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.
So, a bit more of the story has been clarified. Given that the OP is NOT out money on the damage done to the ML, but had to spend a lot of time dealing with the problem, what does he expect from Kevin Deal? Does he expect Kevin to come to his place and rake leaves for the hours lost?
I can understand not being happy with the product. Even if it is a rare happenstance, if you are the unfortunate person, it is understandable that the brand is, for the victim of circumstances, anathema.
This sort of failure, whether it is caused by a bad lot of a certain part (this happens with the best of gear), or some kind of unexpected incompatibility, does not necessarily implicate the product as poorly designed or shoddily built.
It makes even less sense for someone to point to a single problem as evidence that products of a whole nation or region of the world should be avoided. When the Chinese build for a foreign company, the product is as well-built as is specified by the customer. The customer also specifies the parts used. The customer has some responsibility to oversee how their product is built. If the Chinese company does not live up to the bargain, it is the customer's responsibility to change manufacturer. Cheap build is what some buyers want, and what they get, but that is not the case with all Chinese gear. Note that China is FAR from being the lowest cost manufacturer these days; they compete because they can deliver what the buyer needs in many ways: ease of doing business, flexibility in making design changes, etc.
Im an old manufacturing plant manager. The location of the manufacturing is not an issue. Its the engineering, build -manufacturing expectations and quality enforcement that determines the final product. The US auto industry took a dive because they could not control those three areas. Under each of those three areas are hundreds of things that can cause a nose dive. The Japanese showed American labor can produce the best in the world. However, made in usa is not automatic high quality. Those old, outdated manufacturing cultures are still around us.
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.
Thorloki 9-24-2017 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?
Thorloki, as someone who has participated in this forum just about daily for the past nine years I have read and participated in countless threads involving users of PrimaLuna preamps and other components. Yours is the only instance I have ever seen in which a problem in a PrimaLuna component resulted in damage to another piece of equipment.
And if you have read my previous post in this thread, you will hopefully understand that the damage to your speakers may very well have resulted from a combination of circumstances that approaches being unique.
IMO your demands of Mr. Deal are uncalled for and unreasonable, and I for one am not a member of the community who is "waiting for an answer."
Disclaimer: I do not now nor have I ever had any affiliation, association, or interaction of any kind with Mr. Deal or PrimaLuna, not even as a user, and not even as a purchaser of the tubes he sells.
Unfortunately a Manufacturer will only reimburse you commensurate with the cost of their product. Replacement, shipping expenses etc.
You can’t expect a manufacturer to accept to take consequential damages.
The only way to resolve that is through court.
I think your testimonial is an important alert about the QC of PrimaLuna Dialogue, however, that you were not offered reimbursement for consequential damage to your speakers is quite reasonable.
Think about it
Amp cost $2500. Manufacturer made perhaps a margin after expenses of perhaps $300.
If he were to replace your speakers at $30,000 then he would need to sell 100 amps to make back his losses...
@almarg Al, I couldn't have said it better, I was just about to respond to thorloki when I read your last post. He simply signed into our community to try to destroy Kevin Deal and Prima Luna. He has a legitimate gripe, but he isn't dealing with the issue, he is simply trying to hurt those involved even those involved had no ill intent toward his negative situation and have taken steps to correct it. thorloki, you have lost credibility with me. Tim
"He has a legitimate gripe, but he isn't dealing with the issue, he is simply trying to hurt those involved even those involved had no ill intent toward his negative situation and have taken steps to correct it. thorloki, you have lost credibility with me. Tim"
Dear timlub,
I am not looking for my $30,000. speakers to be replaced, I am NOT looking for compensation for my time lost and aggravation.
I have never, during this whole episode, asked for ANY KIND of compensation from PrimaLuna.
I understand, what happened here, was not intentional, on the part of PrimaLuna.
However, PrimaLuna, as well as other manufacturers, need to understand that they bear some responsibility for CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES!!
Putting out defective pre amps that blow up speakers and then offering to REPAIR their DEFECTIVE product is NOT acceptable.
I would ask, that the posters who disagree with me, to consider, how they would feel, if this happened TO THEM??
I am asking for ONLY ONE THING, for PrimaLune to take care of it's customers.
I am asking that PrimaLuna, issue a recall of it's products, verify them, and repair/certify and return the products to the owners.
If, as Mr. Deal says, he changed the caps on his units in stock, why then, do the pre amps in customers homes, not deserve the same treatment?
If PrimaLuna, does this, then my faith is restored, and all is good.
