Hey Yogiboy....great article!!
Here's a good one for you guys and gals http://ken-gilbert.com/images/pdf/taste_of_tubes.pdf
Here's a good one for you guys and gals http://ken-gilbert.com/images/pdf/taste_of_tubes.pdf
Has Anyone Uesed A PrimaLuna Amp With Harbeth Speaker's
Hi guys, I will be on the market soon for a new amp and I keep looking at the Primaluna Amps, has anyone heard the Primaluna Dialogue Premium amp driving a pair of Harbeth's 30.1 speakers? these are 87d/b and I am not sure how this will work out?
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Power means undistorted and uncompressed dynamics true, but if you have enough power you have enough power and having more buys you nothing, and people should not put weight on that as any guarantee of performance.
There is no relationship to quality. Period. Wattage means only one thing. Volume. But you’re saying to yourself bigger amps sound better, and it’s because of power, right? Well, no. You can buy a Sony 100 watt per channel receiver for $148. It weighs 14 pounds and IT WILL bench out at 100 watts. And at low distortion to boot!! Now look at a pair of Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblocks. They weight 62 pounds each and cost well over $10,000 a pair. And they are only 60 watts. And that's it. Is this a silly comparison? No, because it illustrates the fact. The Pass sounds better because of parts quality. Transformer size, capacitors, number of output devices, and all the other things that add weight to a quality amplifier. ***Within a particular brand it’s okay to assume more power is better. But don’t think for a moment a 200 watt amp from Brand A will sound better than a 100 watt amp from Brand B*** In tube amplifiers it gets even trickier. Many high power tube amps get that power by simply running the tubes harder. PrimaLuna could have been designed to be 36 watts or 100 watts from a pair of tubes by simply raising plate and screen voltage and biasing harder. Higher voltages results in tube shorts, and even if the amp doesn’t break, the tubes wear out quickly. PrimaLuna is the only company proud to say “low power on purpose” because they run the tubes cool. They want a product that you can use every day without having to think about counting hours and how much it costs. What’s fun about hifi if you can’t use it? Some of the worst sounding tube amps I’ve ever heard had a ton of power. What they lacked was bandwidth. Power has no influence on whether or not the deepest bass or even the highest highs are sent to the speakers. Bandwidth in a tube amplifier is dictated by output transformers, the physical part that actually couples your speaker drivers to the amplifier. ***Listen to me when I say this. Output transformers are the single most important and most expensive part in any tube amplifier*** Even the largest manufacturers buy them off-the-shelf and many spend as little as they can to make a buck. Trust me I know these guys. The bigger the company the more they are all about profit margin. Output transformers are half art and half science. PrimaLuna not only designs but winds their own output transformers in house. Look at the weight of PrimaLuna amps and preamps. That's serious iron for both power and output transformers. |
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Here is a nice read why people prefer tubes! https://medium.com/collectors-weekly/could-an-old-school-tube-amp-make-the-music-you-love-sound-bett... |
Read Herb Reichert's Stereophile review of the 86dB efficient Dynaudio Contour 20 with the SMALLEST $2199 PrimaLuna power amp. He stated "The combo of Dynaudio Contour 20s and PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium played all the mountain ennui and fierce forward momentum that make classic bluegrass unique in the American songbook".
