Mark Levinson’s director of engineering talks reference systems, favourite albums and high-end hi-fi electronics
Meet Danial Shimiaei, the director of engineering at high-end hi-fi brand Mark Levinson. Regular readers will be familiar with some of its products, such as the No.5105 turntable and impressive No.5909 headphones, the latter of which gained a five-star review. On a recent visit to the impressive Harman Luxury Audio site in Northridge, California, we got a chance to talk to Danial about his journey in audio, his personal taste in music and just what it is that makes the Mark Levinson brand so special.
What Hi-Fi?: What made you interested in hi-fi?
Danial Shimiaei: Probably when I was about 15 years old, a young straggly kid, I was bored and just walking around in a small town in northern California; and I went into a hi-fi store. It was there I got my first taste of listening to proper playback.
What did you hear?
It was a Pat Benatar record that had just come out and I was hooked. I could not believe what emotional impact music could have. It was a very, very dynamic song and just captivated me.
What was the first piece of music you bought?
My first two records were [Pink Floyd’s] The Dark Side Of The Moon and Steely Dan’s Aja. Having been a foreigner who came to America and didn’t speak English properly, I gravitated towards music that didn’t have any lyrics, because I didn’t understand them. So even when I was listening to music that had lyrics in it, I really focused on the music itself, the instrumentation, the frequency, the bandwidth and the dynamics. And of course, back then, without being educated in it, none of it was calculated for me.
What was your first hi-fi system?
My first hi-fi was my brother’s record player and receiver, which were both Pioneers. I forget what speakers he had, but that was my introduction. I would just sit there for hours and listen to different types of music and try to connect with it and understand the movements. That’s where it all kind of came together.
How did you come to work in audio?
I was still in high school and my first job was working as a component-level technician. I had a good acumen for electronics and started interning at a hi-fi shop in Santa Monica. The owner took me under his wing and taught me the electro-mechanical side of things. I first started with repairing turntables, then cassette decks and slowly started moving to more sophisticated parts of electronics, amplifiers and so on.
And at the same time, I had a friend who was a drummer. He was playing in a couple
