I have to tell you the truth, the answer to your question is maybe you can get it a little bit but your pushpull amp will never sound like a single end amp. Single end amps have a different sound than push pull amps. Nothing you can do to change that. I own several pushpull and single end amps. My pushpull amps range from 5 watts to 180 watts and my single end amps range from 3/4 watt up to my biggest amp 45 watts.
Can I get my Prima Luna to sound more like a SET/300B?
Dear Audiogon community,
I am ruminating on my current state of mind with this alchemy…
I have spent the past year upgrading my main system to a relatively glorious state… details below and in my profile.
I am at times in the sublime musical hallucination I seek. However I admittedly may be coming to the realization that the sound I yearn for in my heart may be ultimately obtained through a SET or 300B type of solution. And to get there I may need a 5-9K indulgence, in order to match the Nagra Streamer, Holo Audio DAC, and Pure Audio Project Duet Horn’s.
This is something that may take a while for me to enact…
SOOOO…. In the meantime…. What if anything can I do with the amp that I currently have, a Prima Luna Dialogue Premium HP, to obtain a completely enveloping, immediate, effortless, sublime, vivid, and delicious delivery of acoustic, jazz, classical, vocals, horns, strings, cymbals…. Sublime enveloping sensual euphoria…??
Can I get my Prima Luna to sound like a proper SET or 300B amp? Even close?
Some thoughts:
-Cap upgrade… Jupiter or Jensen or Duelund or….
-Main tubes to…. Ray? Mullard E34’s? Psvane PH or UK? Sophia Electric?
(Currently I run Gold Lion KT77’s, which are very nice when they work, but their unreliability is frustrating… in 9 months two go out and one has a high frequency distortion)
Or should I bite the bullet and jump in to a serious amp upgrade?
THANK YOU SO MUCH for your brilliant insight…
Cheers to musical alchemy.
R.
Details of my system: (brief)
-
- SPEAKERS: Pure Audio Project Duet 15 Horn (Mundorf Silver Gold Oil Cap upgrade and high pass filter, Anticable 4.2 Flex Internal wire)
- STREAMER: Nagra Streamer (Cardas Clear Coaxial)
- DAC: HoloAudio Spring 2 Level 3 Kitsune edition (Silversmith Fidelium RCA Interconnects)
- AMP: PrimaLuna Dialogue Premium HP Integrated (Gold Lion KT77 power tubes, Mullard NOS gain tubes)
- PHONO: Music Hall MMF-9 and McIntosh MP 100 Preamp (Goldring Eroica lx cartridge)
- ...
- 32 posts total
Hey OP i hope that your tube rolling will turn out successful. I heard that Ray reserved tubes are very good tubes, I hope it turns out alright I don’t have a 300B amp, but my audiophile nephew has one, I believe a JELabs designed 300b and using top tier components and Japan steel cores. it is topped with Takatsuki 300b. This is powering a pair of Reference 3A de capos. phew, this setup is a great setup. Now, as one of the posters have said above, Pass Labs SS gear, specially the XA25 Can come close. Well, I have the XA25 driving LS3/5A. I can tell you firsthand that 300B setup and the Xa25 is very close to surreal. Yes, if I were to nitpick, I give the nod to 300B as being more enchanting, palpable and enveloping.
I may not have a good answer to your quest, but when the time comes, you may be at the crossroads to get a 300B amp versus going to a Solid state such as the Pass Labs XA 25 or Pass SIT-4, consider this as a reminder that some SS gear can give you what you wanted after all. No need to go SET and the power that a Pass Labs SS can provide will allow your PAP play louder and be more engaging. who knows it allows more genre of music to sound (I meant PRAT) better. |
@sns +1 " Get a 300B SET if you want an amp that sounds like a 300B SET" @jasonbourne71 +1 "Single end amps are distortion-generating devices” correct! it’s due to non-symmetric nature of SET load-line up/down from tuning point! PP amps are good at eliminating symmetry problems, assuming maintenance/adjustments are done correctly. Nelson Pass designs are the best for SET sound fans! If speaker does have symmetry problems, due to static B-field symmetry issues around coil, SET connected proper way to speaker helps to cancel it, and really does sound better than excellent PP! |
Total Harmonic Distortion, peak watts... even RMS watts is deceptive. There are so many measurements that sound like they should tell you something concrete in high end audio that don’t. What stuff sounds like is what counts. Well designed 300b amps with good quality 300B tubes are simply stunning and realistic. |
- 32 posts total