PrimaLuna Prologue 5 and tube upgrades


Coming from the pro audio world and sitting most of my career in front of extremely flat loudspeakers in acoustically treated rooms, I'm a bit concerned that my brand new Prima Luna Prologue 5 tube amp is quite rolled off from 10k on upward.
I'm sure most would call this "warm" and the typical tube sound, but I would just call this in need of a pink noise generator and a eq adjustment. I am in love with the 3D dimensionality and the incredible soundstage from this amp, but am left craving the pings of cymbals and the air of vocals on playback.
So far, I've only just replaced the 12ax7's with some 70's phillips that I had around. It helped just a small bit with the extention of the highs. Should I chase this down with some great Telefunkens etc? or go back to a solid state amp? Yes, I'm calling Kevin from Upscale later today!
jmacinnis

Showing 5 responses by jmacinnis

Thanks gents.

Wescoman...your advice to speak with Andy at Vintage Tube Services was priceless and Brad, He pointed me to the Bugleboys like you have in your PL5. Also, very curious about your "supertweeters"?
Their website was truly interesting.
I ended up with Bugle Boy's NOS from mid 1960's from Vintage Tube services. It really did add a bit of 12k upwards back to my setup. Also, the imaging and soundstage seems a bit more interesting and enveloping now too.
so i broke out the audiotools and a DPA microphone through my apogee/mac interface. I pushed pink noise through the RTA and found that there is nearly nothing getting through over 18k. Tonight, I'm going to bring out my old yamaha amp and see if it the Prima Luna/Van Alstine combo or the speakers doing this to the signal. ugh.
So this is common eq'ing with tubes? I'm not sure I'm patient enough or rich enough?!
I've been reading about non-feedback topology amplification and it being prone to be frequency limitations if not matched with the absolute perfect speaker system. Truth to this? If so, where are these perfect speakers that will give me the sparkle back?