Power amp advice

[Pars]

I currently have an Odyssey Stratos Plus power amp which I have used for I guess going on 20 years and have been pretty satisfied with. I was thinking about upgrading it as these have gone from the Plus model to Extreme models. Klauss of Odyssey is now offering a Kismet amp. I can get my Stratos upgraded to the Kismet pcbs with a larger power supply for a fairly reasonable price. However, I ran across an opportunity to get a Mark Levinson No. 23 for around the same price as upgrading the Stratos.

Reliability is a large factor in my decision. I've read a number of threads on diyaudio related to repairing Mark Levinson gear, and most of them seem to be a massive PITA to work on. This amp is no exception. The amp I am being offered would be coming from a Chicago dealer. It was repaired by Stereo Rehab in Chicago with some thermal issues (one bad channel). The explanation given doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, and I can post that if anyone wants to see it. Stereo Rehab is not an authorized ML repair facility; they do warranty the work done on this for 1 year.

My only interest in this amp relates to the superlative reviews it got, and thoughts from some that these still hold their own with pretty much anything on the market. They apparently were very well built (and designed), using high quality parts, but the parts and architecture of these is jam packed together. Cosmetically, the amp looks virtually new, at least outside.

Any thoughts on this appreciated. Right now, I'm leery and leaning against going for this.

 

[spritzer]

That looks rather old and not fun at all to work on.  When was this made, the 90's?  

[dsavitsk]

8 hours ago, spritzer said:

That looks rather old and not fun at all to work on.

x2

I'd consider it a gamble and not put any more into it than you can afford to simply lose. Keeping in mind that if it breaks within that warranty period, the person providing the warranty is the same one who failed to fix it in the first place.