@aberyclark absolutely, that’s how I use it. It’s better for the looks and for heat dissipation! I listen in the dark, and I enjoy tremendously the warm glow of the tubes. I have the black and I love the looks :-)
Primaluna?
I’m thinking about giving a full tube setup a go and Primaluna in particular. Looking to hear people’s experiences with Primaluna in general. My main draw to them outside of tubes is there auto bias and protective features. Wondering if people generally replace a single bad tube or if people are replacing all tubes of that type when there’s a failure. Also would be interested if there were any other companies with at least a similar protective feature. The auto bias sounds great but the protective features are a bigger deal to me.
Showing 6 responses by arthur1260
I have an Evo400i, I immediately replaced the stock tubes with NOS Philips EL34. I got a matched set of 2x4 for around $1200. After a few weeks one tube blew. I got worried so I took the bottom of the amp off and measured the voltages for each tube, all good. I also admired the wiring. I got another NOS EL34, replaced only the bad one, works amazingly. Then another tube blew, so I got again only one replacement. The good thing with auto bias is that you can do this plug and play, and it works perfectly. Imagine replacing a whole set of 8xNOS tubes every time on blows. These tubes have been manufactured in the 70’s, it’s quite usual to have some blow. And while waiting for the replacement NOS I plugged back the original PL tube, worked perfectly… It’s been running on average 4 hours/day since almost 1 year, I can highly recommend it. Sound quality is awesome, but it depends a lot on your sources, speakers materials and cables. |
@upscaleaudio Kevin, you convinced me when I bought the PL, now I was looking into changing to Decware SET, and you’re convincing me to stay! It’s hard in this hobby to stick to something that works, when you keep reading about other stuff, that you think might sound better, though you don’t know what others base their reviews on. What I know for sure is that the evo400i is hassle free and gives me pleasure whenever I turn it on, and it worked perfectly with all speakers I tried: Joseph Audio, Piega, Tannoy, Klipsch, Dynaudio. And it also runs my Heddphones:-)
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@nquery what do you mean, which one sounds better? |
@brylandgoodman those are all fair points! It’s unfortunately quite human to assume people around you know and understand topics on a similar level. When you’re good at something it comes easy and natural and it’s hard to realize that others might not be on the same level. This can create conflicts in communication and can come off as arrogant or patronizing. It’s up to both parties of the communication channel to understand this and negotiate the right protocol. on the PL site you can read this statement: “Output transformers are the most important part of any tube amp. They determine how low the bass will reach and how high the top end goes.” Of course this sounds like a marketing catch phrase, but it’s actually true. Here you can get deeper as to why this is.
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@brylandgoodman if you’ve exhausted speaker positioning and still can’t get the bass you desire, you could try adding 2x subwoofers in the two opposite corners of the rooms, this can work magic according to people who use this setup. I had a lot of issues with low frequencies and it wasn’t the amp, rather the speaker and room interaction. My first breakthrough came when I changed the room layout so the speakers would fire down the long walls. Then I tried several speakers, like Tannoy Cheviot, Klipsch forte IV, Piega coax, ended up buying a pair of Klipsch Heresy IV. The bass was very nice with the Klipsch, and the overall music listening, but now I’m back to the Joseph Audio Pulsar 2. They just have much more detail and a 3d soundstage. Overall amazing, but at times still slightly untamed bass. So when my means allows it will add 2x svs subs :-) |