https://www.stereophile.com/content/dynaudio-contour-20-loudspeaker Or the 87dB KEF Q350 where he preferred it over amps with many times more power, and higher cost. https://www.stereophile.com/content/kef-q350-loudspeaker Or this review of Wilson Sabrinas where the 36wpc $3199 DiaLogue Premium bested the $10,000 ARC REF75SE . The reviewer said "In spite of the low absolute power, the sound was incredibly captivating and dynamics were now seemingly more expansive than with either of the big transistor amps as well as the Ref 75." http://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/review/loudspeaker-reviews/wilson-sabrina/ I've had a lot of Harbeth owners use PrimaLuna and can't think of any that were not happy off hand. If you like to play your music loud in a bigger room maybe an HP would be better, but for many people a 36 watt PrimaLuna will be fabulous. I would never base any purchase decision of wattage. Wattage means nothing except volume. It has no effect on bass response or sound quality. |
@bigred71 Another good thing about PL is that you can tube roll and tailor the sound to your listening preference. I had to forgo the silk smooth EL34's for the more powerful KT150's. I replaced the standard 12AU7's that come with the amplifiers with Brimar and Mullard tubes. The sound is absolutely glorious. Cheers |
Hi Guy’s Thanks to all of you for getting back to me on this subject, some very good feedback, I use a high power SS Amp now with the Harbeth's and on the hole like the sound, I just fancy some valve amp’s and love what I have heard in the past, I have done some home work and there are some very good write up’s about the primaluna amps, I am thinking on the lines of the Primaluna Dialogue Premium HP and going for a pair to use as mono block’s, I just need to get over to my dealer and hear them. Steve. |
Again I am spending an avg. of 3 plus hours a night listening to music since purchasing my PrimaLuna's. I have never ever achieved this type of music satisfaction in my home before. PL Dialogue Premium Preamp PL Dialogue Premium HP Amps Tara Labs 0.8 speaker and interconnect cables Cheers |
Be cautious on the amp selection for the M30.1. In my experience, Harbeth speakers can really sound like mud with the wrong amp. With the right amp they come to life and sound much energetic and livelier. I believe it’s not a question of whether the M30.1 sounds better with tube or solid-state. Apart from the "flavor" of the amp, it’s the current or power that brings the speaker to life. The M30.1 is a more difficult speaker than the SHL5 Plus and requires more current to sound good. If Tswisla finds the SHL5+ to sound wrong with the Primaluna Dialogue Premium, chances are the M30.1 will sound even worse with that amp. With the M30.1, you need an amp that is sufficiently powerful and able to provide the current to properly drive the speakers. Otherwise it will sound lacklustre. |
Harbeth’s sound good with both solid state AND tube amplification. It all comes down to personal preference. I’ve owned Harbeth’s for about eight years (SHL5’s and two pairs of 40.1’s). In that time, I’ve used or tried three solid state amps/integrateds and six tube amps/integrateds... and while all of the amps sounded good, I preferred tube amps by a sizeable margin. The other area of disagreement when it comes to Harbeth’s is amplifier power. Many are adamant that Harbeth’s need high power to sound their best. Alan Shaw implies that any run of the mill 100 wpc amp will work fine. I think the "quality" of watts is more important that "quantity" of watts... excluding flea power and SET amps. Here is how I’d rate the amps I’ve used with my Harbeth speakers:
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willemj Just look at these Stereophile measurements: https://www.stereophile.com/content/primaluna-dialogue-premium-power-amplifier-measurements it has a pretty bad load dependent frequency response. You might as well buy yourself an equalizer. Moreover, its output of little over 20 watts is not enough to drive the Harbeths. Just do yourself a favour and do what Harbeth’s designer Alan Shaw suggests and get a beefy solid state amplifier. Even very good ones will cost less and will sound far better.If you read the Stereophile article you’ll see the following, the 25 wpc is in low power triode mode, see below. The amp met the 42wpc spec. As far as quality goes, reliability and quality control in the primaluna line are halmarks. These are top shelf amps that will last a lifetime. ...With two choices of output tube, each capable of being operated in Triode (green LED) or Ultralinear (red LED) mode, and with three output-transformer taps available, the DiaLogue Premium offers 12 different ways of being used, and is therefore 12 different amplifiers in one chassis. Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/primaluna-dialogue-premium-power-amplifier-measurements#OGDKVfi7... |
Having owned 3 pairs of Harbeth's, currently the SHL5+, I agree with tswila that Harbeth's do not sound right with tube amplification. I tried Quicksilver V-4' and Silver 88's and an Audio Research VT100 with both the original SHL5's and the monitor 40's. They need a good SS amplifier to sound their best. Of course, this is my opinion and YMMV. Good Luck! |
An acquaintance has Harbeth's with Quicksilver tube amps and sounded really nice. There is a pair of Quicksilver mono blocks for sale on audiogon now that I think were similar to the ones he had: https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lis8eh0e-quicksilver-v-4-balanced-monoblocks-tube I usually love Primaluna with most gear, but might agree that the HP Dialogue would be a better option than the Dialogue. Doubling the tubes and power would seem a bit safer, especially if you every changed speakers down the road. Just food for thought. |
Any Harbeth I’ve owned sounded great with Quicksilver tube amps! http://quicksilveraudio.com/amplifiers/ |
Since you double posted you get two for the price of one: Just look at these Stereophile measurements: https://www.stereophile.com/content/primaluna-dialogue-premium-power-amplifier-measurements it has a pretty bad load dependent frequency response. You might as well buy yourself an equalizer. Moreover, its output of little over 20 watts is not enough to drive the Harbeths. Just do yourself a favour and do what Harbeth’s designer Alan Shaw suggests and get a beefy solid state amplifier. Even very good ones will cost less and will sound far better. If you look on this site you will see that there have also been quality issues (there just appears to be a pattern, but I am not sure if it is real). |