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.
The OP is 100% legit! I stand by every word I have written in this forum. I would welcome Mr. Kevin Deal, to join this conversation and present his side of the story, as a matter of fact, I would like nothing more!
As for equipment matches, this is of no relevance in this matter. NO equipment, should blow up your speakers, no matter what it is matched with.
As for Bryston amps DC protection, I personally spoke to Mr. Brian Russell, one of the owners of Bryston, and he ASSURED me, that the 28B SST3 DOES NOT have DC output protection.
I seriously doubt that he is wrong, however, if someone finds out otherwise, then we would all like to know.
Most tube preamps need to be turned on BEFORE the power amp because the period when the output coupling cap charges, a large DC swing is sent to the amp. The opposite is true when turning them off, power amp must be first.
If you use a tube power amp (NOT A HYBRID), this doesn't apply as tube power amps cannot amplify DC. You may still hear a pop at switch on or switch off.
I'm sure there'll be some folks who argue about this, but it's a fact of life if you're a tube enthusiast.
This whole Thing would make more sense to me if the secondary OUT of the preamp connected straight to the IN of the powered sub section of a hybrid ESL/Powered Sub speaker. Then I can see how rouge DC from the pre straight to the powered sub section could toast the sub section’s amp or power supply. Just a little baffled at how the rouge DC managed to pass from the preamp, through the power amp and fry the speakers power supply? Jim
I've been running a Pima Luna Dialouge HP integrated to drive a set of Maggie 1.7 flawlessly for two years now. In my research & experience PL has extremely stringent QC and oversee their production plant in China directly. As for sound quality, I went from a Cronus Magnum to the Prima Luna... the PL just blows the Cronus away imho. Guys at upscale treated me great as well. Not sure what exactly happened with the OP, but I personally have no trouble recommending PL to anyone.
I have been selling Prima Luna for several years. Not only are they superb sounding but they are very reliable. I have not had a customer failure but one minor problem and never with a preamp. No one can accurately negatively judge on a sample of two like thorloki. Venting might be good but it is not really helpful.
Postscript: Speaking of the height of arrogance, thorloki sentence below of three parts indeed say it all about the Arthur including a xenophobic comment they leaves thorloki's skewed thing all hanging out to see.
"TOTAL lack of quality control, MADE IN CHINA junk, what more needs to be said."
As a DIY hobbyist speaker builder, I think your speaker system does not offered protection layer for any dc voltage surges just a simple fast or slow blow fuses at the crossover board.
thanks for your commentary. Talking about "skewed", you are are PrimaLuna dealer, so, we take your comments with a bucket of salt. I am sure that other speakers have been damaged by primaluna preamps, and that the owner is not aware of the cause. I am sure, that a "SAMPLE" of 2 would be more than sufficient for you, if it was your speakers that were damaged!
Anyway, here is the issue, if PrimaLuna is, as you say, WHY does Kevin Deal, not come on this forum and defend his product??
I ask again, WHY??
Perhaps, he is not aware of this discussion, PLEASE, do us all a favour, CONTACT him, and let him know!!
Sorry to hear about your 30k speakers. I have owned a Primaluna Dialogue Premium Int amp for almost a year now and ZERO issues. I am not a dealer, just a happy owner.
It is commending to see all the support for Prima Luna, but that has nothing to do with nor excuse anything about this situation. Also it is fair to say that there is no way that Kevin could have any knowledge that this would happen and would never purposely sell defective goods. Are you guys trying to support PL or just call the op a Liar? It sounds like this guy had 2 Pre's go south. You know that the dealer knows about his thread, isn't it time for a response from him? Thorloki, did you at least receive a refund or do you still have these pre's? Its tough for a dealer to refund everything and still layout what it would take to pay for your repairs.... Again, I would push the dealer, along with the manufacturer for some sort of insurance claim.... Guys, If the op has really tried to work this out, where else could he turn for support other than a forum like ours? Overall, I am still a bit skeptical, but it is odd that after a few days of this, the dealer has not responded.
