PrimaLuna Dialogue Premium Preamplifier. DESTROYS SPEAKERS!!



A few months ago, bought TWO of the above mentioned preamps. ( I have 2 stereo systems)
Within 6 weeks of the purchase, the power supply of my speakers burns out!
I purchase and replace the power supply.
Three days later, the second newly replaced power supply is burnt out!
After much investigative work and heartache, I discover that the Pre amp is the problem.
It is defective and puts out DC. which burns out speakers.
After, testing the second unit, I find that it is defective as well, EXACTLY the same problem.
I return the units to my dealer, who returns them to Prima Lune.

I received a phone call from a Mr. Kevin Deal, big cheese at PrimaLuna.
Told me that the capacitors, on BOTH units had failed and the units were putting out DC.
He even THANKED me, for being a guinea pig, and discovering the flaw in his units.

He offered me a pair of tubes, as "compensation" for my troubles!! What a joker!!

WOW, a pair of tubes for blowing my $30,000. speakers!!

The height of arrogance and total disregard for the consumer of his product.
To all audiophiles, do yourself a favour, STAY AWAY for this brand, unless you want your speakers cooked.

TOTAL lack of quality control, MADE IN CHINA junk, what more needs to be said.


Mr. Deal, WAKE UP, and STOP selling defective products!!


If, you are using PrimaLuna, and your speakers fail, check the amp or pre amp.

George


Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
thorloki
Another thing I’ve gotten from this thread is the realization that I miss Paul Harvey.
Just to clarify,
I returned BOTH pre amps to my dealer, and he returned them to PrimaLuna for repair.

My dealer refunded me for the FULL cost of the preamps.
I have absolutely, NO PROBLEM, with my dealer, I received 
FIRST CLASS SERVICE.
After all, he did not manufacture the equipment, he only sold it, in good faith.

My problem lies with PrimaLuna, TWO preamps, bought 6 weeks apart,
and both are defective, in EXACTLY the same way, and both damage speakers!!

This is NOT a one off case, PrimaLuna has a manufacturing problem.

I repeat, Mr. Kevin Deal, WHERE ARE YOU?
Please come on this forum and explain yourself, WE WANT TO HEAR
YOUR SIDE OF THE STORY!!

Patiently awaiting for Mr. Deal.

I am sorry but this is all BS, Mr. Thorioki. Not one word of this can be true.

No preamp can destroy a speaker, unless it is transistor junk and sending infrasonic (sub hertz) into a cheap transistor amp ( which would have blown the fuse).   No tube preamp can send DC into an amp.  Capacitors 'failed' you say?  BS...that would have blown the fuse in a microsecond..

A tube amp, never mind about a preamp, CAN NOT send DC into a speaker, the exception might be SE by a cheap company with no protection, but never a preamp and never a transformer based amp such as the Prima Luna..  If your preamp sent DC into the amp, you would have zero sound EVEN if it was directly coupled (meaning no capacitor or transformer coupling)...why, because you have sent the preamp tube into cutoff, and likely blown the fuse.


Kevin Deal must have laughed you right out of the store.

Dear Mr. glassandlight,

the only thing that is BS is your post.
If what I am saying is not true, then, I ask you this,
WHERE is Mr. Kevin Deal, to deny my allegations??
For your information, Mr. Deal, HIMSELF, confirmed that his pre amps FAILED and put out DC, which damaged my speakers.

Now, please go back to sleep, the world is safer, when you are not awake.

You try to come across as knowing something, but it is clear,
you know NOTHING.

Of course we are sorry that George had a problem with his preamps. PrimaLuna is well-known to have amongst the best build quality in the industry, regardless of price. This has been stated over and over by the most technically adept reviewers in the industry, and anybody who is pragmatic can study our quality in pictures and videos, and see for themselves. If you can point to a better built preamp for twice the price I would like to hear about it so I can applaud it.  

I did not call George once. I called him several times. And I was never arrogant. I was as nice and as apologetic as I could be. When I first heard about the problem I was on vacation in Europe and stopped everything to contact him as well as the dealer, and we jumped on this with engineers and technicians working both in the U.S. and in Holland. My wife Laura understood it was important, and I thank her for that.  I kept him updated, and because George had said more than once how much he loves the DiaLogue Premium I thought he wanted them back. So I didn’t just offer him a pair of tubes, but some expensive, vintage Mullards, Brimars, or Ciftes. He said it didn’t need it and liked it as-is.

We sell a lot of these, and if there were many problems everybody would hear about it. But we have not. Now we have a customer with two nearly identical systems, in the same home, with the exact same failure. Exact same. It was a small cap in the right channel, NOT the Mundorf coupling caps. We suspect an oscillation as my service tech here works for another brand that was faced with the same problem. But we will never know for sure. It’s unfortunate that any amp is able to pass DC as others have mentioned. Tube amps don’t. Most solid state amps don’t. But Bryston’s decisions are not my business.

In the meantime we are going to replace the caps in question in all the preamps we have in stock just in case there was a bad batch, and also made a small modification to the preamp. It was covered in-depth, and we considered any and every strange occurrence that could happen. 

FWIW George did not buy the power supply as he states. He told me Martin Logan warranted it. I will contact the factory about that, but I suspect they are fine with us.   Martin Logan has borrowed PrimaLuna from us to demonstrate their speaker’s at large national shows, and we’ve been very helpful to each other.   Last Tuesday a Martin Logan Executive bought a PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium for his own system.  

By the way I’d like to thank Ralph Karsten from Atma-Sphere for his kind words. We live in times where people are very aggressive, and forum posts look like certain tweets I wish we didn't see today. 

When I speak to customers about quality, I tell them nobody builds a product like PrimaLuna …. except Atma-Sphere.   Look inside whatever product you are considering purchasing.