Born in Oakland, California in 1946, to Daniel J. Levinson and Maria Hertz Levinson, Mark Levinson grew up in the Boston area and later moved to New Haven, CT. His father was a professor of psychology at Harvard for 16 years and Yale University for 24 years.
Music (particularly jazz) quickly became the focus in Mark's life. Before the age of 20 he was sitting in, on double bass and trumpet, with the likes of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Johnny Griffin, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett. Foregoing a college education for music, as a young man he developed himself as a musician, touring Europe as a bassist with pianist Paul Bley and later going on to study classical Indian music with sarod master Ali Akbar Khan.
In his early twenties, Levinson began work in a recording studio, which became a springboard to his experimentation with electronics and sound reproduction. His first components included the mixer through which the Woodstock music festival sound system was fed. In 1971, mentored by electronics pioneer Richard S. Burwen, he founded Mark Levinson Audio Systems (MLAS, Ltd.), hand-building amplifiers that became standards of reference in the audio industry. Due to his innovations, Levinson is generally considered the principal creator of what is now called "high end audio."
In 1982, Levinson broke with MLAS, Ltd. and started Cello Ltd. in 1984. In 1998 he left Cello to found Red Rose Music.
Levinson is also a recording engineer and has recorded award-winning albums for Blue Note artists including Jacky Terrason, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, Joe Lovano, and Music Maker Relief Foundation.
Born in 1946, Bo Bengtsson originates from the university town of Uppsala,Sweden. His father, an accountant, served as chief conductor for several choir groups which gave Bo early exposure to music and developed his musical interest.At 16, Bengtsson joined a local philharmonic orchestra as a cellist and later formed a trad jazz orchestra, this time playing double bass. He also sang tenor for various chamber choirs for the next 16 years.
While acquiring his degree in electronic engineering he opened a retail business selling audio components, and began developing his own loudspeakers. Shortly thereafter he worked with the Swedish representatives for Marantz, training their 800-member retailer sales force. Dr. Amar Bose happened to be in Sweden during this period, heard of Bengtsson’s loudspeaker work and offered him a guest scholarship to MIT. Instead, Bengtsson sold his share of the business and created a loudspeaker development and manufacturing company. He also was a contributing editor to various Scandinavian audio magazines, and taught physics. In addition, he occasionally made recordings for chamber choirs, and was president of the 150-member Swedish Product Developers’ Association.
Bengtsson’s initial patented loudspeaker, CM3, was the first speaker to reproduce a true square wave anywhere between 250Hz - 2kHz. These transmission line speakers utilizing the famous Decca Kelly Ribbon unit sold more than 24,000 units.
Simultaneously, Bengtsson in collaboration with a construction engineer at the University of Uppsala, manufactured a transformerless high voltage tube amplifier for the Quad electrostatic speakers midrange/treble panels. Bengtsson's company was one of the few to use direct coupled high voltage tube amplification technology.
Bo's gigantic Megatrend, a huge dipole loudspeaker, won prestigious awards and the praise of the late double bassist Red Mitchell (also an electronic engineer) who bought a pair of Megatrends, saying he had been searching for 15 years for speakers which could reproduce double bass faithfully.
Bo is currently working with Mark Levinson and Red Rose Music, bringing new ribbon speaker technology to the music world