Thorloki 9-22-2017 The amplifier used was the Bryston 28B SST3 1,000 watt per channel mono blocks....
Thorloki 9-22-2017 As for Bryston amps DC protection, I personally spoke to Mr. Brian Russell, one of the owners of Bryston, and he ASSURED me, that the 28B SST3 DOES NOT have DC output protection.
What about DC **input** protection? (See my further comments below).
Also, looking at the Bryston site it appears that the SST designation is not used for their "cubed" series amps. Did you mean 28B3, or perhaps 28B SST2?
Ralph (Atmasphere), while a schematic for the 28B3 does not appear to be available, a schematic for the 28B SST2 can be found at the Bryston site here.
Note in zones B1 and C1 on the second sheet that a 68 uf capacitor is in series with the inputs!
Personally, FWIW, I believe the OP is sincere, but I don’t know how to reconcile the reported experience with the presence of those capacitors, which would block DC. Unless the amp is a 28B3, and that design omits any such capacitors. I note, though, that the bandwidths of both designs are identically specified, down to "<1 Hz," which suggests that they may be similar in that respect.
OP - Do you have any idea the brand of caps that failed?
As a speaker maker (hobby) I'm very much into capacitor brands, I'd be very curious if there was a failure in a Mundorf or SCR, especially if there were repeats.
This situation definitely must be clarified or it will hurt the company too much. As a general note, buying anything made in China carries additional risks, no doubt about that. And I see no good reason for respected manufacturers to even consider it.
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!!
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.
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.
Well George, what do you have to say now? Let me guess; you will continue to insist that it was all PL's fault and not Bryston's. I must admit not understanding why-as mentioned by Kevin, ML would handle this under warranty-how is this a failure on their part? I find it interesting that you are quick to be jingo-istic if not downright xenophobic about China and you are Canadian and just where is Bryston made again? Funny too that Bryston eschews DC protection in some of their amps "for the sake of sound quality" when let's face reality, Bryston builds nice gear with great warranties but has never been known for great sounding amplifiers. They are on the dry side which is likely why you went to the PL preamp in the first place, either consciously or subconsciously. The reality seems to be that as I have said earlier, you suffered from a series of compounded failures, part of which is attributable to PL, part to Bryston, and part to your strange allocation of resources. I bet you are not the original owner of those ML's and paid a mere fraction of the $30K you kept spouting about.
" nobody builds a product like PrimaLuna...except Atma-Sphere" It's been a while since I heard a better joke.
Below is a quote from the review of our $2199 ProLogue Premium preamp. Herb Reichert is both technically adept, and very experienced.
"When I removed the ProLogue Premium’s bottom plate, I was
instantly impressed by the quality of parts and labor I saw. I’ve serviced
countless tube amps, including some of the world’s most expensive, and have
never seen better crafted point-to-point wiring or more intelligent layout."
Herb Reichert, Stereophile June 2017
If on the other hand you think I'm joking about Atma-Sphere, just look at their products. The handwork is beautiful. And they sound great. I have no problem giving complements where they are due.
Well George, what do you have to say now? Let me guess; you will continue to insist that it was all PL’s fault and not Bryston’s.
Truth is the PrimaLuna capacitor failed. We take responsibility for that ultimately. I’ve been doing this for 40 years guys, and I’m a realist.
Some failures cannot be explained. I just slammed a speaker company about a driver failure and went round and round as they did not want to warranty it, only to find out that the customer hooked up his REL subs wrong to his balanced differential power amps (and didn’t tell me). The result was a midrange driver that absolutely sounded blown. I mean bad. My employee drove hours to his home, swapped the driver, same problem. Hooked up the sub correctly. Problem went away. I raised holy hell with the speaker company about this and now have to admit "Hey things happen" and I was wrong.
The reality seems to be that as I have said earlier, you suffered from a
series of compounded failures, part of which is attributable to PL,
part to Bryston, and part to your strange allocation of resources.
