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.  

brylandgoodman

Showing 2 responses by yakbob

@brylandgoodman ,

I have the Primaluna Evo 300 power amplifier in my main system ( Tannoy Legacy Arden speakers and MC2300 pre amp). It seems every reviewer and most owners opt for the PL integrateds. Perhaps due to ease of review or system simplicity. I just wanted to share from a power amp owner's perspective.

What the PL offers over most other tube designs is ease of ownership and tailoring of sound through tube swaps. As mentioned by others, the auto bias, and bad tube indicators make ownership a breeze. I had a stock EL34 go bad a few days after the amp arrived. Upscale Audio had a replacement at my door 2 days later. After trying the stock set, I swapped in 7581As, KT-88s, and KT-150s. The 7581A were rich but a little dull in my system, and I settled on both the KT-88 and KT-150 as favorites.

I did however have two KT-150 go bad (working but noisy) in short order, in both cases i simply replaced the bad ones instead of dropping $450 on another quad. 

I've owned SS amps from other brands that retailed for more including Pass and Jeff Rowland, and honestly feel the PL is every bit their equal in sound quality. I've yet to own anything close to the build quality of that Rowland amp...I now regret selling.

Best of luck with your decision.

 

 

The Opera Consonance Cyber100-20 running 4 KT-88s is a closer comparable to something like the Evo 200i. To be fair, it's about a grand less expensive not factoring in shipping ($200 on the low side-and $400 Covid rates).

https://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio-visual/hi-fi-and-audio/amplifiers/consonance-cyber-100-signature-945386/review