Primaluna & Klipsch Cornwall frustration HELP


Well this is a little frustrating. I have a Primaluna preamp and Primaluna Dialogue 5 power amp. Found a great deal on some Klipsch Cornwalls. Heard Klipsch and tubes were made for each other. Hooked them up and it had very little bass. I was expecting a BIG sound. Sounded almost anemic. Hooked them up to a class D audio amp through the Primaluna preamp and it was fantastic. Lots of slam. A great rock and roll sound. These are very efficient speakers so I don't get why they don't sound good through the tubes. 42 watts per channel at 8 ohms. Happened to talk to a Primaluna guy and he told me I needed a more powerful Primaluna amp. That has got to be BS. Do I have bad or weak tubes?? These are KT88's! Maybe they are going out. Who knows. Tried to call Kevin Deal at Upscale but he is out of town. I am not buying a bigger Primaluna amp. Kind of offended that I was even told that. Would the KT120's make a difference? Could it be something else wrong with the amp. Thanks for any help. By the way the amp sounds sweet with small monitors where I don't expect much bass. Thanks for any direction.
dylanfan

Showing 2 responses by newbee

Have you tried running them off the 4 ohm taps? What power tubes are you using? Both could have a great affect on the bass. You don't need more power and the Primaluna has plenty of bass output. As Brf indicated set up could be a major issue, if not the only one, and that is a good place to start.
To give you something to look forward to, with my speakers, the difference between using the 4 ohm and 8 ohm taps is substantial. In 4 ohm the bass is nice and tight - very present. In 8 ohm it is less transparent in the bass - but not necessarily boomy, just makes the sound a bit foggy. My speakers are nominally 8 ohm speakers.

And, in my Dialogue 2, I use Tong-sol 6550's which I find add some tonal richness in the upper bass/lower mid range when compared to other 6550's and KT88 (that I have on hand, anyway).

Out of curiosity are you using a Dialogue 3 pre-amp, or are you using its predecessor, the PL3. I ask because until I matched my old PL5 with the PL3 its bass was weak/thin (when using ARC and a Magus pre-amps.