A valve amplifier against a solid-state one. They are not really rivals: they differ in character, in what they will drive and in what owning them involves, so start there rather than with the watts.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 125W against 125W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Mark Levinson No.5802 holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 250W, where the other increases modestly. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | Advance Paris NOVA A-i130 is the quieter design on paper - 112dB against 103dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Mark Levinson No.5802 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Phono stage | depends | Advance Paris NOVA A-i130 has a built-in phono stage and Mark Levinson No.5802 does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | A | Only Advance Paris NOVA A-i130 offers a pre-out/main-in loop - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Amplifier type | depends | Advance Paris NOVA A-i130 is Hybrid and Mark Levinson No.5802 is Solid State. Valve designs are usually warmer and softer at the limits and need their tubes replaced eventually; solid state is the lower-maintenance choice. This is a taste and ownership decision, not a quality one. |
| Shelf space | depends | Advance Paris NOVA A-i130 takes up about 30% less shelf area (1728cm² against 2454cm²), and it is 157mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | Advance Paris NOVA A-i130 costs less - $6,499 against $8,500 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Advance Paris NOVA A-i130 is the cheaper watt - about $52 per watt against $68. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Advance Paris NOVA A-i130 B Mark Levinson No.5802
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Advance Paris NOVA A-i130 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Mark Levinson No.5802 is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. If you play records, Advance Paris NOVA A-i130 saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.