PL cap failure caused the problem??? Not Bryston and not his strange allocation of resources ...
Thanks for chiming in Kevin, In so many ways this isn't our business, but its been made our business. Your response was kind and you made no defense for a defective product. It sounds like that you understand George's aggravation, thanks for your side. I would have no problem purchasing from you or buying a Prima Luna Product. Tim
I just want to ask all manufacturers of good equipment to stop making anything in most of Asia. Japan and Taiwan might be exceptions. What I understand is that in some or many cases you have to use Asia made parts because unless you go custom no-one else makes them. Kevin, take a look inside Gryphon and Ypsilon. Take a listen too unless you already did.
Hi inna, you make alot of good comments over time.... Not sure that you are aware that Taiwan is a "Republic of China" Does Gryphon or Ypsilon make anything in the PL price ranges? I really don't know, but I've not seen anything close.
Taiwan is a "Republic of China" only from the point of view of communist/capitalist China. As for South Korea and Singapore, I don't know. This doesn't mean that I would be happy about equipment made in Congo or Venezuela, as examples. You got to have total control over the quality of what you make. Yes, it might cost a lot, but we are not talking about mass market stuff. No, both Gryphon and Ypsilon are much more expensive. I think, the least expensive Gryphon is Diablo120 integrated, $11k without phono stage and $13.2k with it. Ypsilon's integrated is $25k without phono.
By the way, just in general, calling to boycott all products from a certain country or region based on two samples is not really something I can support.
It's not the country so much as paying a fair wage and maintaining consistent quality controls that matters.
Anyone who thinks US products are naturally OK just because they are made in America has never worked in food quality. Quality doesn't just happen. It takes effort.
Yeah, my US made Diesel jeans are not particularly good, nor are Italy made Diesel, just about equal. However, Japan made vintage Dior are top level, you can't compare. Sure, three times more expensive. Let's just not talk about food, some of it is a real junk, American and not.
how things are made (I.,e design and quality) has nothing to do with where they are made. it has everything to do with who is designing them and the level of expertise and effort they are willing to invest into the effort.
@ timlub As a Prima Luna owner I chimed in because it is clear to me in my experience that PL products are superbly manufactured. I researched that QC before I made the jump from my Rogue. Just think it wasn't fair that some earlier posts labeled it as junk and to stay away, when I would highly recommend PL to anyone looking for the best sound possible where a 6-10k investment total in a sound system is a major investment.
As a relative newbie I followed this thread and found it interesting. Not only the customer service debate, but especially the engineering side. I really wanted to know if D.C. could come through like that. I believe we all have a lot more of the story and better idea of the technical issue.
"I bet you are not the original owner of those ML's and paid a mere fraction of the $30K you kept spouting about."
I guess, it must be in your nature, to make STUPID assumptions! I bought the speakers NEW, I am the ORIGINAL owner! That is why they were repaired by Martin Logan at no charge, Martin Logan warranties are Not transferable.
Too bad you are not mature enough to deal with the issue, trying to discredit me reflects very badly on your level of intelligence.
My problem is, that Mr. Deal, feels that he has no responsibility because the speakers were repaired under warranty and and I am not out of pocket.
This is all true, however, my level of frustration was through the roof! Martin Logan simply shipped me the parts, it took me the better part of TWO days, trying to locate the problem, and then, taking the speaker apart and replace the power board.
Also, this had to be done TWICE, since the PrimaLuna destroyed the newly newly installed power supply again, before we could track down the source of the problem!
Is a pair of tubes, proper compensation, for what happened here? I personally think, NOT BY A LONG SHOT, however, I leave it to the Audiogon community to pass judgement on this issue.
Also, Mr. Deal, you say that you replaced the capacitors in all your current stock, "just in case".
Mr. Deal, I ask you this, are you going to recall all the pre amps, THAT YOU HAVE ALREADY SOLD and are in customers systems?
Or, are you just going to lay low and hope that clients with blown speakers don't make the connection to your pre amps/amps.
