars by music lovers eager to own them.

Mark Levinson is also a formidable recording and mastering engineer. During his almost four decades of designing and marketing high-performance audio products, he also made legendary recordings of jazz, blues, classical, and other artists including some of the greatest musicians of Northern India. He is a longtime student of Ali Akbar Khan, and probably the only musician in the world adept at playing Indian music on the double bass.  Mark’s double bass, made in 1680, is one of the masterpieces of Italian string instrument making.

In 1998, he was supervising engineer for the three-CD set of performances by virtuoso violinist Elmar Oliveira, included with The Miracle Makers, a commemorative reference book about Stradivari and Guarneri violins, produced by rare instrument dealer Geoff Fushi, founder of the Stradivari Society. The Stradivari Society has assisted many top artists early in their careers, including Sarah Chang and Midori.

When Sony decided to develop the Super Audio Compact Disc, they needed reference recordings to demonstrate the new technology. They also needed expert recording engineers to prove its value to the music industry. Sony equipped Mark Levinson with one of ten prototype DSD (direct stream digital) recorders. He used this gear to make Live at Red Rose, one of the best-selling SACDs of all time, and the sole demonstration material used by Sony and Philips in their rollout of the format.

Levinson is also a tireless supporter of indigenous American music. In 1994, he helped Tim and Denise Duffy found the Music Maker Relief Foundation (www.musicmaker.org ) which assists elderly destitute blues and folk artists primarily in the Southern USA. Music Maker gives money, pays for medical care and expenses, provides instruments, and arranges for performances at clubs and music festivals in the USA and overseas for its artists.

In 2007, Levinson started Daniel Hertz S.A., in Neuchatel, Switzerland, to combine his audio engineering expertise with Swiss-made quality. Located in the historic town of Neuchatel, Daniel Hertz S.A. is working with artisanal companies to create a new breed of audio products.

Mark Levinson’s life has combined music performance, music recording, music playback equipment manufacturing, humanitarian assistance to destitute musicians, and considerable conceptual advancements to the industry’s knowledge base. His phenomenal contributions have no parallel in the audio industry. Yet despite his greatness, Levinson remains humble, attributing his success to his many brilliant associates and collaborators.