IF NOT, then my suspicions are confirmed and PrimLuna does not give two bits about it's customers or the products it sells.
^ Expecting a company to recall thousands of units because a whopping two (2) preamps had an issue is about the nuttiest thing I've ever read on here...which is saying something!
This preamp has been in production for over four years, and we have never had this part fail EVER with hundreds of units sold.
It is built with better quality parts than any of its peers. This failure was most likely due to the system or something in the home. That's all there is to that. Two preamps running into Bryston amps and Martin Logan speakers owned by the same person in the same house. We have zero percent failures of this part all around the world, and he has 100%. Not only 100%...but the same channel. I look at facts.
I am very comfortable that there is no reason to change caps. But because we always have done the maximum to assure our products are perfect, I will check every unit here and replace themjust so people know we are on top of things. Caps are bought to order for any manufacturing run, and every cap is checked and measured before being used. Could it be a bad batch? No reason to think that. There are no other failures.
I know the quality that goes into a PrimaLuna. And so do customers. In a time where companies are trying to stay even with previous years, we have had double-digit increases every year. In fact over 30% in the fiscal year to date. Much of that is due to customers who bought PrimaLuna over a decade ago, they have not had problems, and they buy another.
I know how the Dutch are about products being perfect. Look inside and compare for yourself. Or better yet, see what people in the industry buy for their own use.
I am a Prima Luna distributor, so I read this thread with interest.
We have not had a single fault with a Prima Luna preamp in all the years we have sold the product. We have had just 1 faulty remote, and one blown fuse - that is it... 2 faults from hundreds of units.
I think some balance is required here. The OP claims that all units must be faulty because he had 2 faults in his system. He further extrapolates this to mean that all goods made in China must be suspect as well.
These are not logical assumptions to make. It is far more helpful to hear the experiences of many hundreds of users, so as to get a more statistically valid sampling, and then make a judgement as to product quality.
System variables can cause incompatibilities. Rare though it might be, this seems to have been the case here. I am sorry that the OP had this unfortunate experience. It does not reduce the confidence that I have in the brand which is based on my experiences with hundreds of end users and items.
" This failure was most likely due to the system or something in the home. That's all there is to that. "
Dear Mr. Deal, I wonder what, in my home, we can blame, for the failure of your pre amps.
Perhaps it was my beige coloured walls that upset your PrimaLuna's, could that be? I know, it was probably my green carpet that did it! No wait, I got it, it was those NASTY Martin Logan/Bryston components, that's what pissed off your PrimaLuna's!
OK, I have spoken my mind, I will let the Audiogon community draw their own conclusions from what has been written in this thread.
Mr. Kevin Deal, I am speaking to you personally. In conversing with you on the phone, several times, you can across as sincere.
Therefore, I am taking you at your word, that my TWO pre amps were FLUKES, and that YOU HAVE NOT HAD ANY OTHER failures, of a similar nature to mine.
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, as I do not believe you would deliberately mislead me, as well as other PrimaLuna owners.
And with that, I consider this issue closed.
Mr. Deal, I wish you well, and good fortune going forward.
George- Unfortunately, it's possible/probable that some of what you have dealt with is caused by living on the bleeding edge. Sometimes, extracting that last bit of performance comes at the expense of some reliability. One of my engineering colleagues once told me that there are three variables in every project: cost, quality/performance, and schedule. When you specify two of them, they dictate the third. Although I have absolutely zero technical knowledge of circuitry and electrical engineering, of all of the supposed experts that have commented so far, I find Almarg's analysis to be persuasive. And that leaves aside the circumstantial evidence that the same part failed in the same unusual way, twice in a row. That, to me, strongly suggests some kind of unusual interaction among the component parts of the system.
Anyways, the retailer, distributors, and manufacturers involved all stepped up. You've been made whole.
It's the very rare manufacturer of anything at all that provides warranty coverage for consequential damages.
In my recollection, virtually every warranty I've ever taken the time to read expressly rules out such coverage. You're out some time to replace some circuit boards. If a fuse blows, do you expect someone to compensate you for the time it takes to replace it? The other option, I imagine, was for you to pay for shipping the speaker back to ML. I think you lucked out by having a manufacturer willing to take a chance that you would be able to make that swap yourself without doing other damage, which based on all of the available evidence, you would have then blamed on ML.
"If, the pre amp, puts out DC, the amp will amplify it, and send out to the speakers, which is what happened in this case."