Can we have an answer to this question, Mr Deal, the Audiogon community is waiting for an answer, what are you going to do?
If, you truly care about your customers and you are honourable, you will issue a recall of all product sold and is in customers hands to fix the capacitors.
This recall, should be prominently displayed on your website, advising customers to return their product for repair/modification.
THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO, this is the LEAST you can do!
Mr Deal, we are all anxious to hear your decision on how you intend to handle this.
My problem is, that Mr. Deal, feels that he has no responsibility because the speakers were repaired under warranty and and I am not out of pocket.
This is just a slam job. Why not mention the warranty in first post. What are you wanting....a national recall? More freebies? Just get over it. Your car manufacturer doesnt go to the extent Kevin did. Just be a grown up. There is something obviously else going on here you are not mentioning or you would not be so angry
To summarize: a couple caps blew in your gear (but apparently no one else's), Kevin took care of repairs, ML sent you the parts for your speakers (albeit they could have told you where they were located in the speakers and made replacing them easier), and Kevin offered you some nice freebie tubes for your aggravation.
I'm guessing most of us would call that a favorable outcome. So who needs the shrink?
"I bet you are not the original owner of those ML's and paid a mere fraction of the $30K you kept spouting about."
I guess, it must be in your nature, to make STUPID assumptions! I bought the speakers NEW, I am the ORIGINAL owner! That is why they were repaired by Martin Logan at no charge, Martin Logan warranties are Not transferable.
Too bad you are not mature enough to deal with the issue, trying to discredit me reflects very badly on your level of intelligence.
+1 Only Sonic has a magic formula to proper resource allocation. GMAB!
UpscaleAudio9-23-2017 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.
Kevin, thanks for providing us with the comprehensive additional background and info in your response.
An oscillation, albeit perhaps at a very low frequency, seems to me to be much more probable than the previous assertions that the preamp was outputting DC. Given what I said in my previous post about the Bryston amp likely having coupling capacitors at its inputs, and even more so if the Mundorf caps you are referring to are the preamp’s output coupling caps.
A post by Atmasphere some years ago in this thread, concerning a low frequency oscillation problem that occurred with a preamp made by a different well-regarded manufacturer, may be helpful to your tech. I’ll quote an excerpt that may be relevant. Again, this pertains to a different manufacturer’s preamp:
Atmasphere 8-3-2012 The problem is that there is a power supply instability in the preamp. The output coupling cap, when driving a 100K load, represented a frequency pole that was lower than the frequency pole in the preamp’s power supply.
The result is low frequency instability. With many amps this may not manifest with anything, especially if the amp does not have good LF bandwidth, but I think the interaction occurred due to the fact that you do have enough bandwidth in the amp and the power of the amplifier was able to mess with the AC line voltage, which in turn exacerbated the LF instability of the preamp.
So lowering the input impedance of the amplifier solved the problem by knocking off an octave of LF bandwidth.
In any event, even if that kind of phenomenon is not what has occurred in the present situation it serves to illustrate that no matter how expert and thorough the designer is there is always the possibility that relatively unique system applications can bring out a problem that wouldn’t appear in most other applications. And the uncommonly high power capability of the OP’s amp, together with its exceptionally extended low frequency bandwidth, and perhaps also the characteristics of his speakers, would seem to make his situation uncommon at best. As well as increasing the likelihood that the phenomenon Ralph (Atmasphere) described in the thread I referenced is applicable.
For all we know, in the absence of a schematic and a detailed analysis, **even if** the capacitor has failed in some other systems it might not have caused any issues, not even sonic issues.
Primaluna Prologue 5..beautifully built..zero issues..bought used..can recommend Primaluna 100%.I liked Mr Deals response...contacted the customer while on vacation in Eurpoe.That seems like he does care..maybe they can post a statement on site warning of possible issues?
Still, it's all better than when the fighter jets crash and we are not told the truth. At least 50% of cases its something like bad capacitor,sometimes Chinese. Yeah, let's move on.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