WOW, It blows me away to hear that multi thousand dollar amps do this. So no protection circuitry, built in? They degrade sound huh? I’m not so sure this is true.
This is why I buy MAC amplifiers, My McIntosh MC352 (which sounds awesome) would never let DC get to my speakers! This is just one of Six circuits that Mac puts into a lot of their amps.
" DC Failure protection. In the rare event of an output circuit failure, ANY DC current that appears in the output is shunted to ground by the autoformer, protecting the speakers from damage"
I hope the OP can move forward and still get some enjoyment from his system in the future.
Sorry for your problems George,but I feel Kevin went to bat for you...all things considered...
As a PL Dialogue pre owner for over two years now... all I can say is w-o-w...never a problem with it,quiet as a church mouse and for the money,its sound quality is off the charts.Its a fantastic product...period!
As for any naysayers to the quality of this preamp,in and out...check it out for yourselves. Just because this pre is not priced to the nines and is manufactured in China ( and designed in Holland) takes away nothing from it's deserved place in best pre for the money category. I have owned more expensive American made...but this pre just plain sounds better and is an outright bargain.
I am not looking for my $30,000. speakers to be replaced, I am NOT looking for compensation for my time lost and aggravation.
I have never, during this whole episode, asked for ANY KIND of compensation from PrimaLuna.
I understand, what happened here, was not intentional, on the part of PrimaLuna.
However, PrimaLuna, as well as other manufacturers, need to understand that they bear some responsibility for CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES!!
Surely I am not the only one who sees this blather as self-contradictory. OK Thorloki, what the hell are you asking for? A public flogging? A product recall? You are the most absurd self-sanctimonious weirdo I recall ever posting a beef on this Board, and that is really saying something. No matter who you slice it or dice it, your OP was calculated to be defamatory (not in the legal sense but the practical sense) and intended to extract some kind of revenge. You have accomplished nothing other than to provide entertainment to many of us. Stricter moderators would have and should have deleted your inflammatory post. You might as well have posted "Kevin Deal stole food from my childrens’ mouths!".
Putting out defective pre amps that blow up speakers and then offering to REPAIR their DEFECTIVE product is NOT acceptable.
I would ask, that the posters who disagree with me, to consider, how they would feel, if this happened TO THEM??
I am asking for ONLY ONE THING, for PrimaLune to take care of it’s customers.
More bizarre blather. What is it you want PL or KD to do for you? I would love to know what you do or did for a living because there is no way it involved logic and reason; perhaps a literature professor or circus performer? All of this drivel without one shred of proof that one other PL customer has ever suffered any remotely similar experience. Incredible. You are a universe of one, like the children’s story, "The Little Prince".
I am asking that PrimaLuna, issue a recall of it's products, verify them, and repair/certify and return the products to the owners.
If, as Mr. Deal says, he changed the caps on his units in stock, why then, do the pre amps in customers homes, not deserve the same treatment?
If PrimaLuna, does this, then my faith is restored, and all is good.
Here we go, you have finally indicated what you have picked out in your imaginary world of wishes. Sure, why not ask the Canadian treasury to recall every denomination of Canadian paper tender to check it for authenticity or perhaps Wrangler should recall every pair of jeans ever manufactured because one guy with a fat butt had his pants split at the derriere while bending over to ties his shoes.
Don't want to hijack the thread, but I have to agree. DC input protection should be de rigeur for most amps, especially one with such high current you could weld with it.
Also VERY surprised a professional grade amp would not include this.
By the way, my ICEPower amps include all sorts of protection circuits and sound great. :D
DC input protection should be de rigeur for most amps, especially one with such high current you could weld with it.
Hi Erik,
See my earlier posts in this thread. It appears more likely than not that the amp **does** have DC input protection, in the form of 68 uf capacitors in series with its inputs. However, the amp’s specified bandwidth extends down to "< 1 Hz," so there is apparently no protection against the effects of an oscillation it may receive at very low frequencies. And Mr. Deal indicated earlier that an oscillation is suspected.
I have just found back a letter from another user who reported that a failed capacitor in his PrimaLuna Dialogue preamplifier destroyed a Harbeth SHL5+ speaker. I knew I had it somewhere but it took me a while to retrieve it.
When TWO pre amps, bought 6 weeks apart, FAIL, IN EXACTLY the same way, this points to a much deeper problem.
I agree, but the question is what is the deeper problem?
This preamp has been around a while without any reason to think there was a reliability problem. Yet two failed in the same installation. From a purely logical viewpoint, this points to something in the installation that is playing a role.
I don't think its wall paper...
The amp is equipped with 68uf input couping caps. This will prevent the amp from conducting any DC applied to its inputs. But the problem is not that the amp failed- the **power supplies** in the speakers failed- and not the matching transformers of the speaker. So we know its not DC that did the damage.
Its my opinion that the extreme power of the amplifier, coupled with a slight low frequency instability in the preamp is actually what caused the damage. When the LF instability showed up, in my theory the AC line voltage sagged, which then exacerbated the problem in the preamp, causing the amp to make the line voltage sag more, until finally the speaker couldn't take it any more.
Change any of the several variables here and its likely that there would have been no problem. For example, the amp draws a bit of power so it probably should be on its own 20Amp circuit. If its on the same circuit as the preamp, I think many preamps could have gotten into this trouble.
If the preamp had AC line conditioning, the additional time constant of the presence of the conditioner might have prevented this as well.
I personally don't think that the preamp had a severe failure. I suspect that in most systems there would have been no adverse effects at all.
IOW we would know if if there were 20 or 30 of the same preamp having the same part fail in a wide number of systems. But we don't see that- the preamp seems to be holding up just fine. We just have this rather weired occurrence in this **one** system! That's a red flag that its something in the system.
So the bottom line here is I don't think Kevin Deal has to do anything further in regards to the other preamps in the field.
Oh dear. Another failure might begin to suggest a possible design fault.
This thread got me interested in the build quality and I have watched online videos showing how the inside is built. I would call it scary. Sorry but I don't much like the way it is built.
Hey man, thanks for your post and analysis, well written and well thought out. Perhaps you are right, perhaps this would not have happened in another system. However, manufacturers of preamps/amps should know that their equipment will be mated and matched, with other equipment, in every possible combination. If, primaLuna is not a good match for electrostatics, and problems can arise, then BUYERS SHOULD BE WARNED, prominently written, in the owners manual.
By the way, another post just mentioned that a Harbeth speaker was blown up, USING a PrimaLuna preamp!
I just don't know what to think, but it sure requires investigation/monitoring.
Willemj 9-25-2017 I have just found back a letter from another user who reported that a failed capacitor in his PrimaLuna Dialogue preamplifier destroyed a Harbeth SHL5+ speaker....
PrimaLuna talked this man into buying a PrimaLuna power amp as well. That is all I know.
If you are saying that the PrimaLuna amp and preamp were being used together when the problem occurred, I’m not sure how a medium powered tube amp whose output transformers are incapable of passing DC, or even passing frequencies of several Hz or more without attenuating them significantly, could have "destroyed" the speaker. At most I would think a tweeter might have been damaged as a result of severe clipping. Especially if the clipping were allowed to continue for a significant amount of time, for example if the system was running unattended.
In any event, it certainly sounds like a different situation than the OP’s, at least if the PL amp and preamp were being used together when the problem occurred.
Regards, -- Al
P.S: Ralph (Atmasphere), thanks! I of course agree with everything in your post, which refines and elaborates on some of the things I was getting at in my earlier posts.
The original amplifier used with the PrimaLuna pre amp was a
Pass XA-30.8. The PrimaLuna had a leaking capacitor that passed DC to the power amp, with sad results.
@shadorne Can you qualify the "scariness"? Maybe can advise what they’re doing wrong and how they can improve their process. BTW have you ever been in a plant like this, or to China?
Willemj, thank you for the clarification. But nevertheless that sounds like the preamp had a different problem than the OP's. As I and Atmasphere have said, and as Kevin Deal suggested (when he mentioned that an oscillation was suspected), DC does not appear to have been responsible for the OP's problem. And in contrast to the OP's amp, the XA30.8 has no capacitors in its signal path, and as far as I know may not provide any other means of DC protection.
would agree with many of other posters here. I have 4 of the PLs, one pre amp and 3 amps, two dialogue premium amps and one prologue 4 (not to mention many other tube amps). None of the PLs have their stock coupling caps or load resistors so can't speak from personal experience on the stock caps, but the build quality is first rate, just as PL's advertising states. Was quite impressed with the level of build quality in these units.
It is interesting to note that Solen/SCR caps are the OEM caps used in the Dialogue premiums. These caps are quite reliable, so pretty remote odds that two pre amps both had defective caps.
The amps and pre amp also respond well to tube rolling. I'd would add you have not heard the PLs until you have some copper foil coupling caps in them....they jump to another league....
Quote from Thorloki: '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.'
Quote from me about that other case:
'The PrimaLuna had a leaking capacitor that passed DC to the power amp'
I saw electrical ties used to anchor large caps and a lot of heavy parts soldered together on their legs rather than mounted neatly on boards and anchored with clips. I would think this build would be fragile and not easily to be entrusted to the hands of a typical chuck It around courier.
Willemj, the Thorloki statement quoted in your post just above was in his original post, of course. Subsequent posts by me and by Atmasphere, as well as a subsequent reference by Mr. Deal to his tech’s suspicion of an oscillation, all add up to it being a near certainty that the issue with Thorloki’s preamp had nothing to do with it outputting DC. In contrast to the other case that you have cited.
Doesn’t prove anything. Readers of this forum know you are often hasty to make unfounded comments, particularly in regard to Asian manufacturing. I’m guessing that the answers to my previous questions are "no", you’ve never been in a plant like this, particularly in Asia, where quality can be as high as it is in any Western country. And to pass judgement on how ship-worthy the product is, is just, well, asinine.
I am not interpreting, let alone judging (and certainly not judging about place of manufacture). I am only offering the information that this is another case of a nasty failure that on the face of it may have a similar origin. And even if the final cause is different, that does not change too much for the victims.
If, primaLuna is not a good match for electrostatics, and problems can
arise, then BUYERS SHOULD BE WARNED, prominently written, in the owners
manual.
Actually, there is nothing in my post that suggests that ESLs and the preamp are incompatible. As far as that goes, I'm not really saying that the amp and preamp are incompatible either.
What I am saying is that a host of issues led to this problem, and it might not even crop up if for example, your AC line to the power amp were a larger capacity, like 20 amps rather than the 15 amps you have now. I've seen things like this before with entirely different equipment; anytime you have such a high power amplifier you have to be careful!
A audio chain down here in South Florida called Sound Advice sells and demo's Martin Logan and Primaluna together all the time. I remember seeing filters on the speaker posts on the Primaluna amp. Maybe that was for the subwoofer? I suggested to thorloki to call them to see if they ever had issues.
That’s interesting, Aniwolfe. It reminds me of this thread from a couple of years ago in which a member reported that his PL Prologue integrated amp had a "motorboating" problem when playing at high volume levels with his Golden Ear Triton Two speakers. Like many Martin Logan speakers the Triton Two incorporates a powered woofer and has an impedance that rises to high values at low frequencies. Ultimately the issue was resolved by a suggestion I made of connecting appropriately chosen resistors to the amp's output terminals, so that the amp wouldn’t see such a high impedance at low frequencies. Perhaps the "filters" you saw were actually resistors?
That problem did not involve damage to anything, though, and did not involve a PL preamp. Although during the course of the thread a different member reported that his PL Dialogue Premium preamp had experienced a capacitor failure at one point, which in turn took out a resistor in the preamp, and resulted in what was described as a similar "motorboating" sound. The member reported that Kevin arranged for the preamp to be repaired locally and at no cost.
The original amplifier used with the PrimaLuna pre amp was a Pass XA-30.8. The PrimaLuna had a leaking capacitor that passed DC to the power amp, with sad results.
I have a Pass X250.8 and for a while was running my Berkeley DAC directly into it. I asked Pass Labs about this and they confirmed my amp is direct coupled and will pass any DC presented at the input to the speaker. I was also told their XP-10 preamp (which I also had at the time) was cap coupled and would eliminate any DC from reaching the amp. I ended up going with a preamp in my system...
For clarity, this is not a large coupling cap that failed in George's preamp. It's a high-frequency snubber, which is why the suspicion about outside causes. We've never had that failure ever, but to ensure there is no issue I am contacting every customer to see if it is a recurring theme. If there is an issue, it will be handled to perfection, and I've spent hours on the phone with customers who universally are ecstatic with their PrimaLuna's.
The engineer that designed this preamp is no rookie, and was Chief Engineer at Goldmund in Switzerland. He was responsible for designing some of their most iconic products. And that's why it rocks people's worlds. The amount of time and attention given to any problem...including this one... is equal to the engineering that has set PrimaLuna apart from other brands. That's why you see features and protection circuits in PrimaLuna that you don't see elsewhere. Hence our credo "Built to last a lifetime".
I'd also like to say that this thread has in fact resulted .. at least in part...to two more of these preamps being sold today alone. I'm convinced they will work perfectly...and if they don't I'm sure the buyers will report!
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